"That was so awesome! Did you see me? Didja see me get it sempai? Didja?"
"Hmm shut up already! I heard you the first five hundred times... yeah."
"That was so awesome!"
"I get it! Hmm... besides, I did most of the work... yeah."
Tobi hung his head. Underneath the mask was an expression that of pleading. "Deidaraaaaa sempaaaii... I helped out too."
Deidara rolled his eyes. "You spent most of the time complimenting our enemies on how strong they were... yeah... I doubt they needed the confidence boost." he brushed his hair to the side, and continued trying to wipe the blood from his cloak, "And in the end, it was my artistic inspiration that killed them anyhow."
Tobi nodded enthusiastically. "You made them go boom!"
Deidara shrugged. "Well, you know, you can't have a masterpiece without... dodging a few random bodyparts blown at you. And stop moving around so much, do you want to fall off?"
Tobi stopped. "Sorry..." he apologized sincerely. He inched a bit more towards the center of the clay bird and tried not to make such a comotion. "I had heard that Konoha's ANBU squad were all elites. But you seemed to breeze past them rather quickly sempai!"
"Well, not everyone is as gifted as I am... yeah." Deidara said, rather proudly. He stretched his arms up in the air and yawned.
"AAHHHHHHHH!" Tobi screamed.
"What?!" Deidara quickly spun around, preparing his clay quickly as well. Tobi was looking straight ahead.
"We almost hit a poor birdy!"
"But it's okay. It moved!"
"What?"
Deidara felt like pushing him off the bird. No one would ever have to know.
"Hehehehe, I'll bet sempai would have blown the poor birdy straight out of the sky."
"... Hey Tobi, what's that behind you? Lean over to get a better look... yeah."
>
"Judging by the lack of another 'traveling companion', I'll assume your mission to capture the seven tails was unsuccessful?"
"Tsk. We ran into trouble... yeah."
"Deidara-sempai pushed me off the bird!"
"Oh hush, you missed the giant rock spike, didn't you?"
"By hitting the tree branch and falling into the burning hot springs face first!"
"You should be glad you're alive... yeah."
Pein shook his head. These two...
"Focus. What happened?"
"The seven tails wasn't there. Your intel was incorrect. Or it's moved on. And we ran into the ANBU... yeah."
Pein put a hand to his forehead. "How many?"
"There... there was ten of them! Ten! And I killed one!" Tobi jumped up and down excitedly.
"And only one... yeah." Deidara added silently.
"Sempaaaaiiiiiiii..." Tobi whined.
Pein rolled his eyes. This was a setback. "I'll look into it. And kill the source. This is twice we've been unsuccessful."
"Twice?"
"Itatchi and Kisame came back empty handed."
"Hmm..."
"I'll have Hidan inform you two on when and where your next target is. Until then, you two have the time to yourselves."
Pein turned around to leave. Before he did, he called back; "And Deidara, get that bomb off of Tobi's back."
"WHAT?!"
"Awww shit... yeah."
>
Deidara adjusted the scope that covered his left eye before turning his attention back to Itachi. The Uchiha had the same blank expression on his face; the expression of someone who knows something about something that he shouldn't know, but he only knows the something because the someone who knows the something wants him to know the something. Or something. Hell, Deidara didn't know. All he knew is that look could get quite annoying.
"So, your target got away from you, Itachi-san?"
"It didn't get away. It would have required to be in our posession for that to happen."
"So you were unable to capture it then?"
"No. That would require us being able to find it. But our information was wrong."
Deidara grabbed Itachi's arm and pulled him to the side before he walked into a wall. "Honestly Uchiha, you need to stop using the mangekyou sharingan so much. You're going blind... yeah."
Itachi cleared his throat and had a look of confidence to his face. "My eyesite is just fine, thank you very much."
Deidara shrugged and sighed. "Keep denying it. I swear we caught you pissing in Zetsu's head. I don't think using your 'I thought it was a toilet' excuse will work again... yeah."
Itachi only replied with a grunt.
"Where's Kisame?"
"What am I, his babysitter? That oversized fish is probably-"
"... yes?"
There was no reply.
"Itachi?"
Deidara stopped and looked around. He heard an annoyed grunt from behind, and spun around to see Itachi walking up, rubbing his head with his arm. He had walked into a pole.
"Heh heheh heh heh..."
"Y'know what? Shut the fuck up. That pole is very hard to see and dangerous. I'm going to petition to have it removed."
"And bring down the entire cavern on our heads?"
"No, you're stupid!"
"... what?"
"What?"
Deidara blinked in confusion as he stopped at his door. "O..kay, I'll see you later Itachi-san."
Itachi nodded and headed off. "I win..." he mumbled to himself.
>
"You ate my cat?!"
"It looked like a worm..."
"A four legged oversized worm with fur?!"
These sounds didn't forbode well for Itatchi. He thought twice about entering the room, but in the end decided he had to anyways. The TV was in there...
