I've had this written for a while but I just couldn't finish it. I finally did last week. This can be seen as a companion piece to Amare Et Sapere Vix Deo Conceditur (which I need to work on...) but not half as in-depth. The order isn't random--there's a connection between each piece. Except for maybe Jiraiya and Naruto. They're linked together simply because they are teacher and student.

The title is a play on John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. It was the inspiration for this piece.

Enjoy!

Of Vice and Men

Even the strongest of men have weaknesses.

Jiraiya

Jiraiya loved women.

He loved how they came in all different colors and all different shapes and sizes. He loved how they could be cute and dainty or strong and fierce as hell. He loved how they had a multitude of talents, from cooking and cleaning to beating a man until the blood ran out of his ears for watching them bathe without permission.

Okay, maybe he didn't love that part. But only great risks bring great rewards and from an early age, Jiraiya spent as much time "researching" as he did training—"researching" a euphemism for perving. As the years passed, security increased at hot springs everywhere as Jiraiya no longer needed to perfect his shinobi skills and instead, devoted the extra time to perfecting his voyeuristic talents.

Ah, women. They were a frequent reminder of how even a Legendary Sannin had weaknesses. Uchiha Itachi had once used a beautiful woman to distract him. Naruto became his student only after transforming into a foxy blonde. And of the two near-death experiences Jiraiya had in his life, one was due to a savage beating by Tsunade for peeping on her.

Women got Jiraiya in trouble. They gave him physical trouble (in more ways than one), made his gaping mouth catch the blood spurting out of his nose, and tore his attention away from more important matters. But there are always tradeoffs in life and Jiraiya decided that the benefits of appreciating the fairer sex outweighed the costs of doing so. Hell, just look at his pocketbook! Writing an internationally acclaimed series like Icha Icha is lucrative in more ways than one.

Women were exquisite and charming and lovely. They made him grin like a stupid idiot and drool like a hungry dog. Only women, with their soft curves and flowing hair, could bring him—one of the most powerful ninja in the world—to his knees. If Jiraiya realized how dangerous that was, he didn't care. In a life as lonely and uncertain as his, women were the one thing that allowed him to forget about his inevitable mortality.

Uzumaki Naruto

Uzumaki Naruto had an insufferable hero complex.

Perhaps it stemmed from his need for recognition, born after years of being a social pariah. Maybe it was his obstinate idealism, his belief that people were essentially good and that even if they committed wrongs, they deserved to be pardoned. Whatever the reason, Naruto's desire to save those around him was as much a blessing as it was a curse.

Once, Team Seven was on a mission escorting a bridge-builder named Tazuna to the Land of Waves. What was supposed to be a routine mission turned A-rank when Zabuza Momochi and his apprentice, Haku, attacked the band. Naruto had meant well by trying to help Sasuke fight off Haku, but instead, his efforts got the both of them trapped in the enemy's Demonic Ice Mirrors.

When said teammate turned traitor and left the village, Naruto vowed to the love of his life that he would do whatever it took to bring Sasuke back. He fought his best friend at the Valley of the End, traveled to Sound to find him—but to this day Naruto still hasn't succeeded and all he has gotten from Sakura is a false confession of her love.

But that was Naruto's ninja way: to protect his precious people at all costs. It may have brought him to the edge of death on several occasions but never once did he regret his actions. Because even if the village and people he saved from Pein and his Six Paths were the ones who shunned him as a small child for being the Kyuubi container, they were still the family he never had.

Rock Lee

Rock Lee had an inferiority complex.

It stemmed from a lot of things—his unfortunate looks, his teachers' disappointment, his peers' vicious condescension—but mostly it was the result of his immense lack of talent as a ninja. Lee wasn't supposed to have become a shinobi. He couldn't do ninjutsu or genjutsu, and his taijutsu was average at best. When he was put on a Genin team and asked to share his dreams, his answer was met with derisive laughter from his teammate Hyuuga Neji.

