A/N

I'm here with another Naruto fic. This time, it isn't AU. Please keep in mind these things:

1. Orochimaru is dead.

2. Sasuke never received the cursed mark.

Just so you guys know and stuff. Enjoy reading this.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Or Akatsuki. If I did, the title would be, 'Akatsuki'. Plain obvious as day.

"New Light"

"New Recruit"

A blonde Iwa-nin had been hopping from branch to branch. He looked a bit frantic, along with the sudden face of anxiousness. He stopped as he felt the branch beneath his feet crack. Shaking his head venomously to get the stray locks of neatly tied hair he fell down gracelessly on the ground. But like a true ninja, he landed on his feet. Even to the point where he was hanging on a tree branch for proper landing.

He panted slightly and gave out a huff as he whipped his head around. How long have he been running? He didn't know where or which country he was right now. But why, why was this blonde ninja running?

"—Being a missing nin is probably the smartest thing I've done, yeah." The blonde breathed in. "…Or stupidest." He murmured to himself, leaning on a tree before sulkily slipping and now, gracefully taking a seat on the ground.

He ran a hand through his hair and grinned slightly. He had thought of one perk of being a missing nin. Freedom. Second perk. No shinobi rules to stand by. The second, even though not wanted, was probably needed by all the shinobi's. But still, whoever made those rules should do the world a favor and kill himself – blow himself up. Deidara snickered at this, thinking that the man might be dead already. Too bad he couldn't catch up with him. He'd love to blow the idiot who made such agonizingly annoying rules.

So far from his status, he'd done a lot of maniacal things already. That includes, blowing a mere fraction of his village. Killing the ANBU that chased him. Slaughtering a quarter of the Jounin population and killing the Tsuchikage. Life was just too easy sometimes. Or so he thought.

--

The sky grew dark for a moment there; Deidara had taken the opportunity, shinobi instincts kicking in already. He zoomed his camera-eye and saw what seemed to be hundreds of kunai raining down upon him. He gave out a small yelp and hastily jumped to a nearby branch for protection.

Great. Just when he thought he'd outrun those annoying ANBU, here they are now! He was starting to hate them just as much as he hated the Tsuchikage. He narrowly dodged a kunai that flew past him with a duck.

It's a good thing he came prepared-- wrong call. He wasn't prepared. He had only little amount of clay left on his pouch. But seeing the faces of these ANBU—behind their masks—was still something Deidara couldn't let go of. He grinned savagely as he dug both his hands in his clay bag. The mouths on both hands opened and it quickly spooned in a mouthful of clay then began chewing.

"Damn ANBU bastards, yeah." Deidara snarled, as he jumped into the clearing. Said bastards merely backpedaled for good measure. One had a katana ready, the other two's hands clutching a handful of shuriken.

Deidara knew that Iwa was running out of shinobi. And getting to kill these three ANBU wouldn't probably affect Iwa that much as killing their Tsuchikage, but still, he's all up for this bloody blood battle. Well, semi-bloody blood battle.

He was finally done.

He cocked his head to the left, his mouth twitching and forming into another evil looking grin. "Be sure to say hi to the late Tsuchikage-sama for me, yeah." He snickered, the '-sama' honorific actually a mocking one.

He showed them his palms. If these shinobi's mask were to be taken off, their emotionless and dull faces might've twisted already. As expected, miniature clay birds spurted out and were slowly drifting lifelessly towards the ground. He formed a sign and after a puff of nin-smoke, one grew large enough for him to climb on to while three other small masterpieces fluttered to life.

"So bye-bye, yeah." He told them jumpily, quick as he was, he took out a kunai and pinned what seemed to be the captain of this team whilst the other two were greeted by two of the birds, which stood, on their heads.

It seemed like the world exploded after that. "-Katsu!" He commanded, as the two birds exploded, killing all three of them. The third one was rested on his shoulder; he himself was safe from the explosion from below.

It all seemed like a beautiful fireworks display for Deidara. And this time, he was sure that none, not one single ANBU would dare follow him once more. He hoped.

--

A shadowy outline stood in front of seven people. One feminine figure stood beside him, arms folded cautiously in front of her stomach. His spiky hair stood up as his ringed eyes looked at his members. He seemed to have a satisfied smile on.

