University of Konoha (Modern Naruto Various)

Chapter 22

"There's an Octoberfest coming up this weekend. We've been talking about going and Deidara and Hidan have been insistent that you go with us. Would you be interested?" Pain watched my face as he waited for a response.

"Octoberfest huh? What kind of stuff will they have?"

"There's a lot of things. Beer tasting, pumpkin chunking, art displays, live music, etc. I think you'll have a lot of fun," Konan smiled warmly.

"Kakuzu and I are competing in the damn pumpkin chunking!" Hidan exclaimed.

"What? How did you guys manage to work together to do that?"

I honestly couldn't imagine how Hidan and Kakuzu would be able to make a functional trebuchet between the two of them. "Well they had some help from the rest of us. Those two idiots wouldn't manage on their own otherwise hmm."

"You weren't exactly helpful Barbie. Half the damn time you wanted to fill the pumpkins with explosives."

"Let's just say it was a bit of an uphill battle," Pain murmured to me. I chuckled. That was an understatement.

*Time Skip*

Konan, Pain, Sasori, Deidara, and I walked through the entrance for the Octoberfest. Konan turned to me. "Pumpkin chunking doesn't start for another couple of hours. Until then, I think we should do some looking around."

"You and Pain should go do something together. Deidara, Sasori, and I can go look at art."

Konan looked uncertain. "You sure?"

"Yeah, you and Pain go have fun."

She smiled and gave me a hug. "Alright, we'll see you later." She turned to Deidara and Sasori. "You boys better behave. If I hear that you caused any sort of trouble, you're going to have to deal with me." I bit my lip to restrain my laughter. Konan could be such a motherly figure sometimes.

"You're no fun," Deidara whined. She looked like she was about to say something when Pain grabbed her hand and tugged.

"They'll be fine Konan. Asami can handle them. Let's go do our own thing."

She let Pain pull her away and they walked off hand in hand. Those two are so cute together. I turned back to the other two. "Alright, let's go."

We were walking through the tents with different artists displaying their work. Sasori and Deidara kept arguing about what was considered good artwork so I tuned them out. I had moved on to the next tent as they were working their way through the previous one. Wow, these are beautiful. The tent was filled with different paintings and hand sketches. Some contained scenery of different places or things, others were abstract. One particular painting caught my eye. It was a girl in a summer dress, standing on the edge of a cliff. She looked out at the ocean and had her face tipped upwards towards the sky. Her long dark hair and dress flew out behind her in the imagined wind. Waves were crashing along the cliff as she stood there almost defiantly. It was an amazing painting. The girl was strangely familiar though. "That's my most popular piece." I turned to the sound of the voice to see Sai standing just behind me.

"I didn't know you were displaying your art here Sai."

"I find festivals to be interesting places. It's a good place to expericience the variety of human emotion and expression."

I pointed to the painting. "Who's that girl in the picture?"

"Can't you tell? It's you."

I turned back to the picture in surprise. The words that came to my mind when I looked at her was strong, daring, beautiful, and brave. Not at all how I imagined myself to be.