On the surface, Neji's words didn't seem to dampen Lee's spirits. Cheerful and upbeat, Lee was the quintessential nice guy—the boy who always saw the best in others and never tried to take someone down a peg or two. But the insults of Neji and his peers never stopped ringing in Lee's ears and, driven by the desire to prove them wrong, Lee pushed himself to overcome his natural weaknesses. If he couldn't run 100 laps around Konoha in an hour, then he would run 500 as punishment. If he couldn't defeat Neji today, then he would train nonstop until the day he could. Bettering one's self meant being passionate, working hard, and staying optimistic despite setbacks and Lee sincerely believed that through blood, sweat, and tears, he would achieve his goal of becoming a taijutsu master.

Lee knew he wasn't the ideal ninja. He knew that geniuses like Neji and Uchiha Sasuke could beat him with their God-given Byakugan and Sharingan in a heartbeat. But great shinobi are made, not born, and Lee swore that no matter what, he would become a legend.

Nara Shikamaru

Nara Shikamaru was the laziest bastard known to man.

As a student at the Academy, he was one of four dead-lasts in his grade because it was too troublesome for him to pick up a pencil and answer the test questions in front of him. It wasn't that he was scared of test-taking or afraid that he would give wrong answers; rather, it was just too troublesome to put in the effort.

Shikamaru wanted monotony—a life that was mundane, humdrum, routine, typical, whatever you wanted to call it. He wanted to spend his days laying on grass and watching clouds. He wanted to marry someone who was average—not too ugly, not too pretty—who would give him two children, a girl first and then a boy. He wanted to retire as soon as his daughter was married and his son became a successful ninja so he could play Shogi or Go until he died. Before his wife, might he add. Dying after his wife would be too troublesome.

Troublesome. That was Shikamaru's word of choice for almost everything in his life. Troublesome were the women who surrounded him—his mother, Ino, Temari—bossy, aggressive, scary females who pushed him around and threatened his manhood so many times he thinks his balls have shriveled up already. Troublesome was his job, having to plan missions and take charge of them and watch as they spun horribly out of control and almost kill his comrades and friends. Troublesome was having an IQ over 200—because with great power only comes great responsibility and being smart wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Shikamaru didn't want power or glory; he just wanted a quiet, normal life spent doing things that didn't raise his blood pressure. But then again, his brilliant mind should have foreseen this change in plans. He had asked for this, hadn't he? He had wanted to become a ninja because he thought it would be exciting. Cool. Blood pressure raising.

How troublesome.

Uchiha Itachi

Uchiha Itachi knew what love was.

He loved his village so much that he was willing to massacre his entire clan to keep the peace. He loved his family so much that he murdered his father, mother, and lover to save their power-hungry souls. Most of all, he loved his younger brother so much that he sacrificed his entire livelihood for Sasuke to one day kill him and redeem the cursed Uchiha name.

In another world, in another life, maybe things would have happened differently. Maybe instead of being born to a clan whose roots were steeped in an endless river of blood, he would've been born to a normal, loving family. Maybe instead of resorting to the very violence that made him seek peace, he would have put his brilliant mind to work and found another way out. Maybe instead of staring into the hate-filled eyes of the brother who once adored and worshiped him through a haze of blood and fog, moments before his death, he'd be looking at a man who had grown into everything he wanted him to be—more handsome and more brilliant than even his older brother.

They say love is more powerful than hate. No one knew the truth of those words more so than Itachi. Driven by love, he turned traitor to his village and family to save both. For love, he willingly led himself deeper into a vortex of darkness that ended only in death, where the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel was a peace that had eluded him in life.

Itachi was a man who could have owned the world if he wanted to. Instead, he threw it all away in the name of love to build a place where the mistakes of the past didn't taint the possibilities of the future.

Uchiha Sasuke

Only once in his life has Uchiha Sasuke not been consumed by hatred.

That was when he was still a young boy; when he lived with his parents and older brother in a large complex along with his aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins, and the only things on his mind were impressing his father, beating his brother, and being doted on by his mother.

And then he lost everything.

He made it his goal to become stronger and avenge his family. Tearing his sensei away from his teammates, turning his back on his village and friends, putting his life in the hands of a man as slippery as the snakes he controlled—Sasuke fought and learned and gained the power he craved.

