Everyone was quiet. Kisame glanced at each of us. Yukio stared at Itachi, his face contorted with some emotion I couldn't read. I glanced at each person seated around the fire, then stared into the dancing flames and tried to hide my emotions. I can't believe him! Forcing me to join…then crushing my dreams? I won't let him put me down like this! I will achieve my goal, no matter what Itachi-sama says!
It was quiet for a long time. Finally, Kisame shifted uncomfortably. He looked Yukio and I directly in the eyes and commanded us, "Go to sleep, you two. Tomorrow will be a long day and we don't want some kids slowing us down." Yukio sighed, found a place to settle down, and slept. I looked around for a spot to rest, and discovered a sofa on the second floor of the abandoned shrine.
In the morning, I was awakened by a loud crash. I sat up sleepily, rubbing my eyes. what the-? I had just been getting off the sofa, but the ground had vanished! I fell all the way down to the first floor. Luckily, Kisame, who was very dusty and just getting to his feet, caught me. "Good morning!" he boomed out, surprised. "Uhm…good morning?" I replied, now fully awake.
Kisame set me down while Itachi glared at us although he was amused by our clumsiness. A half-asleep Yukio grumbled at our noise, "Keep it down!" Before Yukio had a chance to fall asleep again, Itachi pinned him against the wall. "Get up. We're leaving." he growled. Yukio nodded silently and Itachi dropped him. Yukio landed with a loud thud and scrambled to his feet. I'm glad Kisame-san woke me up; Itachi-sama is much rougher. But maybe Kisame-san could have been just as rough if he hadn't fallen through the floor…Itachi walked outside; Kisame tossed a few granola bars at us and motioned for us to follow. We caught our granola bars, shrugged, and followed them out of the shrine.
Outside, it was cold and dark, that time which is neither day nor night. Yukio and I quickly caught up with Itachi and Kisame, who were walking at a very brisk pace. Eventually, dawn broke, casting a pink light on the clouds. The first tendrils of the sun's warmth licked my face and arms. This is my first unofficial day in Akatsuki… I heard that "akatsuki" means "dawn" in another language…About an hour later, when the sun had woken and barely warmed the surface of the earth, Itachi and Kisame stopped in front of a large, ominous, and dark cave. "All right, you two, this is the check point. Leader-sama has a jutsu that will teleport us closer to headquarters." Kisame began explaining, "Only two can go at once and you're probably not used to teleporting. I'll take you, Yukio-san. Sorry, Itachi-san, but you have to take Ash-chan… Heh, heh, good luck, Ash-chan." Kisame grinned mischievously. "OK." Yukio replied. I nodded. I'm going with Itachi-sama? I'm so lucky! …Or am I? Itachi-sama is handsome as heck, but he so serious that it feels like he'll suddenly decide you're worthless and kill you…I shivered, shaking off the thought.He wouldn't do that! His boss has ordered him to bring me back to headquarters alive! …But that's not a comforting thought either… "Let's go; Leader-sama is waiting." Kisame said and he roughly grabbed Yukio by the arm and dragged him into the cave, darkness enveloping them both. Itachi and I followed as silently as shadows.
The cave was damp and dark. There were no sounds except for the sounds of our own feet as we treaded carefully in the darkness. Occasionally, a drip of water hitting the cave floor could be heard, but nothing else. It's so dark in here! And so unnaturally quiet, too! This place is wracking my nerves! I felt something big near my foot and I tripped over it. Despite the darkness, Itachi caught me and set me back on my feet. I couldn't see him, but I could definitely feel that "what-a-dork" attitude vibrating off of him.
"What are you doing here, Zetsu?" Itachi sighed, annoyed. Kisame dragged Yukio towards us. Yukio shook Kisame off and massaged his bruised arm.
"I didn't know you liked scaring little girls in the dark, Zetsu." Kisame's grin was unseen. Two voices answered simultaneously, saying completely different things. The voices muttered in arguing tones. Itachi glared at them but waited silently. Kisame waited, as well, half business-like and half jokingly. Yukio and I were very quiet, bewildered.
"Zetsu? I whispered, "Itachi-sama and Kisame-san referred to one person… What do you think, Yukio-kun?"