He entered the room to see Tobi yelling at Kisame. Or at least he figured it was them. He just saw an orange blur and a black and red blur mixed with a long white blur. 'I should look into contacts...'
"I said I was sorry!"
"You are a fish! Fish don't even eat cats!"
"I am not a fish!"
"Okay then, YOU'RE A TALKING FISH!"
"That wasn't very nice."
"My poor fluffy..."
Itatchi sighed. "Would you two keep it down? I want to watch TV."
"Oh shut up Itatchi. You can't even see the damn TV." Kisame replied.
"My eyesite is fine!"
"Itatchi-san! Kisame ate my cat!"
"So I gathered..." Itatchi took a seat in a recliner. A recliner with teeth. He had never seen a recliner with-
"Kindly remove your buttocks off of my face." Zetsu said in a warning tone to Itatchi. Though Itatchi couldn't make it out. It was kinda muffled.
But, Itatchi did know that when your chair starts talking; that's not a good sign.
Itatchi got up and looked down at Zetsu, who's head was popping out of the floor. "Geez Uchiha, how big has your ass got?"
"Shut up, I'm still carrying some holiday weight. Lay off."
"Geez, now I've seen both ends of y-"
"LAY OFF!"
Itatchi stormed out the door, slamming it behind him. Zetsu ran over and opened the door, shouting after Itatchi.
"GET GLASSES UCHIHA! I'M STILL TRYING TO GET THE URINE SMELL OFF MY FACE!"
"SHUT UP!"
>
"So you're saying we're completely out of money?"
"Not completely, but close. We have around two hundred fifty left; we spent close to a thousand repairing the left wing after Sasori's cremation."
"Ah... right... the fire... who knew his body was that flammable? You'd think a puppeter would be smart enough to make his puppets fireproof." Pein sighed. "Especially when that puppet is his own body..."
"Regardless Pein, we're going to need to do something, and fast. We barely have enough money to cover food expenses..."
Pein sighed again and sat down on his couch, He reached lazily for the remote and turned on his TV.
"Pein?"
"I'm thinking."
It was more like he was watching the news, but she knew better than to point it out.
Meanwhile on the news, the anchorman was doing a special report.
"-the third graders have been working hard as of late to raise the money necessary to save their schoolyard. From mowing lawns to cleaning houses and watering plants to walking dogs, their little odd jobs have gotten them only two thousand dollars short of their twenty thousand dollar goal."
Pein's eyes lit up.
"Other odd jobbers have momentarily surrendered their jobs to the kids until they meet their goal. Isn't that charity?"
Pein's lips slowly formed into a smile. "That's it... that's it!"
"What?"
Pein jumped up and ran to hug the TV. "Gather all members imediatly! I have an idea!"
>
"We're going to what?!" Hidan asked.
"Odd Job Akatsuki!" Pein replied triumphantly and with pride, "We're going to do all sorts of Odd Jobs around to raise our funding for the Akatsuki organization."
Kakuzu hung his head. "And here I thought we'd do something outside the realms of retardedness..."
"Be quiet Kakuzu, not only will this idea give us a steady flow of income, but it will solve other problems as well." Pein said.
"Such as?"
"Odd Jobs are halfway a service to the community! By doing the jobs those fools don't want to do, we raise a good name for ourselves! When people think Akatsuki, they'll think 'Oh, those were those kind people who mowed mah lawn the otha' day. Thems was some fine little boys'." Pein puffed his chest out proudly. "And once we've established a good name for ourselves and raised enough money, our later plans will be easier to accomplish since they'll never suspect us!"
"They already suspect us... yeah."
"Shut up Deidara. Either way, we're in a financial crisis right now. We don't have much of choice." Pein scanned the room. "So, WHO'S WITH ME?!"
"..." there was silence.
"...Come on!"
"Err, gee Pein. I'd love to, but err... mowing lawns is... against my religion..." Hidan mumbled out.
"Oh bullshit, if that's even true than you can walk dogs or something."
"Dogs are our anti-christ."
"Stop making shit up."
"Actually, that one is true..."
"And I'd love to, but... I'm need to judge a... bikini contest... in the cloud country!"
"You can't even see a pole, let alone a chick in a bikini dumbass!" Kisame called out.
"MY EYESITE IS FINE!"
"Give it up Itatchi, we all saw you a third away from doing it with that homeless guy!" Pein shot back.
"Hey! In my defense, it was very foggy, and he had very big moobs!"
"Erk don't - tell us that!" Zetsu said with a groan.
"... I had wondered what that weird bulge was coming through his-"
"SHUT UP!" everyone shouted at once.
"Look, it doesn't matter anyways. I'm your leader, and I order you all to participate."
Everyone moaned.
"Alright then, so let's all stop moaning and-... Deidara, get your hand out of your pants."
"W-What? I wasn't-"
"Look, what you do in your free time-"
"Oh shut up!"
>
End notes; Yup, Akatsuki's run into some tough times. Thanks for taking time to read chapter one. Please review and let me know if it's okay and I should continue, or if it sucks and I should let it die