"…Then, poor me, found myself at the centre of a group of terribly drunken thugs, cursing threats fit for the devil! I could have sworn my life flashed quickly before me, as the peril was dawning so very rapidly…! But then – a miracle came from the dark deep forest behind me! At first all anyone could glimpse was a white flash but then SHE landed by my side, at the same time slamming a few of those thugs nearest unconscious. After a hasty – but wonderful - reassuring smile from this miraculous white-clad redhead, she quickly and with hardly any effort made all thugs slip into oblivion with some advanced taijutsu, and helped grateful little me arrive safely back to my dearest little cottage!" Damon finished describing the evening's previous events, adding his own dramatic flare to every single detail as usual.
The white-clad redheaded miracle in question was sitting by the blazing fire outside Damon's shabby little cottage and had turned nearly as bright red as her hair when Damon had just started to mention her.
"My point is, my dearest Akemi. Is that I am in debt for your amazing performance," Damon said looking admiring at Akemi from across the fire. He then turned to the man next to him. "And, Haate! I know we have hardly any contact because of your constant travelling – which I still think is totally insane – but we have some, especially as you are staying under my roof for some days now. So I am very shocked that you haven't even mentioned how powerful your daughter has grown!"
Haate smiled and replied simply to Damon, "I wanted to surprise you with an impressive example." Haate winked at Akemi. Akemi smiled back.
That evening Haate had gone to attend to something, leaving Akemi with one order – look out for Damon. Damon was an older man that always found himself in trouble, especially when doing his daily visit to the local bar. Damon lived in the outskirts of the small village with his demanding wife. Long ago Haate had befriended the vivid elder after helping him out in one of Damon's frequent tricky situations. As a repayment, always when Haate passed by the village when going from one land to another, Damon gave him shelter.
Akemi's and Haate's own home was out on the numerous roads existing in this world. Father and daughter only had had a stationary home when Akemi had been very little. That had been in Konoha, and now they were returning after not even one visit since their first departure from their original home town.
"I think we should retire in order to gather our strength for tomorrow's travels," Haate suddenly announced. Akemi stood up and made way with her father to their current sleeping quarters, both ignoring Damon's protests.
As Akemi suspected, she couldn't sleep. Curiosity was building great excitement in her for tomorrows return to Konoha. Not even something dead could sleep with that boiling inside of them.
Akemi felt her heart quicken at the sight of the grand entrance of the famous Konoha. As usual when entering towns, Haate and Akemi drifted through the entrance with ease, but Akemi noted that when the two had passed, the guard quickly dashed away. Akemi pushed that aside by fixing the position of her straw hat. Besides Akemi's attention was now drawn to the everyday life of the village.
When they entered the main street to look for accommodation of some sort, Haate whispered, "Keep alert."
Akemi immediately straightened out. Confusion invaded her thoughts. Always when Haate whispered those two words he suspected trouble, but how could trouble emerge in this crowded and pleasant village?
After a while of walking through the busy market full of pleasant shouts and screams Akemi felt a presence following her. She trudged on harder now. The presence followed. Akemi sensed it being alarmingly near her. Just when panic started to cloud her mind, Haate swooped Akemi into a small inn.
"Good day!" greeted the receptionist cheerily to them when they entered. Not Haate or Akemi answered.
A creak penetrated the weird silence created, along with the stalking presence from outside. Panic clouded Akemi's mind, blinding her sense from her next action: as quick as a flash Akemi spun round, her leg swung up for action, hitting the presence's hip with such force it fell to the floor.
Akemi looked down suspiciously at the stalker. It was a man dressed in a green jumpsuit accompanied with a traditional ninja vest.
Haate gave a short glance of disappointment at Akemi before questioned the green clad man, "What do you want?"
The guy jumped up onto his feet and was just about to answer when three other shinobi came in.
A black haired smoking shinobi in the group started to speak, "Could you two please remove your hats." Haate simply took off the straw hat, making Akemi follow his lead.
"What is your name?" the green dressed guy that had been knocked to the floor asked suddenly after the group of shinobis had studied Akemi's and Haate's face features.
Haate raised an eyebrow with a frown on his face. "I'm Haate and this is my daughter Akemi," Haate replied dryly. A silence followed.
"Both of you are shinobi, right? It seems like both of you are covering up your forehead protectors with your hair. Reveal them if you please," the woman ninja with messy black hair and red eyes ordered. Akemi froze when hearing this order. Could she really consider herself as a shinobi? She could do techniques of all sorts, and had a forehead protector with a leaf symbol that she had earned from Konoha's academy long ago…but Haate and Akemi had left the village before they could even sort her into a genin team.
Haate reluctantly dragged up his blonde fringe to reveal the leaf symbol. Again Akemi complied. Shock seemed to stir among the four present ninjas as they saw the same symbol as they too wore.