Yukio shrugged and replied, "Possibly two people with the same name?" Perplexed, I shrugged back at him and shook my head.
Their arguing continued for several minutes, until an impatient Itachi snapped, "What is it?" Even when he was annoyed, Itachi retained the appearance of calmness. The dark, unnatural voice spoke up, "Pain-sama sent us to see how it went." "And it seems you've got 'em." a more natural male voice added, "We're Zetsu. Who are you?" "Obviously, they are Yukio and Ash." the darker voice answered grumpily, "Stop asking stupid questions!" "I was just being polite." the lighter voice murmured. A few soft snickers from Kisame's direction told me that he could barely hold in his loud, booming laugh. What is he? This is strange…and not to mention confusing. Itachi rolled his glowing Sharingan eyes, "Tell Pain-sama the mission went well." "Very well." The unnatural voice replied, in a short business tone, "We'll also let him know that you need that jutsu." The shape I guessed was Zetsu began to sink into the ground. The lighter voice called out to us before vanishing completely, "See ya later!"
Our group hovered together silently for a while, until Itachi brusquely muttered, "Let's keep going." I heard shuffling from Yukio and Kisame's direction and barely made out their figures moving further into the cave's blackness. Itachi grabbed me by the wrist and led me into the cave's deepest depths. His silent attitude made me feel as if he regarded his mission as nothing more than a household chore like taking out the trash. He stopped at the back of the cave, and I would have bumped into him if he had not held me back with a quick, rough hand on my shoulder. The glow of his Sharingan told me that he was facing me now. His grip on my wrist tightened to a degree that almost hurt. Then, there was a blinding flash of light. I felt a strangely familiar tingling sensation, one that compressed your body as if it was fitting into a small tube and pushed it onward at a breakneck pace. A teleportation jutsu? This Pain-sama's gotta be really strong if he's learned that! The light faded to darkness after a very short time, although it was longer than my own teleportation ability, the one that came from the mysterious sword I found long ago and had refined only after making many rather painful mistakes. Itachi's grip loosened as he dragged me to the entrance of this new cave, one that was all too much the same as the one I had been led through before. At the cave's mouth, Itachi released me as if I had some contagious disease. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the sunlight and walked out into it, enjoying the fresh air and the scent of trees and wilderness that came with it. Before I could see clearly, I bumped into something soft and cool, and having a texture not unlike a plant.
I took a step back and rubbed my eyes into focus. Looking at what I had bumped into, I saw a venus flytrap-like thing. It wore an Akatsuki cloak, and opened, revealing a man inside. This man had unnatural skin color. Half of his skin was white as paper, while the other half was black as the darkness of the cave I had just been dragged out of. He had yellow eyes and green hair that only added to his strangeness. What in the world? What is that? Startled by the strange man in front of me, I took several steps back, into the highly amused Kisame.
"Hey there, nice to see you guys so soon!" a highly familiar masculine voice came from the flytrap-man. This guy's the man who had tripped me in the cave! This is Zetsu.
"Humph, don't waste time on pleasantries. We have business to attend to." The unnatural voice scolded his other half.
The expressions of each side of Zetsu's face showed which voice belonged to which half. The friendly personality and natural voice belonged to the white half, while the business-oriented unnaturally voiced half was the black one. I observed this oddity and thought about a name by which I could distinguish the two halves in my mind. I'll say "Shirohan" and "Kurohan": "Whitehalf" and "Blackhalf". Although that is a weird way to distinguish between them…even if it is just to myself… Shirohan and Kurohan argued uselessly for several long minutes, until Itachi's patience had reached its limit, again.
"Which way is it?" Itachi sighed, exasperated.
"Northeast, less than a day's walk." Kurohan Zestu said.
"Nuh-uh! It's Southwest!"
"Northeast."
"Southwest!"
Kurohan and Shirohan Zetsu began muttering, continuing their argument, while Itachi ignored them and started walking away in a northeasterly direction. Kisame walked with him, while Yukio and I shrugged at each other and darted along to catch up to the two whose mission it was to lead us to our new base of operations. Zetsu only sank into the ground once the four of us had vanished behind the deep overgrowth of trees that hid pathless way to the headquarters of the notorious criminal organization, Akatsuki.