{Nya's P.O.V}
After we entered the hot springs, Itachi and Kisame went over to the men's side and I went to the women's. This was supposed to relax us, yet I was just as on guard as when I was fighting the shinobi from before. Not even my Kekkei Genkai hadn't released, it wouldn't until we were back at the base. I stayed in the water for about twenty-eight minutes before getting out. I went back into the changing room and started getting dressed. After my under garments were one I bent down to slip on my shorts. Before I could stand back up from under the 'door', aka hanging blanket, I spotted a pair of blue feet with a pair of pale feet following in suit. Kisame and Itachi must be ready to leave as well. I slipped on my shorts and quickly pulled on my top and cloak. Once dressed, I grabbed my comb and brushed out my hair before putting back up into it's ponytail. My bangs feel out of the band which I adjusted so they hung the way I wanted them to. Once completely presentable I went out front to wait for them.
Five minutes later the two finally came out and we continued on our journey back. Once we were a good mile away from the village, Itachi and I released the genjutsu. It was about an hour and a half of peaceful walking when I heard a twig snap from behind us. I looked to Kisame, he nodded slightly letting me know that he heard the sound two. We continued to walk forward and Kisame began weaving hand signs and a thick fog began to emerge from the surrounding nature. Now it was my turn Dragon, Snake, Ox, Tiger, Ram, Dog, Boar, Horse, Tiger. The two of them placed a hand on my shoulders and we vanished and reappeared six and a half yards away from the fog. Once our bodies reformed I became light headed and fell forward. Before I could hit the ground Kisame snakked an arm around my waist and Itachi around my shoulders.
This was the only set back to using Shadow-Step, on one person it was fine but when used on multiple people it drains the user of their chakra. The two of them held me up for a few minutes before I stood on my own. Kisame let go of me and Itachi moved his hand to the center of my back just incase I was to fall again. I felt heat rush to my cheeks, so remained facing forward so Itachi couldn't see. Kisame caught a glance, snickered but said nothing. He, Konan and nīsan were the only ones to know about my feelings towards Itachi. Honestly though, I thought my feelings were useless because no matter what happens he never shows any emotion to me. Itachi was even distant with me, the longest conversation we've ever had was two minutes long. I mentally sighed and we continued our journey. Half an hour later Itachi let his hand drop, probably forgetting why it was there, and it ever so slightly brushed against my ass. I froze and stopped in my tracks, if my face wasn't burning before it sure as hell was now. Before they could notice I wasn't walking, I caught up to them and kept silent.
Not too long after we arrived at the current Akatsuki base. Kisame unlocked the 'door' for use and we ran in. At first glance to any other shinobi this was just an empty cave. But to use on the far back right side was the door leading into the actual base which doubled as our home. The door lead into a huge living room with four six person couches, a couple of coffee tables, lamps, paintings and a bar/counter that separated the room from the kitchen. To the right of the kitchen was the hall that lead to all the bedrooms and Pein's office.
One of the couches was occupied by Kakuzu, Deidara and a Akatsuki wannabe named Tobi. From down the hall I could hear Hidan's excessive cursing and sacrificing. The others were who knows where doing who knows what. Kisame and Itachi shrugged out of their cloaks though I kept mine on.
"I'll give the report to Leader-sama." I mumbled and went of to his office.
Before I reached his office I stopped in front of Hidan's room. His door was open and he was swearing his head off while doing some dumb sacrifice. Honestly, even if he's immortal the repeated stabbing was a bit over the top.
"Oi, Hidan would you give it a damn rest already. The entire world can fucking hear you." I barked.
"Let the bitches hear and maybe their fucking sins will be forgiven." He turned around to face me. "Plus this is my damn room so I'll do whatever the fuck I want in here." He stuck his tongue out like a child.
"It may be your room, but it gets damn annoying when you're cursing twentyfour seven for everyone to hear. Not everyone is a Jashinist like you." I blew my bangs up and walked to Pein's office.
Before entering I stopped and knocked on the door with the back of my hand. "Enter." With his approval I entered dark room.
I walked over to his desk, sat on the front edge and slid him a large manilla envelope. He looked up from his paperwork and eyed the envelope. Eventually he picked it up and opened it.
