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!
Azu's Akatsuki Tale, Chapter 20: A New Journey
When I woke up, everything was silent. A single candle, almost burned out, illuminated the room.
Itachi was sleeping in a chair next to my bed; his head slumped on the small table. His chakra was barely there, and it was obvious he was dead tired. I crept gently out of the room, trying not to wake him. My head hurt with the memory of something I didn't want to recall quite yet. What had happened?
The closest chakras I felt were Sasori, Deidara, and Kisame. I walked slowly towards them, wondering at how stiff my muscles felt. It felt like I hadn't moved for months.
Pushing the door open, I saw another room brightly lit with ten or twenty candles. Sasori was threatening Deidara's turned back with a spoon. You'd think that'd be a cause for laughter, but this was Sasori we're talking about…. Deidara looked a lot paler than I remembered him. Kisame was sitting on the floor, grinning.
"Eat it. NOW." demanded Sasori.
"But…. Sasori-daaaana…." whined Deidara, still facing the wall, "it tastes so damn bad, yeah..."
"Don't make me stuff it in your mouth," said Sasori stonily. "You should thank Zetsu-san for even getting this."
"Sasori-danna is so cruuuuuuuel, yeah… Why can't you be nice, hm?"
Sasori's face was getting paler, which meant he was definitely losing patience. His faint red freckles stood out. "I can't be nice because your damn ungrateful life depends on this medicine. Don't think I'm enjoying this… I have a sight of better things to do than play nurse with you. Now open your mouth."
Deidara pouted and clamped his mouth shut. Sasori looked like he was ready to kill someone, especially when Kisame started laughing. "Watch the stern and unyielding nurse battle with the unwilling patient! Who will win this battle of battles?" he sarcastically said.
I barely stifled a laugh. Just at that moment, Deidara caught sight of me. "Hey, it's Az-MMPPH!"
Sasori grabbed his chance and pounced on Deidara, stuffing the medicine down his throat and clamping his hand around Deidara's mouth. "SWALLOW," he commanded in a scary voice, eyes glinting evilly.
Choking and obviously trying not to swallow, Deidara frantically waved his hands in my direction. Sasori didn't turn around. "I'm NOT falling for that. Now hurry up and drink." Finally, Deidara must have swallowed. Sasori jerked his hand off Deidara's mouth with distaste. He did it so hard that Deidara fell out of the bed and hit his head on the floor.
"Sasori-daaaaana … You're so mean, yeah! HMPH." He curled up on the floor like a little boy throwing a tantrum, which I guess he pretty much was.
Sasori responded by kicking him. "Shut up, idiot."
Kisame yawned lazily. "But you know, he wasn't kidding. Azu-san's back, Sasori."
Spinning around, Sasori stared at me. "You... Back already, darn it," he said.
"And don't you look glad," I grumbled. "A hi or something would be nice."
Sighing loudly, Sasori grumbled, "You have an unfortunate tendency not to die when it would be convenient. Now I have to stick this down your throat too."
Raising an eyebrow and backing away slightly, I asked, "What is that, anyways?"
"The most HORRIB-"
Sasori stepped on Deidara mercilessly, effectively shutting him up. "It's medicine for blood loss. Itachi-san should have given it to you, but he's probably still sleeping… Now, don't make this troublesome for me too." He tossed the bottle and spoon to me. "You can drink it yourself, or have me make you."
I gave him an evil glare. Like I'd ever let Sasori spoon-feed me. I took a spoonful of medicine and swallowed.
No kidding, huh? This stuff WAS nasty. "Yuck. Yuck. Ew ew ew... This is disgusting," I complained. "If I ever ate my own vomit, I'm guessing this is how it'd taste…"
Sasori glared at me. "This medicine isn't even very potent. I've taken some that are a lot worse."
"Potent, huh? Must have been really strong to make you this screwed up…" I smiled sweetly at him.
Kisame laughed, and Deidara made a sort of muffled snicker. Sasori hissed like a cat. "Azumi….!"
This had to be some kind of record. Two minutes awake and I'd already managed to annoy Sasori. We were sure off to a great start.
Apparently I'd been asleep for ten days. Zetsu informed me that Itachi had pretty much dragged me, Deidara, and Sasori out of that chamber by himself and promptly spent the next couple days trying to heal me.
It'd worked, but at the loss of one of my right eye. Also, that entire side of my face was covered with scars and looked severely messed up. My whole body had little white scars scoring across it.
But screw that, I was alive. That was the most important thing.