If only he learned what really mattered in his travels.

Like how revenge can never make you happy, can never sew up the hole in your heart that will only heal through acceptance and understanding. Like how revenge can blind you, let you lose sight of the truly precious things in your life like the teammates who will do anything for you. Like how revenge is a never-ending cycle, a rabbit hole that once you enter, shows you a dark world where powerful families are enemies of the state and governments manipulate idealistic children in the name of national security.

In his quest for immeasurable power, Sasuke gained the tools he needed to defeat his brother. But Itachi still had what Sasuke couldn't—and probably never would—learn: wisdom, foresight, maturity. Even if Madara stepped in and ruined Itachi's carefully crafted plan, Sasuke was foolish enough to play into the older man's hands. He had always been easy prey for his emotions and the people who manipulated them; never did he manage to possess the same kind of logical control Itachi had.

Sasuke was supposed to become the man his brother never could be. He was supposed to be the savior, the means of redemption for a clan that could never find peace. But instead of becoming the hero, Sasuke let his hatred devour him and turned into what his brother had tried to save him from: just another Uchiha condemned to endless suffering.

Hyuuga Neji

Hyuuga Neji had known bitterness once.

When he was just four, his uncle Hiashi had branded his forehead with the mark of the Branch Family. It had been painful, more painful than any of the training exercises his father put him through, but Neji was a strong boy and he grit his teeth and took it like a man.

Eventually, the physical sting faded. But that's the thing with pain—only the physical part of it fades. Years later, when the full significance of the curse mark was revealed to Neji, it became a constant reminder of all the ways his life had been ruined. How his father sacrificed himself for the welfare of the family because it would seal the secrets of the Byagukan away upon his death. How it was a mark of his and Neji's positions as Branch members, forever subservient to the whims of the Main Family. How it represented his existence as a caged bird, doomed to sing from behind bars for eternity.

Man has no free will. From the day he is born, he is set to walk down a path predetermined by Fate. Choices do not exist, only actions that inevitably lead one to his preordained destiny.

That was Neji's belief and for years, he wallowed in self-pity, swimming in a deep well dark with anger, bitterness, and regret. Why him? Why was he, a genius and one of the best of his generation, forced to live a life that was less than what he was worth?

Only when Naruto smashed his fist into his face did Neji learn that no one is subjugate to anything but his own volition.

Hatake Kakashi

Hatake Kakashi knew a little too much about volition. Whenever the mood struck him to read about beautiful women and dashing men engaged in suggestive behavior, he would pull out Icha Icha—even if there were impressionable young minds around him. No matter who he was meeting, be it his students or the Hokage, Kakashi ignored etiquette and arrived whenever and however he wanted to. It wasn't his fault though, for the past always had a strange way of making one lose track of time…

He could still recall the scene as if it were yesterday. They were on a mission to destroy a bridge being used by enemy forces in a bloody war that looked to be never-ending. Everything was going according to plan until two Iwagakure ninja ambushed them and kidnapped Rin. Obito had wanted to rescue her but Kakashi thought it was best to ignore the setback and continue on. Years before, a similar situation had happened to his father, causing him to abandon the mission and rescue his teammates. Instead of being hailed as a hero, Sakumo had cost Konoha dearly and upon return, he was disgraced and eventually driven to suicide for the dishonor he brought to his village.

Kakashi wasn't going to make the same mistake as his father did. He was going to abide by the ninja code and follow orders. But Obito had punched him in the face before running off to find Rin and maybe something shifted in his brain from the force of it because through a star-filled daze, Kakashi realized that what his teammate said was true and changed his mind.

They managed to rescue Rin, but not before losing Obito in the process. Crushed by rocks, facing imminent death, Obito had asked Rin to transplant his Sharingan into Kakashi's empty eye socket, which had been damaged by a blow Kakashi had taken for his teammate just moments before. It was completed successfully and with a smile on his face, Obito stepped over the threshold and into the other world.

