Akatsuki Gaiden

Embracing the Darkness

Chapter One: Induction Test

Naruto had convinced Sasuke to return to the village but the results were not what he expected, everyone was crowded around Sasuke but no-one even looked at him. "Hey! I was the one who brought him back, you know!"

Nobody responded and that enraged him, he swore at them then stormed off but he didn't know that Hinata was actually watching him, twiddling her index fingers like always and trying to decide whether she'll speak to him or not, she glanced up from the ground at him and seen that he had gone so she chased after her crush.

"Rasengan!" The Hyūga princess ran to where the voice came from and seen Naruto trying to defend himself from a man in a black cloak dotted with red clouds who she recognised as Itachi Uchiha, she stifled a gasp as Naruto dropped to his knees in a daze.

"Tsukiyomi."

Naruto woke up on a stone bed in some sort of prison cell, he walked over to the door and pulled on it, expecting it to be locked but it slid open easily with a 'Click'.

He looked out in the corridors, there was no-one here, not a soul, so he dashed out and ran for it, stopping every now and again to double-check no-one heard or seen him.

He could see the exit, he could see the light coming in from outside!

He sprinted towards it with all his might but then, out of nowhere, two members of the Akatsuki appeared.

One was a man with orange hair in a hairstyle not unlike his own, purple eyes with concentric circles and he had several black rods horrifically pierced through his nose, ears and bottom lip.

The girl had blue hair with a light-blue paper rose in it, amber eyes and a labret piercing.

"Were you thinking of leaving?"

"Wh-What do you want with me?!" Naruto had settled into a basic taijutsu stance, ready to fight his way out. "Relax, we just wanted to test your abilities. Come with me, I shall explain on the way."

They both walked past him without even giving him a glance, confident that he would follow them, as if he would! "See ya, losers!"

He quickly turned and jumped for the exit when he felt a sudden pull and was sent flying backwards, right into the grasp of the man's hands who held him above the ground by his collar and then the woman binded him with paper.

'What paper is this?! It's as hard as steel!' They stopped inside a large cave-like room and was flung to the ground, the woman snapped her fingers and the candles around the room lit up, revealing the presence of the other members.

The paper that was stuck to him started to peel off and fluttered away as butterflies.

"To test your abilities, you will proceed to duel with all of us. But, to give you a chance, we will only fight you one at a time. You only need to land a single hit on one of us, you do not need to properly defeat us. Is that clear?"

Naruto smirked, 'This is going to be a piece of cake! They won't know what hit them!' "Alright then, bring it on!" He said as he readied himself.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" He put his two index fingers in a cross and hundreds of copies of himself instantly appeared in puffs of smoke. "Charge!"

He decided to attack the nearest person who happened to be a shark-like man, he was wielding a bandaged sword.

The blue-skinned man slashed through the clones like they were nothing and that made Naruto angry so he kept making more clones, in an attempt to overrun him.

He decided that he wouldn't be able to defeat him so he redirected his army to attack Itachi, 'He uses his Sharingan for genjutsu so I should be better than him at taijutsu!'

All of a sudden, clones started to disappear in a puff of smoke as he looked at him.

Memories of his clones being tortured in a cruel manner in his Genjutsu came flooding to him constantly, which distracted the real Naruto long enough for the Uchiha to fight his way through the clones until he was standing right in front of Naruto.

'Don't look in his eyes!' Naruto was surprised at this helpful piece of advice from his tenant, 'Why are you helping me?' He asked the Kyuubi, 'If you fail to defeat any of them then they'll likely seal me away! I don't want that!'

It all made sense to Naruto now, the demon was only helping him to save himself. 'What else can I do? What are Itachi's weaknesses?'

Naruto questioned, hoping for some more advice. 'The only weakness that I can think of is the 2 second period of vulnerability he has when he's placing a genjutsu on you or your clones.'

'Only 2 seconds?! It will have to make do, I suppose.' He got his clones to charge at Itachi once again to distract him while he and another clone sneaks up behind him.

His plan worked, Itachi was so busy stopping the clones with genjutsu that he failed to notice that they were right behind him, they pounced on him and pinned him down while the remaining clones ran over and started kicking him as if they were playground bullies who had found a new victim.

"Good work, you have passed the test. You are now one of us, I'm Pain. This is Konan and they ar-" Pain began to introduce everyone when Naruto rudely interrupted him, "Wait what?! When did I agree to join you guys?!"

"If you had no intention of joining us, then why did you participate in the induction test?" Naruto's jaws dropped at his statement, "I thought I was fighting for my freedom!"

Pain put his hand up to stop him, "It matters not anymore, you are a part of the Akatsuki now and that is final."

A man with slicked-back silver hair suddenly spoke up, "Argghh, I need a piss! I've been holding it in for too long!" Konan glared at him, "The boy is still young! Don't say such obscene curse words in front of him, Hidan!"

Hidan pointed his triple-bladed scythe at her and said, "Shut up, bitch! Don't think I won't kill you just 'cause your boyfriend is the leader! I'll kill him too!" He then pointed the weapon at Pain.

Pain blatantly ignored Hidan's threat and said, "Now, to discuss who will be responsible for our newest member?"

Itachi immediately volunteered, "Konoha and the Nine-Tails has always been my assignment so I think I should." Pain nodded in agreement, "Very well."

Hidan walked outside then shouted out in surprise, "Arrggghh! Who the fuck are you?!" There was a small squeak and then Hidan came back in, carrying the shy Hyūga heiress by her hair, "Hey! I found this little bitch, sneaking around!"

Naruto gasped when he saw it was Hinata, "Hey! Let go of her!" He began to run forward to stop the foul-mouthed man from harming her but his arms were grabbed and put behind his back in a painful position, he had no choice but to watch.