Sasori was giving me a break for these couple days, but knowing him I'd have to start training real hard soon. My finer coordination skills were officially gone, as well as the speed I'd worked so hard to obtain and what strength I had. Of course, I was now blind in one eye. Also, I found I could no longer control chakra well, meaning I wasted a lot on simple jutsus. But for some reason I now had more chakra than ever, so it didn't trouble me a lot.
Suddenly, I felt a jolting sensation in my head, and Zetsu's voice spoke in my head. Azu-san, could you come meet me at the greenhouse? Since we're moving, I need you to help me organize some of my belongnings…
Moving?
A half hour later, I met up with Deidara in one of the numerous corridors around this cave. "Yeah, we're moving 'house', hm. Leader-sama thinks we've stayed around too long, so all of us are gonna get a move on getting our Jinchuuriki, yeah… Oh, you're coming with Sasori-danna, that idiot, and me. We're leaving tomorrow, yeah…"
Wait… he said that idiot?
TOBI?
"Tobi's alive???" I practically shouted in Deidara's face.
He gave me a strange stare. "He was never dead, yeah. Why?"
"Nothing…" I said happily, feeling a thousand times more cheerful. I had no idea that he was alive, which meant… I hadn't killed him that night. The thought made me happier than anything else. But how could he be alive? Because when I saw him, he'd been-
"AZUMI-SAN!" yelled Sasori, his voice jerking me out of my thoughts. "Get over here and help me."
"See you later, then, yeah…" Deidara walked off. Quickly, I ran to Sasori's puppet workshop across the corridor.
"Help me load traps in here," he ordered shortly. Climbing up the tall ladder on the wall, I precariously jumped from shelf to shelf, grabbing parts out of box-shaped compartments as Sasori demanded them. I didn't dare try to interrupt him.
"Kunai. Rope tied to kunai. No, not that one, the 300 one. Screwdriver C-14. Some C screws, too. Explosive notes, the big kind. I need a basic puppet chest plate. Scratch that, the metal one. Diamond drill. I need more ropes, 10 and one half feet. Metal bullets, the good ones, 1 centimeter across. Wire, lots of it." His hands flew around his puppets with extreme efficiency.
Sasori was absolutely crazy when it came to his puppets. They had to be perfect, no questions about it.
"Hm…" With no warning whatsoever, he threw a bundle of wire, explosive notes and clay at me with no regard for my life whatsoever. I barely managed to catch it and keep it from detonating. "Get Deidara's clay out of there, and don't blow yourself up, or I'll need to ask Tobi to help me." He rolled his eyes sarcastically, as if to say, "Yeah, like that would ever work."
I tried to use one hand to continue grabbing components and one to untangle this mess while keeping balance with my feet, and almost fell off the rows of shelves. My lack of coordination was really not helping.
"If you're so wonderful, do it yourself," I muttered.
"What was that?" hissed Sasori.
I decided not to answer, considering he had a very long string of super-sharp kunai in his hands. Kudos to my common sense.
"Didn't think you said anything," he muttered to himself, surveying his trap-reinforced puppets. "We need to work quicker, or else I'll never be finished in time…"
Note that he doesn't give a damn that I need to get my stuff ready too. Typical Sasori-ness.
With multiple cuts and scrapes all over my hands next morning, I headed out with Deidara, Sasori, and Tobi. The wind was already blowing out the ashes from our old headquarters.
Half the members of Akatsuki had left before I could say goodbye, but it didn't really matter since I'd definitely see them again sometime. And I realized something else, too. I'd been worried that since we were leaving, I'd never a get another shot at finding that sword. But from what I'd heard of the conversation between Itachi and Aoi-san, they'd wanted to keep the sword, albeit secretly, from me. Since Itachi had burnt out everything left inside and everyone was leaving, the sword definitely couldn't be inside the headquarters anymore. That meant one of the other members had it. So, at least for now, I didn't have to worry about it getting lost.
"Hey, Azu-san, you there, yeah?" Deidara called back to me. He was licking a lollipop… where'd he gotten it, I had no idea. "Make sure to stay with us, yeah!"
"Uh, yeah… Sorry about that." Turning slightly, I waved a mental goodbye to the home I'd lived in for the past years. I would never see it again.
I turned forwards and ran to catch up with the others. This time, I didn't turn back...