"I'm sorry for your time. We mistook you two for someone else with those hats," replied the green dressed ninja.
Haate frowned harder. "With this treatment you probably considered us as criminals." Akemi noted with astonishment that her father was getting angry. "The sneaking around tells me you thought of us as dangerous. All of this because of straw hats tells me you are fools. Straw hats belong to the uniform of Akatsuki. Akatsuki members also have black cloaks, do you not recall?! We are wearing no black cloaks, you fools!"
The four ninja's mouths dropped open. The shinobi with silver hair and a mask covering most of his face then spoke for the first time. "How do you know about Akatsuki?"
"On our travels we bumped into two members," Haate explained with a faint tone of anger in his voice. Akemi quickly thought through what Haate had said and soon enough a picture of two black cloaked men appeared in her mind. That day had been the worst in her life. The two men were extremely bloodthirsty when they had battled with Haate and Akemi. The worst part was that Akemi and Haate were bullied into it, with no other resort… Akemi and Haate had just managed to escape from a brutal death. The memories still gave Akemi goose bumps.
"Who?" asked the green dressed guy.
"Deidara and Tobi," Haate replied hastily. An awkward silence followed.
"Excuse us for our mistake," the woman shinobi suddenly said, and the rest of the ninjas retreated with her outside. Haate and Akemi turned around to see the receptionist peering out from behind the desk looking petrified. Haate went up to the desk and rang the bell making the receptionist shake of fear even more.
"We would like to have a room for two for some days," Haate said casually to the frightened receptionist.
As usual Haate left Akemi alone for the day to attend to some things. As usual Akemi didn't know what it he attend to, but didn't mind. She could now explore the city in peace.
For the whole morning Akemi had just wandered aimlessly around Konoha. The village had enchanted her with a powerful spell, making her forget about her groaning stomach for quite a while. When realising she jumped into the nearest ramen stall. Just when her order had been placed courteously in front of her, two more guests came into the stall. Akemi regarded the two, and her eyes widened in surprise. It was a loud blonde genin in orange that had entered along with the silver haired shinobi that Akemi had met that same morning.
The silver haired shinobi sat next to Akemi, and smiled at her. "I'm Hatake Kakashi. I'm sorry about the inconvinence of the mistake my friend Gai made," Kakashi offered his hand, Akemi ignored it.
"Gai? The green jumpsuit guy?" Akemi asked skeptically. "You must be very confident with yourself to admit you are friends with him. He was very easy to knock down." Akemi turned to regard Kakashi, noting the blonde genin next to him waiting impatiently for his meal. Akemi smiled to herself. People here were very open it seemed.
"I wanted to ask you some questions if that's ok?" Kakashi continued oblivious to Akemi's interuption. "First of all, if you're a leaf shinobi how come I've never heard of you do any missions?"
Akemi froze. The worst question of all time had to come up when her quick minded father was not present. Akemi tried to act it cool by starting on her meal.
"We travel a lot," Akemi replied simply. She felt Kakashi's hard eyes on her.
"Hmm…," Kakashi murmured. "That taijutsu that you used against Gai seemed very advanced. According to the records we have here you are only a genin…"
Akemi's short temper started to boil. That fact bothered her every day, too much for her liking, and now when someone had pointed it out, it bothered her even more.
Haate had pushed Akemi hard to become a strong shinobi during their constant travels, but because of their withdrawral from Konoha, Akemi remained a genin. Haate had even forced her to always wear whiteto become powerful. When she had asked why, he had replied that she could test her capability of fighting when dressed in white.
"If you fight in white but still don't get your clothing dirty, you know you are a good ninja," Haate had explained. At first Akemi had tried to wriggle out of Haate's weird testing way, because of the great contrast between Akemi's natural bright red hair and the white clothing. Though Akemi had learned to love to walk around in constant pure white clothing, no matter the scenario.
"We travel a lot," Akemi repeated to Kakashi. Seeing his disbelieving look, Akemi added, "I don't have time to bother with titles."
"Really? Then why did you bother becoming a shinobi in the first place?" The irony of Kakashi's words coming out of such an innocent looking smile on his face was overwhelming. "I'd like to test you if that is ok? It would be as interesting for you as it would be for me… After all you graduated from Konoha's academy with top grades at only seven years old…"
"You did?!" exclaimed the blonde genin next to Kakashi. "Wow! You must be very strong! How old are you?"
Akemi eyed out the genin suspiciously. Kakashi smiled wider, then exclaiming, "How rude of me to forget to introduce you to my student Naruto!"
Akemi glanced at Naruto before replying to him, "I'm seventeen." Akemi quickly finished her bowl of ramen and stood up. "I'm afraid, Kakashi, I don't have the time for you to test me, but thank you for the offer. Naruto, Kakashi, nice to meet you." With that Akemi left the ramen stall with a deep sigh, but eyes full of curiosity…