Disclaimer! I obviously do not own Naruto or any of its characters, but I do own my original characters since they're, well, original!
Co-Writer: TheCorpseGarden
CHAPTER 1: TWO DAYS LEFT
PART 1:
DANGEROUSLY ACCUSED DINGOS
Nakimi Ishikawa barged into Azure's basement through an old wooden door at the top of a steep flight of stairs, nearly killing herself by tripping over a wire from her keyboard, and falling face first towards her band mates. Azure, Allerrac, and Lily were fortunate enough to dive out of the way in time, but their lead guitarist, 'El Fucko', wasn't so fortunate.
Sorry!" proclaimed Nakimi with a raspy laugh, as she arose from the carnage of a broken keyboard and a broken El Fucko. Of course she was sorry, of course. This only happened about every week.
"You IDIOT!" screamed an enraged Azure."I'm going to have to kill you one day, especially if you destroy my goddamn drum set!"
From the ground, El Fucko released a low moan. He sat up with a look of confusion, gazing at each of his mates with stupid curiosity. Before he could say anything, there was a hearty laugh from the top of the stairs, a laugh everyone knew very well. Their vocalist, Mr. Clean, stood before them, an empty bottle of beer gripped tightly in his hand. Of course his name wasn't actually Mr. Clean, but the Puerto Rican had recently shaved his head along with all his facial hair, giving him the appearance of the beloved cleaning genie.
"Ahhhh, this day's a fresh one!" He pointed to a random place at the bottom of the stairs. "You! El Fucko! Look alive, man! I-"
Before he could even dare finish his sentence, the drunken man fell to the last step, just as Nakimi had, and landed face-first on El Fucko's junk.
"Ohhhhh, what the fuck man?!" bellowed El Fucko, finally able to open his mouth.
The larger of the two Puerto Ricans writhed around on the ground holding his wounded crotch as Mr. Clean staggered up and pulled his sacred microphone out of an unseen pocket. Nakimi stood next to Allerrac as she tried her best to hold in fits of laughter just like a third grader who posted a "kick me" sign on a classmate's back.
"Well, this is quite an exciting way to start off band practice." said Allerrac with a sly, sarcastic tone. "Our keyboardist broke her instrument, our vocalist is probably doesn't know if he's sitting or standing, and our lead guitarist might need hip replacement surgery."
Allerrac helped El Fucko to his feet and sat him into a chair as Nakimi continued to let out small bursts of laughter. Azure quickly turned to her dark friend of several years and delivered a hard echoing slap to her right arm.
"The battle of the bands tournament is in just two days, can you please get your shit together?" She hissed.
Nakimi whimpered slightly and proceeded to close her mouth and stand silently starring at the floor with a glimmer of guilt in her eyes. Mr. Clean was anything but clean at the moment as he opened up another Heineken, which had been shaken up from the fall, and accidently covered himself in alcoholic foam.
"Yo ho!" He cackled. "Looks like I'll need a bath tonight!"
Azure, not paying attention to Mr. Clean and his drunken stupor, proceeded to make a few more fine adjustments to her drum kit. Upon sitting down she yanked off her plain black sweater, revealing a black "Dirty Rotten Imbeciles" tank top and signified that she was ready. At the same time, both Lily and Allerrac had plugged in their guitar and bass respectively and were ready to commence as well. The only one who wasn't ready was Nakimi, for obvious reasons; her instrument was totaled. She awkwardly sat on an old musty smelling sofa and starred dead at the floor, embarrassed. Even the likes of El Fucko and Mr. Clean had managed to set up despite their temporary handicaps.
"Nakimi…" sighed Azure, "you can borrow the spare keyboard in the closet. But don't fuck it up like you did last week."
Nakimi quietly walked over to the closet as Allerac and Azure were lecturing Mr. Clean.
"Dude you can't keep wandering around like a drunken gorilla, especially when we only have two more days to prepare.'
"Ah don't worry, I'll be fine! *Hiccup!* I can drink much more than this and still give a slolid (solid) performance. The rest of you need to chill out. I am King, after all; the rest of you would be on the floor without me!"
"Allerac, why the hell is this guy still in our band?"
"Well you see –"
The three of them continued to bicker amongst each other while Nakimi retrieved the spare keyboard, still missing a couple of sharps from an incident last week.
"I wonder ifhe'll be there..." Nakimi quietly asked herself.
"Will who be there?" a curious and almost recovered El Fucko inquired. Nakimi had not even noticed that he and Lilly had set up right next to her.
"Oh, um, no one." Nakimi badly lied.
"It's not one of those cloak wearing goons from Ikusaka, right?" asked a concerned Lily, "Especially not that creepy ginger guitarist?"
"He's not cre-" Nakimi had tried to stop her tongue from spilling out her inner thoughts, but it was too late for that.
"YOU HAVE A CRUSH ON SASORI?!" screamed Lily in her falsetto voice.
Every person in the room dropped what they were doing and starred at Nakimi, who had swelled up with so much mortification that her face had turned beat red.
"You have a crush on Sasori?" Azure sighed.
"You have a crush on whom?" Allerac questioned.
"Sasori!" Lily cried, "The lead guitar dude from Ikusaka!"
"Well at least it isn't that orange-haired penis from that other band." El Fucko laughed.
"What other band?" Allerac was completely lost by now, but before he could get answers, Mr. Clean stood up on his large amp and spread his arms out as if he planned to embrace a ghost.
"WELCOME TO MY BIG PERFORMANCE!" He then fell face-first to the floor, knocking the amp to the side. He'd made an unconscious decision to take a sudden cat-nap in order to sober up.
Nakimi was glad the pressure was off of her... for now.