The four of us traveled at an easy pace at first, with no seeming destination. Sasori and I separated sometimes from Deidara and Tobi for days, and wandered slowly around the land. Whenever we were alone, Sasori always made me walk quickly and always along the hardest path. The two of us clambered across low mountains and swam across lakes, going so fast that I needed to beg him to stop sometimes. He said it was physical training, and I couldn't deny that my body needed it. Eventually, he pushed me to run, faster and faster for kilometers at a time. I also practiced basic skills such as walking on water and climbing stone and trees again. At times, we camped in one place for a few days and I practiced sparring against his puppets and training with weapons again. He was a harsh teacher as always, forcing me to quickly learn how to fight with my new handicap.
And so, in this way, Sasori trained me until I slowly started gaining back my old level of skill again. At some point we sought out Tobi and Deidara again, and traveled with them for some time.
For the last few days, we'd been traveling in a definite direction: towards the sea. The last month had passed quickly, and autumn was fast coming. Thunderstorms had followed us, and we were taking shelter in a shallow, low cave right now. At least, Sasori and Deidara were. Both Tobi and I shared a love for the rain and chaos of lightning, and we were walking around outside in the rain, talking about things past.
As I raised my face to the sky, I saw a particularly brilliant flash of lightning. It was close, by my counting. "Tobi, we'd better get back now…"
We splashed back to the cave. Sasori wrinkled his nose at us. "Take those clothes off; you'll get hypothermia or something."
While Tobi and I were stripping out of our cloaks and putting on dry ones that Sasori threw at us, I noticed Deidara poring over some scrolls.
It was a list of some kind or other, as far as I could see. "What's this?" I asked, waving a hand at the scrolls.
"The reason why we're traveling towards the ocean," answered Sasori. "We've decided that it's time to test your independence… Now listen carefully.
"Directly east from here is the country of Cloud. We're going to be heading for their border/port city of Kanningu, which is at least twenty times the size of Konoha. At this time annually, Kanningu holds one of the biggest auctions in the world. Millions of people gather to participate from places you've never even heard of… it's a world-wide event.
"We're going to be dropping you off on your own at Kanningu's borders. Your mission is to get all the items from these-" Sasori gestured at the scrolls "scrolls within ten days, which is the length of the auction. All items you gain will be stored in a certain bank account… there's instructions on that inside the scrolls.
"You'll start out with 500,000 yen, though that won't get you very far." I practically choked. That was more money than I'd ever handled in my life. "That's… sure a lot of money," said Tobi. He looked very happy.
Deidara smiled slightly. "You'll need it, yeah. Oh, and you two can't help each other, yeah. Your lists are different anyways, but still, yeah. In fact, we'll be splitting up from now so you can't communicate...hm… And don't try doing it mentally… we'll know, hm."
Darn, there goes that idea.
So, getting items from a list? Didn't sound too hard, but knowing these two and their demonic expectations…
Half a day later, I stood at the gate of Kanningu.
"Wow… it's… huge…" I couldn't stop myself staring. The enormous metal gate, imposing and unfriendly, gleamed in the setting sun. I could hear the chattering of thousands of voices just inside.
"Some last minute things you need to know," said Sasori. He sounded unimpressed. "Deidara, Tobi, and I will not see you again until you get all the items. If you don't get them in ten days, you won't hear from the Akatsuki again."
"I won't hear from…WHAT?" I yelled as I caught his meaning. "That… that's not…"
"It's completely fair," said Sasori calmly. "If you can't even complete this task, you're not worth continuing with as a subordinate. Now listen up. Three rules, in order of importance: "Number one: Get the items. Number two: Do not reveal you're from Akatsuki, in any way or form. Number three: Don't, though considering it's you we're talking about, it might not be possible…. but at least try do anything stupid."
"This is pretty sudden…" I sighed, trying to keep an outer calm that I didn't really feel. What I really wanted to say was what if I don't get all the items in time? Would I really never see Akatsuki again? My mind was assaulted with images, all the memories that I'd built with them…
Sasori's face didn't soften for an instant. "That's the way it is. I've lost many a possible apprentice at this stage. Deidara and I will be watching you, Azumi." He handed me 500,000 yen, and turned to leave.
As he marched away in to the sunset, I thought: Then, there's only one option before me... don't fail. Before he disappeared around the bend, I yelled at him, "Fine, you stuck-up puppet master! I'll get everything… don't think you're getting rid of me yet!!!" He didn't stop.
But I heard the smile in his voice when he said, "See you in ten days, then."
And then he disappeared in the oncoming darkness, and I hurried in to the immense city of Kanningu.