That day, Kakashi lost someone important to him but gained something just as valuable. Obito may not have been the strongest of ninja but he taught Kakashi something that would resonate with him for the rest of his life: those who abandon their friends are worse than trash. It became Kakashi's guiding principle and when he left ANBU to become a jounin instructor, he fully intended to impart Obito's wisdom to the next generation.

But young people never listened to their elders, did they?

Sasuke, once his greatest hope and now his biggest failure. Kakashi had done everything he could to keep the boy from running off to pursue his wretched goals but none of that—favoring him over Naruto and Sakura, teaching him Chidori—could rein him in. Standing in front of Obito's grave, Kakashi would ask his late friend, where did I go wrong?

There was no answer. There never was. The dead don't speak, after all.

Orochimaru

Orochimaru knew the dead didn't speak. He found that out the day he discovered his parents' lifeless bodies and they remained silent in response to his queries, even after his voice rose in pitch until he was hysterical with grief. That day, Orochimaru swore he would never suffer the same fate as them.

Orochimaru wanted a lot of things in life. He wanted to amass vast amounts of knowledge and control the kind of power only possible in man's wildest fantasies. But beyond the desire to be invincible, he wanted to preserve his omnipotence. Athanasia was the stuff of dreams, but if there was one fairytale Orochimaru believed in, it was that of elixirs prolonging the drinker's life and spells granting the user immortality. If he wanted ultimate power, he would need more than a lifetime to master every jutsu out there and once he achieved that, he wanted to have it forever.

He began experimenting, kidnapping his fellow shinobi to conduct tests on them. Those who became ninja were men and women willing to devote their lives to a higher cause, he thought; what difference was there in sacrificing their bodies to aid in the discovery of a technique that would allow one to live longer? So Orochimaru abducted his comrades and his comrades' children, poking and prodding, slicing and dicing, until his victims would mutate beyond recognition. Those who died were lucky.

Orochimaru had never been a compassionate man but in seeking everlasting power, he lost what little soul he had left. It was only karma when in attempting to rob Uchiha Sasuke of his life, he was robbed of his own.

Sai

Sai had a hard time empathizing with others.

He didn't understand that every time he called Naruto "Dickless," Naruto's roars were not his usual expressions of enthusiastic agreement, just as the knuckle sandwiches Sakura served up were not love taps for calling her "Ugly." Oh, and calling another girl "Gorgeous" in front of her? Also a no-no. A big no-no.

Naruto and Sakura had told him that a nickname is supposed to reflect a person's traits and characteristics. So how come every time he followed their advice and came up with a name that fit its owner, his teammates tried to murder him?

Nicknames were hard. Making friends was hard. But Sai had read in a book a long time ago that if one was in a difficult situation, the best thing to do was to smile, so he would plaster a fake grin on his face every time he was put in an uncomfortable situation and pretend that everything was alright. It was what he had done when Root recruited him and burned a curse seal onto the back of his tongue to prevent him from leaking state secrets. It was what he had done when he was wiped clean of his humanity, freed from hindrances like morals and feelings so that he could carry out sick and twisted missions beyond the confines of ordinary law for the benefit of Konoha and its leaders.

From the day he was recruited into Root, Sai had been taught that the well-being of the village reigned supreme and that any threat to it must be eliminated. Then he was put on Team Seven and he saw Naruto and Sakura put everything on the line to rescue a man who had betrayed them and Konoha. It puzzled him. Why were they risking everything to save a man who clearly didn't want to be saved?

Bonds, they told him. Because there are bonds between Sasuke and us and even if he severed his side of them, our side is still intact. And Sai was suddenly struck with the memory of his brother, with whom he had formed a bond so strong that even in death, he was not forgotten.

That day, Sai gave his art a title for the first time.

Aburame Shino

Aburame Shino didn't forget. It wasn't because he had such a good memory that things just stuck, but rather that "forgive and forget" was a mantra inapplicable to him. Shino had a terrible habit of being unable to forget every slight he had suffered. However small they were, they managed to turn into grudges that ate away at him, festering like angry red wounds upon his consciousness.

Like the time Naruto saw him and didn't recognize him. Alright, Naruto had always been a little dim and people can change radically in three years, but who else in the village controlled bugs and wore sunglasses? Of all things, it was his speech pattern that caused Naruto to finally guess who he was?