CHAPTER 1 PART 2:
ANGRY WOOD
All seven members of Ikusaka were held up in Deidara's garage, unable to escape due to Sasori's insane obsession with perfection. That and he had his Third Kazekage puppet guarding the only exit. It was either they suffer another hour and attempt to get every note perfect in their three song set, or be poisoned and replaced with a puppet of Sasori's choosing. Pain, who may have been even more insane that Sasori, had once been the band leader. He ended up leaving due to everyone else's insolence (or in normal terms, he thought he was too good for them). He had gone as far to break up with his girlfriend and current Ikusaka bass player, Konan, and had told everyone, "Gods cannot be held back by a bunch of dogs." The only information gathered on Pain at the current moment was that he had gathered his five other paths and formed a new band. Word has it that he has never left his house since his new band's formation.
Anyways, after Pain abandoned Ikusaka, Sasori took over as the band leader and manager. Everyone thought it was a gift to work with someone as talented and creative as Sasori, but now that gift had turned into a curse. Sasori was starting to act like their former orange haired "God."
"No, no, no. That was incorrect. Do it again. Do any of you know what true art is?"
"My man, Sasori, please. We've been playing the same song for two hours! Isn't it time we moved on, hm?"A worn out Deidara called from behind his drum kit.
"As much as I'd like to, you whelps need to get it perfect." The redhead replied with an ignorant tone.
"Did he just call us whelps? Ha!" An irritated Kisame blurted out while resting the butt of his guitar on the floor.
"I'm warning you Kisame... If you piss me off one more time, I'll tear you apart."
"That's what you said last time, puppet boy!" Kisame fired back. "You can't run this band yourself."
"Time to attack." said Sasori with dead eyes.
"What?" But before Kisame could mouth another word, the Third Kazekage slammed into him, luckily with no poisonous blades exposed. He sailed into a cement wall with a thunderous crack and a sour groan.
Hidan, who had been taking a short cat-nap in the midst of the drama, awakened after hearing Kisame fall to the floor with a broken wood shelf on top of him.
"Hey, hey! Can't you see I'm resting over here, fuckers!?" Hidan yelled at his two comrades, lounging on a couch with his hands behind his head.
"Don't blame me, Hidan," proclaimed Kisame, rising from the rubble, "blame the control freak with that ugly sex doll."
"Don't get involved if you know what's good for you, Hidan." warned Sasori with a crazed look in his eye. From the time Kisame hit the floor to now, Sasori managed to tear his robe and shirt off. He was ready for a fight and had the intent to kill.
"What the hell are you gunna do, you fuckin' pussy? Haven't you gotten it into that wooden brain of yours yet? I can't die, you little bitch!"
Sarori, with little emotion left in his now wide eyes attempted to stare Hidan down with no success.
"Just because you're the lead singer doesn't mean you own the band... I do!" cried the enraged puppeteer.
"C'mon already! You've poisoned me what- four, five, maybe six times already? You can't do shit, gay boy!" chortled Hidan with a mocking smirk on his face.
"What if I lob that ugly head of yours off Hidan? Think you can lead this band then?" shot Sasori with a sinister growl to his voice, before diving towards his opponent with the Third Kazekage by his side.
Hidan and Kisame both grabbed their weapons of choice within a heartbeat and charged towards their advancing adversary. Both men had enough of a teenager running their lives.
Before Hidan and Kisame could tear Sasori apart, a large wall of razor sharp origami flew between the two factions with lightning speed, almost cutting the very room in half.
"Enough."
Konan was now standing in between the soon-to-be carnage. She wore an irate and cold expression on her face.
"How do any of you expect to win this competition by tearing each other apart?" she directed to Hidan and Kisame.
"And you," Konan said to Sasori, turning only her head towards the puppet and fixating her amber eyes. "You think you're a better leader than Pain? You couldn't lead scum even if it came from your own excrement."
The puppet master's eyes narrowed.
"How dare you talk to perfection like this." Sasori whispered with a deadly voice, appearing to shake the room with his own anger. Konan remained still and composed.
"Leader? This is only a band, Sasori, and it is a band you no longer own... not with imperfections like yours."
He flicked his chakra-infused fingers swiftly. "What!? You will witness perfec-"
Before Sasori could complete his sentence, he was scooped up by two large paper blades which reached him unbelievably quickly. There was an explosion of paper and wood which ended with Sasori lying on the floor, legless. He desperately looked over at his Kazekage puppet trying to figure out why it hadn't attacked and poisoned Konan; it was being restrained by Kisame who wore a sly grin on his face. The redhead scowled.
"You... You bitch! All of you!"
Konan approached the pathetic puppet-man, towering high above him.
"Go home and fix your legs up, you're done here today. And after the competition, you're done as our lead guitarist."
Sasori, defeated and in shame, muttered all sorts of "nice" things about Konan under his breath as he crawled towards the slightly open garage door.
"You've won this time," Sasori said without facing his peers, stopped in front of the garage door.
"I'll be a good little boy on the day of the competition. But after we win, you will give the band to me. You will all be my little toys soon enough."
On that note, Sasori slipped under the door, leaving his band mates lost for words.
Konan turned to her mates and cracked a small smile. She was determined to crush the awkward silence.
"Who's ready for a few rounds at the pub?"
Everyone unanimously cheered together... everyone except for Tobi.
"Hey, where the hell is that idiot...?" grumbled Deidara; he had babysat the masked Akatsuki member on too many occasions.
Tobi's triangle was the only thing left of him. It gleamed in the dim garage light.
(Next chapter: Tobi spies on Pain! D.A.D battles with romance! Where are Itachi and Kakuzu?)