"It's the mission report and information you wanted." I said.
"I see, thank you." He skimmed over the papers. "You're distracted, why?"
"Am not." I blew my bangs again. "If I was I wouldn't talk about it with you." I muttered under my breath.
He crocked an eyebrow. Even though he knows about my crush I wasn't bound to talk to him about my nonexistent love life. I averted my gaze to the door and stared at it. Soon enough Konan walked in, I take it Pein brought her in here so I could talk with her.
"You're back?" She asked.
"Nice to see you too." I rolled my eyes at her.
"So what did you need Pein?" She smiled and turned her attention to Pein.
"Talk with her." He ordered.
"Very well, come on Nya. We'll talk in my room." With that Konan and I left his office and next door to her room.
Her room was a warm purple and orange room, odd colors. Everything matched from her walls to her bed spread. It was also one of the four biggest rooms in the base. Granted every bedroom was like a ten by ten. Konan's, mine, Pein's and Hidan's were fourteen by sixteen. She had her dresser pushed next to her bed and above her bed hung hundreds of paper cranes and other assorted animals. I sat on the edge of her bed and she sat in the middle.
"So, what happened?" She asked.
I couldn't even get the words out, my face just heated up like before. Somehow it was amusing to her.
"Was it really that bad? Did Itachi save you or did you completely fuck up in front of him?"
"N-neither." I quickly explained what had happened on the way back and she kind of laughed at the part where Itachi unknowingly touched my butt.
"Honestly, Nya, why don't you tell him already. It's been what, five years?" She fell back on her bed.
"You know why I won't tell him." I muttered.
"Well, if he won't be the man and confess to you. You should be the one to change how the two of you act."
"You sound like nīsan." I pouted.
"Where do you think he got it from?" She smirked. "Look, I know it can be scary but once it's said you feel a whole lot better." She sat back up and hugged me.
"Easy for you too say, Pein was obviously in love with you. Itachi won't even talk to me and I'm his damn teammate. It's like he doesn't even know I exist." I said the last part in a whisper.
Konan smiled down at me and pulled me into a hug. "Things between you two will get better, trust me."
"I hope you're right." I hugged back and left her room.
In the hall I passed by a clock, it was eight at night. I wasn't really tired, but I also didn't want to be up anymore. So I headed to my room, stripped off my normal clothes and slipped into a loose tanktop and short shorts. I re-brushed my hair and jumped into my bed, before long I was starting to dream.
{Itachi's P.O.V}
We had been back at the base for a half hour and already I was ready to leave again. Sasori and Deidara were arguing, Hidan was swearing and Tobi was bouncing off the walls. I walked over to a bookshelf to grab the book I had been reading, it wasn't there. Then again why would it, the book belonged to Nya. I went down the hall to her room and lightly knocked on the door. No answer, I quietly opened her door and walked in. In a black and lilac bed pressed against the right back corner of the room was a sleeping Nya. Her bangs were strewn across her face and her mouth was ever so slightly open yet no sound escaped. I walked over to the center of the room and looked for the book. It was neatly placed on a shelf above her bed. Carefully, I reached up and over and grabbed the book. Once the book was in my grasp, I straightened back up. My eyes glanced over the sleeping beauty and a smile tugged at the edge of my lips. I gently placed my free hand on her head and slightly ruffled her hair. In many ways, she kind of reminded me of my little brother. Though, unlike most of the Akatsuki, I didn't see her as a little sister. She was a teammate, a friend, someone I knew if I needed to I could open up to. Nya was just that type of person, but something about her reassured me and even encouraged me to be myself.
I left her room and walked over to the empty couch whose back faced the hallway. I sat as far away from everyone as I could and began to read. As the hours passed, members started coming and going and their voices droning on and on. Someone sat down across from me and from the corner of my eye I could see it was Kisame. He pulled up an old newspaper and started to read it.
"So, you going to tell Nya yet?" He muttered after a few minutes of silent.
"I don't know what you're talking about." I mumbled from behind my book.
"Itachi, everyone else is in their rooms. You can talk about it now." I could hear a smirk in his voice.
"There is nothing to talk about." I laid the book down. " Why are you so interested all the sudden."