It hurt Shino's feelings when Naruto didn't recognize the face of a comrade.

Even if he wore so much clothing you couldn't see it anyway.

Akimichi Chouji

It hurts Akimichi Chouji's feelings when he's called fat. Because he is not fat. He is merely...big-boned. So really, stop telling him overeating causes obesity because he does not overeat and he is not obese.

People always forget that the power of the Akimichi clan lays in the size of its members and the strength that comes from such portliness. Besides ninja with perfect chakra control like Tsunade-sama and Haruno Sakura, the Akimichi are second to none in the physical strength department. Chouji isn't big because he wants to be—he's big because he needs to eat to maintain his God-given muscles!

At least that's what his friends tell themselves every time Chouji steals a piece of barbeque from under their noses, lest they raise a fuss and get their noses broken in response.

Inuzuka Kiba

It's best not to provoke Inuzuka Kiba because he is brash and he will retaliate.

Unlike his teammates, Kiba rarely thinks through a situation. There is no looking before jumping, only diving headfirst into the water to tackle the problem head-on. It's gutsy and bold but it's also dangerous, like that time he followed his nose and led his team to a murderous Sabaku no Gaara in the Forest of Death during the Chuunin Exams.

You'd think that Kiba would be mellower, considering he comes from a matriarchal clan; more downtrodden like Shikamaru is, having been surrounded by dominating females all his life. But then again, judging a book by its cover has its merits and you only need to look at Kiba's sharp canines, red facial tattoos, and wild hair to know how out of control he is. Not to mention his clan fights side by side with canines and treats them better than they do most humans.

Figures Kiba would adopt the less refined instincts of an animal.

Pein

Pein thought himself to be the god of peace.

When he was just a boy named Nagato, he lost his parents in a tragic miscalculation on both the parts of his mother and father and the Konoha ninja who had invaded his home, thinking it was abandoned. It was the first great pain of his life.

The second was the time he was captured by Amegakure's leader Hanzo, who had deemed him and his childhood friends Yahiko and Konan a threat to government order. He was forced to choose between saving one and killing the other; in the end, Yahiko made the choice for him by taking his own life. That day, Nagato changed his name to reflect the agony inside—a name that he intended to be known all over the ninja world.

Pein set out to create a world free of pain and suffering, a world where children could play in broad daylight without worrying about being struck down by wayward kunai and parents could have a peace of mind knowing that they'd still be alive tomorrow to look after their sons and daughters. He aimed to do this by gathering all the tailed beasts and combining their powers to create the ultimate weapon—a weapon that would threaten any enemy into submission. If there was irony in his plans, he disregarded it. Because Pein didn't seek satisfaction in making others experience the same pain he had. He didn't want to spread suffering for suffering's sake. What he believed was that only through experiencing true pain could one come to appreciate a life free of it. The ninja world was as bloody as any battlefield, and everyday its leaders added to the chaos and destruction by waging wars on each other in the name of peace and all that was good. To make the world a better place, they claimed. What they turned a blind eye to was the misery their actions caused—the hundreds of thousands of innocent lives that were forever changed by the whims of man.

Like that of a little boy who had lived peacefully with his parents on the outskirts of a village until the horrors of war were brought to his door. Pein knew what it was like to lose those most precious to you; he knew the anguish and the helplessness of having your loved ones be forcibly taken from you. But Pein was a survivor. Others were broken by their pain, shattered into a million fragments that could never be pieced together again, but Pein saw beyond the worst of human nature and that made him a god.

It wasn't narcissism that drove Pein to consider himself a divine being. To underestimate his abilities would be a fool's mistake. He was the wielder of the Rinnegan, a doujutsu more powerful than the Byagukan and Sharingan combined; but beyond his natural gift, Pein was extraordinarily talented—a ninja that came not merely once a generation, but once in a lifetime. He had never lost a battle.

Until the day he came face to face with Uzumaki Naruto.

