Chapter 36 : Am angel's dilemma (3)

Konan woke up the next morning the same way she had last time, the only difference was the absolutely heavenly aroma that seemed to penetrate her nose. She moved around a bit and frowned when she realized she was much warmer than she had been last night, lifting her head she saw that she had been moved into a sleeping bag.

"Good morning!"

Hearing the voice Konan took her attention off of her situation she turned to look at Naruto who was currently over an open fire and had a pan in his hand. "Breakfast will be in just a minute," Konan blinked as she saw the blond flip something into the air and catch it back in the pan. A little while later he came up to her and sat down a plate piled with what looked like bread of some kind. Naruto unzipped the sleeping back before picking Konan up, much to her protest and propping her up against the wall, "Do you want any butter on these?"

Konan blinked again as she fought to maintain a neutral expression, "what are they?"

Naruto tilted his head to the side in a quizzical fashion before shrugging and decided to explain, "It's called French toast. Apparently they are a foreign food of some kind, though I have no idea where they come from. So butter?" he asked again, Konan merely shrugged causing Naruto to sigh, "I suppose we'll just try both ways then."

Cutting a piece of French toast off and sticking it with a fork Naruto brought it to Konan's mouth, said woman only hesitated for a second before taking it. Like last time the food was easily the best she had ever tried, and did not hesitate the next time he brought the fork to her mouth. As Naruto continued feeding her Konan tried to figure the blond out, she had no clue why he was being so nice to her, even going so far as to give her food and placing her in a spare sleeping bag so she would not get cold during the night. Nor had he touched her inappropriately in anyway, if he had she would have noticed since there were always ways to tell when someone had done something to her such as her clothing being ruffled or even removed entirely. Unfortunately she could not come up with any explanation that may shed some light on the blond man's strange behavior, it was most vexing to say the least.

"Aren't you going to eat?" Konan asked after she finished swallowing a bite of food since while she did not care about the man, she had yet to see him have any food and she had to wonder if he had possibly poisoned the food though she could not think of a reason why he would.

Naruto let out a small chuckle, "I already ate this morning before you woke up, but thank you for the concern."

Konan let out a 'humph' but continued to eat. When she finished Naruto went about cleaning the dishes and getting rid of any evidence of him being there, looking back over at Konan he sighed. Moving back to her he sat down as Konan watched him, for awhile neither spoke as the two tried to come up with an answer to their thoughts, though both were thinking completely different things.

"Why do you do it?" Naruto finally asked as he figured beating around the bush would not help anything, nor get him the answers he sought.

"Why do I do what" Konan replied as she answered his question with another question.

"Why do you follow Nagato?" Naruto asked, "I mean I know he's your friend and all but really the guy's obviously gone mad."

Konan snarled as she tried to lunge at him only to fall on her face, "Don't you dare speak of him that way! You know nothing about him, or the pain he's been through! Someone like you could never understand!"

"Someone like me huh?" Naruto asked with sarcasm, "well that's good because frankly I wouldn't want to understand some megalomaniac with the desire and ability to kill people without remorse all for the sake of power!"

Konan began struggling more as this man insulted her one reason left for living, "shut up! You know nothing! He's doing this to create peace!"

"Peace!" Naruto questioned as his incredulous tone turned into anger as her comment got the better of him, "How can trying to capture the Bijuu ever create peace! How could gaining that kind of power bring us peace! You think that by killing off the few people who truly understand what it means to suffer that Pain will bring peace! You are either a fool or very naive if you could even think holding such power would bring any kind of peace except the peace of the grave!"

"You're wrong!" Konan huffed as she stopped struggling having exhausted herself, "he is going to bring true peace!"

"Oh?" Naruto questioned his tone changing from angry to curious, "and what has your leader done to help bring about this 'peace'?" Naruto asked.

For a moment Konan was stumped, what had Pain done to help bring peace? For a moment her mind shut down as she tried and failed to find something, however she quickly shook it off as the blond trying to get her to question her beliefs and faith in her friend. "He defeated Hanzo and freed Amegakure," she stated with conviction.

"I see," Naruto said as he nodded his head, "and what else as he done? Surely a man who would be so honorable as to free a village would have done something else," he looked over at Konan who had gone silent. "What has he done to help your people?" Naruto asked, "what about all the war orphan's who became homeless due to your friends rebellion? Did he try to help them? Or perhaps he helped to rebuild Ame and the homes that were destroyed?" when Konan didn't answer Naruto nodded, "I'll tell you what he did, it was nothing! Your leader did nothing to help Ame's people! Instead he spends his days trying to gain power! He tries to find ways to capture the Jinchurikki and kill them for his own misguided goals, while his own people suffer!"

"You're wrong!" Konan stated in a strained voice and shook her head as she refused to believe what Naruto was telling her, there was no way what he said was true. Pain was trying to bring peace to the world, right?

Naruto seeing the young woman in obvious denial walked over to her and hauled her to her feet, lifting her up he carried her over his shoulder.

"What are you doing! Put me down now!" Konan yelled as she was unable to do anything else.

"No can do," Naruto said as the woman started to struggle. He created a Kage Bushin that stuck a silencing seal over her mouth, "there is something you need to see. Now then please do me a favor and shut up."