Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters… etc, etc. If I did, then the Akatsuki would be more of a big player in the story!
For those of you who don't know, Aoi means "blue" roughly translated in to Japanese. Forgive me if you think the "mysterious member" is a guy!
Azu's Akatsuki Tale, Chapter 13: Aoi
The punch came so fast that I couldn't even block it. It sent me reeling against the wall, and for a second I could only see blackness. The side of my head was sticky with blood.
"What was that for…?" I hissed at Sasori.
It was 2:00 in the afternoon after I'd gotten Sasori's little task done. He'd been off all day on whatever uber-important fight he'd seemed so serious about. I'd met him in the entrance hall, and now this out of the blue…
"You…. idiot," he seethed. "Do you have any idea what you did?"
Truthfully, no. But now probably wasn't the moment to say it. I just stared at him, waiting for him to enlighten me.
It's then when I got a good look at him. God, I'd never seen a hair on his head out of place before. Now… he looked totally screwed up. One of his elbows seemed to be pointing in a completely impossible direction, and he was literally creaking when he walked. There was blood caking the side of his head, mirroring my own.
He calmed down slightly, giving me the familiar I'm-shooting-imaginary-daggers-in-your-head-right-now look. "Leader-sama wished to see how strong we were against each other. It was my turn to fight…"
Oh god.
"Itachi…?" I asked in mortal dread.
I had this horrible flashback of Itachi calmly accepting my plea to him. Of course. I played straight in to his hands without realizing it…God, I was such an idiot. Out of all the people, I had to ask him. Today. On this occasion.
Whoever's in charge of luck in this world sure hates Azumis. Or maybe just this Azumi in particular.
Sasori hissed, "Maybe this is a good thing for you and me… you would finally be out of my hair." He walked slowly towards me, and I tensed.
He stopped next to me. Forming an extremely long string of seals, he tapped me on the shoulder.
In a moment I was whirling through a blizzard of color and sound. Not quite getting what was going on, I held on to the stone floor beneath my feet. It was so… dizzying, really, and my head was still throbbing.
I must have blacked out for a moment. When I felt the carpet beneath my hands, I knew I was no longer inside the Akatsuki headquarters.
In fact, where was I? Heaving myself off the floor, I realized I was lying in an enormous library. Rows on rows of shelves stretched out in infinite directions, bookshelves stretching what seemed like hundreds of feet above my head. Clumsily, holding my aching head, I climbed up one of the rolling ladders attached to the shelves.
These things were literally at least fifty feet tall. This place seemed so familiar for some reason… but I was absolutely sure I'd never been here before. I scoured my brain, thinking of how I might know this enormous library.
At last, I was standing on top of the bookshelf. It was truly enormous. It was a labyrinth of information, complete with little reading couches, small round tables, and beautiful stained-glass lamps. Why had Sasori sent me here, wherever "here" was?
I could see, far off, a clear area with no books. Having no plan whatsoever to do anything, I headed off to see what it was. I still couldn't place this library… but I had definitely been here before or something!
Hopping on top of the shelves, I steadily approached the clear area. Arriving there, I saw it was the wall of the library, an area with an enormous overhead lamp of absolutely beautiful and intricate design. There was a dark-green curtain drawn over a large section of the wall. Presumably a window. But what attracted my attention most was large volume sitting in the middle of the floor. It was just sitting there, in the direct center of the reading area, opened to the middle of the book.
I jumped down cautiously, the jolt of landing hurting my head like hell. Creeping closer to the book, I sensed no traps of any kind. Standing over the book, I realized it seemed to be blank. And I could just see some kind of a design shining through on the next page… Curiosity killed the cat, true, but I wasn't a feline of any kind, so I think I was safe. I turned the page, quickly, lightly, and saw a complicated swirl design covering an entire two pages…
But that was before the book exploded.
It shot out foot long metal needles in all directions, in an almost compact ball. I managed to quickly form an earth jutsu and slide away under the library floor. I carefully, carefully poked my head back out after several minutes.
I almost died of a heart attack. There was a pair of feet right in front of my eyes.
Not being able to resist a tiny shriek, the feet immediately turned and I was rudely thrown out of the ground. The… um, person, I suppose, nailed me to the wall by my throat. I was quickly losing breath, and the arm of the person in question seemed impossible to throw off. "Get… OFF…." I choked out, struggling for my life's worth. Lacking another plan, I bit down hard on the hand.