Uzumaki Naruto was a child. He was powerful, but he was driven more so by emotions than cold logic. He fought with anger and on instinct rather than calculating risks. Irritated by his defiance, Pein explained his philosophy to Naruto, challenging him to present a solution better than the one he had come up with. How would you erase pain from the world? He had asked.

"By breaking the cycle of hate."

His teacher Jiraiya had once said Pein would be the savior of the world, something Yahiko reiterated to him on his death bed. They were both wrong. In the end, it wasn't Pein who was fated to bring peace to mankind, but a little boy with blonde hair and eyes as bright as a clear blue sky.

Yakushi Kabuto

Yakushi Kabuto always fed off the glory of others.

For years, he was another's underling. At first, it was Sasori, who had taken control of his mind and forced him to spy on Orochimaru. Then it was Orochimaru, who broke Sasori's spell and gave Kabuto an alternative: follow him and learn everything you have ever wanted to know about the human body.

To say Kabuto was grateful for Orochimaru's guidance would go too far. Kabuto didn't give a damn. He didn't care who helped him so long as he got what he wanted. People were so easy to fool, so easy to trick and manipulate. Kabuto may not have been as powerful as Orochimaru or Sasori but they played into his hands as easily as putty. He made them think he was the perfect subordinate, when in reality he would not hesitate to betray them for his own purposes.

Orochimaru always thought Kabuto was the perfect apprentice. He did what he was told and asked for nothing other than a few bodies to experiment on—which, eventually, would help Orochimaru out in his quest for immortality. But then the Uchiha brothers destroyed him and he was left neither dead nor alive. He existed only in remains that held traces of his former self—remains that were powerful enough for Kabuto to absorb and finally become a man serving no one but himself.

That is, if those remains don't eat him alive first.

Hidan

Hidan lived for one thing and one thing only: Jashin.

Before a battle, Hidan would always grasp at the amulet bearing the symbol of his god and pray for a violent, bloody kill. Humans were good-for-nothing pieces of shit; they deserved nothing but to be sent to hell to pay for their sins. But sometimes, Hidan wasn't allowed to kill. Sometimes, that sonofabitch he called Leader made him go and bring him back a new pet with multiple tails and a motherfucking human owner. That little cuntbag! If he could have, Hidan would've drank the cocksucker's blood, drawn the symbol of Jashin on the ground, and used his scythe to hack off parts of his body until Leader was no more.

Oh, how he would've loved to do that to Kakuzu! Hidan hated Kakuzu. He didn't understand why they had to have partners in the first place. He was damn well competent enough to get along by himself just fine. Having that money-grubbing, walking dead bastard for a comrade only made things difficult. How many times had that jackass almost killed him? Useless, inept, bungling faggot. Can't even see who his real target is from behind those ugly-ass goggles of his. Why did he wear them anyway? Did he think they made him look cool? Because they didn't.

But Jashin was cool. Jashin was awesome. Jashin was the one man who understood him. Jashin knew the necessity of punishing people for their crimes by making them pay in blood and tears and screams. Jashin understood how beautiful it was to see blood and guts spill from a slashed neck or a severed arm. And only Jashin appreciated how selfless Hidan was, connecting him and his victim through blood in order to feel every cut, every slice.

Jashin was Hidan's everything. He would never let his faithful follower down.

Hidan continued to tell himself this even after being dismembered and crushed beneath layers of rubble, his god nowhere to be found.

Sasori

Sasori didn't understand the power of faith.

He had, once upon a time. Back when his grandmother Chiyo taught him the art of puppet-making and in a flash of hope, Sasori thought that he could bring his parents back to life by recreating them in wood and strings. But wood isn't flesh and Sasori wasn't God; when his puppet parents didn't kiss and hug him the way his real parents did, Sasori abandoned them. Human life was fleeting—there was no use in cherishing what could not be preserved forever.

Human puppetry, on the other hand, could be. In an attempt to maintain his body at its prime, Sasori turned himself into a puppet. In place of his stomach, he had thick cables capable of piercing his opponent's body. On his hips were ten sharp blades that spun in tandem to cut anything they came across. And instead of the calloused hands of an artist, Sasori had wooden appendages that shot water and fire.