Hidan threw her to the ground, "Guys, what should we do about her?! She obviously knows of the location of our hideout!"

Pain considered this for a moment then ordered Itachi to interrogate her, "Where is the rest of your team? How much have you learned?"

Hinata kept thinking over and over again in her head, 'Don't look in his eyes. Don't look in his eyes.' but she quickly forgot about that when Itachi plunged a kunai into Naruto's stomach and made him gasp painfully which caught his secret admirer's attention.

But, in a flash, Itachi was standing in front of the wounded Genin and caught the unsuspecting Hyūga in a genjutsu like Naruto had been in just a few hours ago.

"It seems she does not have any team-mates with her and knows little of our organisation." Pain slowly walked over to her, grabbing hold of the chakra disruption blade which slid out of his sleeve.

"A little information is still information, we cannot take any chances." He was about to stab at her now-unconscious body when Naruto somehow got free from his captor and was now standing between Pain and Hinata.

"I won't let you hurt Hinata! You can kill her over my dead body!" Pain was taken aback but he showed no signs of it, "Why would you risk your life to protect her?"

Naruto beamed at him with his trademark foxy grin, "Because she's my friend! And if I wanna become Hokage then I need to be able to protect everyone!" He said the last part with a determined look.

Pain stood there, looking between the two Konoha ninja with a frown on his face, thinking about something. He nodded his head then walked away, back to his room.

"I will show you and Hinata to your room." The Uchiha traitor said as he opened a door, waiting for them to follow.

Naruto ran over and tried to wake his team-mate up but that didn't seem to work so he quickly picked her up and carried her bridal style.

Itachi led them through a maze of corridors, which made Naruto wonder how he ever found his way from the prison cell to the exit.

Hinata was beginning to stir so Naruto was about to place her down on the ground but then an unlodged tile in the floor tripped him up which made him hug onto Hinata for dear life while they rolled down a conveniently placed slope.

Hinata was fully awake now thanks to that little accident and was now staring into the vibrant azure orbs that were her love's eyes, "Owww ..."

Naruto groaned in discomfort, apparently oblivious about being on top of his secret admirer.

'The floor is so soft and warm. It's so comfy … I could lie here forever.' He started making himself more comfortable than he already was which led to him hugging Hinata as if she was a pillow, making her very embarrassed and her cheeks flare up.

'N-Naruto-kun … he's … l-lying on top of me! Wh-What should I d-do? I hope we can stay like this …'

Naruto quickly noticed something was wrong with with his makeshift pillow however, so his hands started to roam about, eventually reaching a 'forbidden area'.

'Wait a minute … why's this thing have hair?! This thing has some weird squishy things too!'

Then he remembered what, or rather who, he was carrying before he tripped up and rolled down the slope.

His eyes snapped open and met a pair of lavender eyes which were wide open in shock, he looked down at his hand and seen that he was still grasping onto her breasts and quickly released his hold, jumping off her and pushing his back up against the wall behind him.

"H-H-Hinata! I-I'm so s-sorry! I didn't mean to, like, you know … g-grab onto 'them'." He stammered out, hoping that Hinata would forgive him.

She was up on her feet now too and staring at the ground, not wanting to look up at his face in fear that she'll faint.

"I-I-It's okay, N-Naruto-kun, I-I don't m-mind …" She said to the nervous boy in front of her, twiddling her index fingers and pushing them together, her face as red as a tomato, 'Because I love you …' She added as a thought.

If only she would say that to him out loud.

"Let's continue." Itachi decided that now would be a good time to interrupt, seeing as they both had nothing else to do or say apart from stand there quietly.

They continued round a corner and then several others until they arrived at their rooms and were dismissed for the night, "My room is nearby, indicated by a crow. Come to me if you need anything, I will always be there for you both."

Naruto could swear that he seen a friendly look in the criminal's eyes, if only for a moment, as he had said that last sentence.

He turned to walk away but stopped as he remembered something, "Oh, and Pain said that we are not responsible should you two engage in any sexual actions."

He walked away, back to his room. Leaving the two standing in the corridor blushing furiously, "I'm not a pervert like Ero-Sennin!" Naruto shouted after him.

Hinata was drowned in embarrassment and on the verge of fainting, it took her everything she had to stay conscious but she couldn't keep it up and fainted into Naruto's arms as he just managed to catch her before she hit the ground.

He tried to open the door to their room as best as he could but he had no luck so he just decided to ram his shoulder into the door, hoping to force it open.

He ended up with a bruised shoulder and a shattered door, the loud noise making the others come out their room shouting and complaining.

"What's all the noise?!"

"I was fucking sleeping! Who was the bastard that made all that noise! They're so dead!"

"I need to get some rest tonight to collect the bounty tommorow!"

"Who made that beautiful noise? It sounded just like my art's explosions, un!"

"I can't concentrate on making my new puppet with all this noise."

"Oops, sorry, I might have overdone it." Naruto said sheepishly as he scratched the back of his head.
They all began to file back into their own rooms, grumbling and muttering.

Naruto, seeing as everyone was now back in their rooms, decided to go to his and Hinata's too.
He set Hinata down on the bed then flopped onto the bed beside her, exhausted from the eventful day.

He failed to notice that they were in a double bed. The only bed in the room.

For those who are wondering when the next chapter of 'ANBU: Academy' will be up, I am putting it on hiatus because I feel like I need a break from it, I don't know where I'm going to go with it since it's more of a free-flow story.

That's why I'm writing this, I know the general direction that I want it to go in but the small details are just made up on the spot. I've never been very organised.

I'm also starting another story which should be uploaded within the next week or so, keep an eye out for it! It's going to be called 'Love is Complicated ...'.

Remember to R&R, readers! (See what I did there?)