The next moment, a blow to my stomach came that was so hard that I thought my ribs had cracked open for a moment. I could breathe now, but doing so involved moving my lungs, which moved my rib cage, which felt like it was being burnt by Itachi's Amaterasu. The floor moved up to my meet my body in an instant.
The next moment, an amused voice said, "Azumi has been trained well by the puppet master. Azumi is a good fighter." Then came a low, melodious laugh. "But Azu needs to remember not to wander in an unfamiliar place."
"Who are you?" I gasped.
"Azumi may know me as Aoi. A member of Azumi's organization, yes?" A pause. "Aoi is a healer, like Zetsu-san, and a user of genjutsu, like Aoi's kawaii subordinate, Itachi-kun."
I almost laughed at the fact that- the speaker's voice implied that it was a she- she had called Itachi "cute." And her use of honorifics confused me. –San for Zetsu, yes… but –kun meant endearment towards a younger man.
And then I did laugh, though in a choking-and-spitting kind of way. Relationships were forbidden in the Akatsuki, and Itachi has much respect for rules, but could there be a possible liaison between the two of them?
As if reading my mind, Aoi said, "Itachi-kun has the greatest potential for genjutsu. Itachi-kun has the ultimate respect for Aoi, and the relationship is of subordinate and master, but also of friends… but nothing more." Her voice became less wintry as she said, "Now allow Aoi to apologize for attacking you, but the weak are not allowed in here. Aoi had to test you…" She bent down, and placed a hand on my stomach.
I almost screamed. The pain was white-hot, blazing, and I tried frantically to get away from the contact, but she was strong enough to hold me down.
"Do not fight. Aoi will take care of your hand as well…" And in an instant, the pain was gone.
I cautiously sat up, looking at my attacker and healer.
She was beautiful. She had long, silky blue hair of a pure, deep shade spilling down her back to her waist, and her skin was so pale that it looked like snow. She was very tall, probably around six feet. Her hands were delicate, faint blue-purple veins traveling down the backs of them. She had extensively long legs, and she wore an ice-blue kimono that set off her skin and hair well. My first thought was: A goddess.
But every time I tried to examine her face, I found that the image fuzzed and wavered in front of my eyes. All I could make out was that her eyes were so light they were almost white. Actually, they were ice-blue, or the color commonly called sapphire blue.
She was walking slowly away, and I hurried to follow her, my body feeling perfectly fine now. We soon reached a door that I swear was not there when I passed that place earlier. She opened it with a light push, and the first thing I saw was…
Snow.
It swirled and whirled around us, a beautiful light snow the shade of her eyes. The sky was strangely a bright blue with no sun, and the clouds were colored a pure dark blue. Trees stood, with beautiful pure blue cherry blossoms falling off of them, the petals joining the snow in the air.
But it was April. How was that possible?
Again, Aoi seemed to read my min. She sighed softly. "Aoi lives in her own world, with visitors seldom coming… Aoi is lucky to have Itachi-kun as a companion." She swept her arm out in a grand gesture, her five foot long kimono sleeves sweeping in the wind. "Behold Aoi's world: Completely hosted by genjutsu. If Azu chances to wander too far off, Azu will be lost in a never-ending blizzard. This parallel reality is ill fate to any explorer but Aoi herself…even Leader-san and Itachi-kun have been lost in Aoi's eternal snowfall before."
The snow melted on contact with the skin, cool or cold but never wet. And though we were walking on snowy ground, the amount of snow never changed. This was truly a world created by genjutsu.
She turned to face me. "Azumi has a long journey ahead of her. Her official training days end now." She smiled, faintly, and I wondered how I knew, for I couldn't see her face. "Leader-san has requested a mission of you." She handed me a card.
A blonde-haired ninja smiled up at me, his blue eyes beaming me. It was like staring Deidara in the face. This guy looked like an idiot, I thought. I read the name…
Naruto Uzumaki, hm…?
"He is the Kyuubi child. Find all the information you can about him."
"But when do I come back…?" I asked her faintly. Inside, I was worried. This was entirely too sudden…they were just dumping me on my own!
Again, I could hear the smile in her voice. "Azu need not worry about time… a dawn will come for you eventually."
Her voice blended in to the shushing sound of snow falling on snow, and cherry blossoms raining down as the great library building and the ground flew away from me. And I could barely hear her voice whispering, "Good luck, Azu…"
The last thing I remembered thinking was that the library had smelled…exactly... like Itachi's room.
And then everything was a peaceful darkness.