The place they were all at—meeting place; was dark. Dimly lighted. And dark. Very dark. The only possible light would probably the shadowy outline of their…

"Leader-sama, why the hell have you called for us again?" A man with white hair groaned, one hand on his forehead as he started to shake his head irritably. He was to speak once more but that was stopped when he was kicked harshly by his partner – a tall looking man with small green eyes and what seemed to be a white cloth—mask. Wearing, that is.

The fuchsia-eyed ninja yelped before kicking his partner back in the shin.

"Hidan. Kakuzu. Stop that now." The leader said, growling slightly at the irritable antics of the two probably mismatched partners. He received a grunt and a, 'yeah, yeah' as a reply. After that, the room fell down into an eerie silence, which left the other members quiet. For the time being.

The ring-eyed man closed his said eyes; before reopening them once more. A glint. A slight glint. "To answer Hidan's question, I've called you all here regarding a new recruit for this organization." He started off curtly as he surveyed his members one by one.

His eyes fell on a short redhead before a slight smirk, barely visible, crept up to his face. This guy would be the perfect partner for the ex-Suna-nin. Said redhead already knew where this meeting was going.

"So, who's the little runt that'll be replacing Orochimaru?" Zetsu's black side spoke as he stepped out from the shadowy side of the room. Well, the most shadowy corner, that is. Half of the people turned to look at him, Hidan looking bemused and probably asking himself, 'Where the hell did he come from?!'. Something similar to that.

"He's from Iwagakure." The leader stated idly as he turned to regard the plant-nin for a while. "He's already slaughtered the Tsuchikage and he was once a mercenary; a terrorist bomber."

A blue-skinned, rather tall looking man nodded at this as he gave off an amused grin. A toothy grin. He held the hilt of his gigantic sword for a moment before shifting. "Quite the interesting recruit, ei, Itachi-san?"

The said Sharingan user didn't bother to give him a glance. He just replied with a low, 'Hn'.

--

"Do we go after him or will he come to us?" Finally. A dry voice, rivaling that of the former Uchiha spoke. It came to the fact that it was the short redhead with a very impassive face on which spoke up. He reclined his head to the side a bit, waiting for their leader to speak once more.

This highly intrigued the leader. Out of all these so-called geniuses Sasori was the only one to have asked—thought—of such a question. He gave out another mysterious smirk, half. "He'll come to a full-realization that he will want to be a part of Akatsuki."

"…What if he won't?"

"That's the most likely possibility. So when that happens, I trust that you talk with him."

"Understood, Leader-sama."

"We'll give him a week to realize that he's fit to become Akatsuki. Also, a week for us to truly see if he is capable enough. I trust once more that you'll be ready by then, Sasori?"

"Fully understood." Sasori said, nodding his head once, saying that he understood the situation perfectly.

"And to assist you," Sasori didn't see this coming. He didn't need any assisting to get the brat to join Akatsuki, most likely to drag him by his hair, literally. Though he still didn't know what this new member would look like, he already felt as if he'd have long hair.

Sasori raised up an eyebrow as the leader continued.

"Itachi and Kisame will assist you with this. But I assume that no assisting would be needed. I also wish to see that this recruitment would go as neatly as possible. Quiet, as well." Everyone found this a bit weird, the Leader of Akatsuki, asking for a mission to go as smoothly as ever? It's quite rare.

Itachi nodded slowly at this as his said partner gave off another toothy grin.

"That is it for now. Everyone, dismissed."

--

Everyone had made their way out of the room already and all that was left were two people. An orange-spiky-haired man and an azure-haired woman. She had a contented smile on her face as she placed a thoughtful hand on her partner.

"You gave some serious thought about Deidara-san already, Pein?" She asked, her lips curling up into a soft smile as the said man looked up at her and smirked slightly.

--

A/N

Thats for the first chapter, yeah. I hope you guys enjoyed this. The next update would be sometime soon, I'll see to it, if I'm not piled up with school work, etc. Well. Reviews are a must so that I'll know if this fic even is good enough to add a second chapter two, so yes.