To Sasori, art was everlasting. Unfortunately for him, his heart—and life—wasn't.

Uchiha Madara

Uchiha Madara knew that power didn't last forever—but that didn't mean he wasn't going to try and change that.

As a young child, Madara loved power. He loved how it made others bend to his will in fear of his capabilities, loved the rush it gave him to feel such strength course through his veins. When he gained the Mangekyou Sharingan, his limits turned to dust. Nothing could stop him now.

But then his eyes started to fail him. He was going blind. Desperate, Madara violated the laws of nature and committed an unspeakable crime: he murdered his younger brother and took his eyes.

With renewed vision, Madara once again took over leadership of the Uchiha and brought them to the heights of glory. Power was everything, and only fools didn't take it. But as they reached the critical point, the Uchiha—his very brothers—turned on him. Madara didn't want peace because that would only subvert his rule! They cried. Bitter from the betrayal, he left his clan, swearing revenge.

He fought the First Hokage and lost. He summoned the Nine-tailed Demon Fox and had it attack Konoha, only to have his plans thwarted by the Fourth. No matter what Madara tried, it seemed that Konoha, and the Uchiha clan residing within, was safe from his clutches.

That was before he met Itachi. Desperate to keep the peace, Itachi made Madara an offer he couldn't refuse: spare Konoha in exchange for killing the Uchiha. Madara agreed, and in one night, he made every last one of his former brothers pay.

Hatred and vengeance defined the destiny of an Uchiha. Just as Madara hated the Senju and Konoha for containing his power, so his descendants were fated to fight their oppressors until they emerged victorious.

Like Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto. Sasuke was the ultimate avenger—the boy who was so consumed with hate that his blessed eyes saw nothing but red. He was going to destroy everything until everyone who had a hand in the murder of his family was dead. But his quest wouldn't be over until he met Uzumaki Naruto one final time. Uzumaki Naruto had inherited the Senju clan's Will of Fire and even if Madara himself had to pit them against each other, they were going to fight until one lived and the other died.

When that happened, he was going to kill the survivor and raze the Land of Fire until nothing but the charred remains of the dead were his lone companions.

Kakuzu

To Kakuzu, there was only one thing in the world worth living for: money.

Money was simple. You made it and then you spent it. There were no complications—except for the minor trouble you had to go through to collect it.

Kakuzu was a bounty hunter. Aside from his Akatsuki duties, Kakuzu killed people that were wanted dead, brought their heads to the appropriate organization, and cashed in. It was easy, it was enjoyable, and he made a comfortable living out of it.

If only there was a bounty on his partner Hidan's head. Kakuzu had never had a partner before because people always managed to piss the fuck out of him and earn a ticket straight to the graveyard, courtesy of his violent fits of rage, but Hidan just didn't die. Kakuzu had tried everything—cutting off his head, slicing his throat, stabbing him in the chest—but every time he could still hear Hidan's vicious screams of "You motherfucking sonofabitch! I'm going to kill you you goddamned bastard! Just wait until Jashin hears about this! He's going to cut your dick off and make you suck it!"

If following Jashin meant being able to kill a fellow believer, Kakuzu would have converted right then and there.

Too bad Hidan got to him first.

Maito Gai

Maito Gai lived for one thing and one thing only: BEATING KAKASHI!!

Well, that and training Lee to be the greatest example of SHINING YOUTH! Oh, and maybe training himself to be THE EPITOME OF YOUTH as well. And there was also Neji and Tenten, he supposed, both of whom must be trained in the ways of GLORIOUS YOUTH! But beyond those three things…KAKASHI!!

Kakashi was HIP! Kakashi was COOL! Kakashi was YOUTH IN ALL ITS GLORY! Gai needed to beat him. Gai needed to beat his number one rival in order to show the world that HE WAS JUST AS MANLY AND AS HANDSOME AS HATAKE KAKASHI!!

…But why didn't Kakashi participate in their competitions?

CURSE YOU, KAKASHI, FOR BEING SO HIP AND COOL!

Hoshigaki Kisame

Hoshigaki Kisame knew his partner was handsome. Even a blind man could tell Uchiha Itachi was physically blessed, just by passing a hand over his well-defined features (assuming he'd be allowed to get that close). But that didn't lessen Kisame's plight of having been partnered with the Akatsuki's most attractive man any when Deidara remarked on how Itachi must be popular with the ladies. After all, Kisame was strangely colored.

At 6'4 and nearly 200 pounds, Kisame was easily the biggest member of the Akatsuki. He was immensely strong, with chakra levels that rivaled that of a bijuu, and he had incredible speed. But Kisame's inhuman talents came with a price: an inhuman physical appearance.

It must've been discrimination when Leader partnered him with a man that was stronger and better looking.

Sabaku no Gaara

The character for love on Sabaku no Gaara's forehead was a reminder of how he had once made the mistake of thinking he was alone in the world.

That wasn't the original intention behind the tattooing, of course. When Gaara first carved the character into his forehead, it was to represent the love he had for himself and himself only. Because that was the only true kind of love in the world. Everything else—lies, all of it.

Is it love when your father lets a monster live inside you? Is it love when your mother curses your existence? Is it love when your uncle willingly accepts a mission to kill you? The world was against Gaara. He had tried to befriend it and to help it, but it rejected his advances.

So be it. He was going to show them the misfortune of not being on his side.

And then he met Uzumaki Naruto. With a mouth as loud as the color of his blonde hair and orange clothes, Naruto was one of the Genin from the Leaf. Gaara thought the boy was all talk and no walk—until Naruto beat him.

Gaara made his first friend that day.

Shimura Danzo

Shimura Danzo had no friends. In his world, relationships with other people were a liability. At a moment's notice, the enemy could exploit it and destroy you. Danzo knew this personally. After all, he himself had done that to many in his long reign as head of Konoha's underground military operations. Not because he took sick satisfaction in capitalizing on inherent human weaknesses though. There was a greater goal at stake than deriving enjoyment from something as low and as base as taking advantage of others. No—everything Danzo had ever done in his life was for the good of Konoha.

Konoha, the beautiful village hidden in the leaves. It had always commanded the utmost respect and loyalty of the men and women who fought for it. But none of them, not even the Hokages themselves, could match the level of devotion Danzo had. For Konoha, he had forgone a family, friends…even his own humanity.

Danzo was an extremist. To him, Konoha's interests had to be protected at all costs, even if it meant defying morals and ethics. What normal people couldn't bring themselves to do, Danzo could and did. He single-handedly created Root, a subdivision of ANBU, and forced its members to abandon the feelings and emotions that made them human, ingraining within them the singular notion that Konoha's welfare was above all else. He had no qualms about stealing the innocence of children to further this cause; it was only a matter of time before they saw the horrors of this life, he reasoned. Best show them the ruin of their lives prematurely in order to win their unconditional support now.

Or make them do it themselves.

Danzo had not wanted to wipe out the Uchiha clan. The Uchiha founded Konoha, were a part of the very foundation of the village. To destroy them was heresy. But there was a lust for power in them that could never be suppressed and when that age-old megalomania started stirring, Danzo knew he had no other choice but to annihilate them.

Uchiha Itachi's agreement only affirmed Danzo's convictions. To agree to killing one's own mother and father for the good of his village—that was the true shinobi way, to sacrifice one's self. But no one else saw it as that. Tsunade had always thought he wanted to be Hokage for the power trip. Why couldn't she dive below the surface and see that to be Hokage was to be capable of instigating change? If she had only understood what he understood, that to have the power of Hokage was to have the power to incite war and unite the entire ninja world under one's hand, creating peace and stability to be enjoyed for posterity.

Danzo never did get to be Hokage. In the end, Uchiha Sasuke got his revenge and pierced him through the heart. But Danzo was not afraid of death itself. He was only afraid of what he would see from the other world: a Konoha in the hands of the truly immoral, defenseless because its leaders were unwilling to sacrifice everything for utopia.

I tried to talk about as many characters as I could. Left some out though. My favorites were Itachi, Hidan, and Gai.

PM me if you have any questions!