"I've always been interested. Plus, I think she's talking about you to Konan." His smirk grew wider.
"And what made you think that?" I asked.
"I walked by Konan's room earlier and heard Nya mention your name."
"Don't you think they were just talking about the mission." Honestly I wondered if she really was talking about me and if so, what.
Kisame just snickered. "Do you know what happened at the end of the mission?" he asked.
"Of course, we finished up and came back here." I answered.
"I meant after Nya nearly passed out." He specified.
I thought back carefully over what had happened. "We helped her up and I kept close in case she were to fall again."
Kisame snickered again, "Is that all." He asked in between the snickers.
"Yeah, why?" I was leaning forward now, honestly intrigued by what he knew that I didn't.
Kisame got close and whispered in my ear. "Did you forget that you touched her ass?"
Kisame burst out laughing and I was mortified. I mentally faced palmed and my face became flushed. If she didn't hate me before then she sure as hell was going to now. I groaned which caused Kisame to fall off the couch laughing. I swear he could be immature when he wanted too.
"H-hey, don't worry. I'm sure she didn't even notice." He managed to croak out in between laughs.
"Like I care." I lied and went back to reading.
Eventually, Kisame went to bed. I stayed up the night just reading and trying to figure out someway to make her forgive me for that dumb action. Knowing Nya, it doesn't truly take much to make her forgive you unless you steal her kill. I looked over at the clock, it was three in the morning.
{Nya's P.O.V}
I had been laying in bed awake for a while now. I had woken up when someone ruffled my hair but I didn't look until they were gone. This wasn't the first time either, it's become a pattern lately. Someone enters my room, does who knows what, ruffles my hair and leaves. I got to start locking that damn door. I thought to myself and got up. It was about three, judging by how cold it still was. So I slipped on a random blue long sleeved-shirt over my tank top and headed out towards the kitchen. Off towards the left I spotted Itachi sitting on the couch reading. I went into the kitchen and made some tea. Once it finished brewing I grabbed two cups, poured some tea into them and walked out to the living room area. I sat one of the cups on the table in front of Itachi and took mine and sat on the opposite end of the couch.
Itachi peered from behind the book at the cup and then looked back at me. "Thanks." He said after a few minutes.
"You're welcome." I muttered back and sipped at my tea.
As far as a conversation, this was about the normal for us. A few words and then complete and utter silence. I've heard a mute talk more than him, well figuratively speaking. I looked at the book he was reading and realised it was the same one he borrowed before, guess he never finished it but I could have sworn that the book was in...my room...Was he the one who was in there? I carefully scanned over Itachi without him noticing, and a faint pink dashed across my face. I looked away and sipped at my tea again before sitting the glass down on the coffee table. I wanted to talk with him but I honestly have no idea how to. Normally someone else started a conversation and then it I would try to talk. I thought and thought about something to say and finally a kind of lame idea came to mind.
"Are you enjoying the book, Itachi?" I asked in a quiet voice.
"Huh, oh I am. Its very interesting." He looked to me from the book and actually smiled.
My heart slightly fluttered. "T-that's good."
"You alright?" He noticed my stutter.
"Um, y-yeah. I'm fine." I looked away from him before the light pink turned a light red.
"You sure? Are you cold?" He asked.
"I'm fine Itachi, the cold has never bothered me." Until he had said it I hadn't really noticed that I was slightly cold.
"Why don't you sit a little closer. I don't really want my partner getting sick." He looked at me with those warm onyx eyes of his and the blush deepened in my face.
"O-okay." I hesitantly slid closer to him making sure to leave a half a foot space between us.
Once again we fell quiet, and I started looking at random things around the room. The paintings and other wall decorations were things the Akatsuki had picked up over the years so they didn't really match. Some were silhouettes of random shinobi, others were just paintings that really had no place enough I started feeling tired again and leaned my head against the back of the couch. I looked at the ceiling for a few minutes before shutting my eyes and resting. A few hours or so later the other members started waking up and heading out here. I refused to open my eyes though so I just pretended to stay asleep. For the most part their chatter was quiet but someone wasn't out here yet.
"Who in the fuck took the last of my damn cereal?!" A certain Jashinist shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Hidan, some people are still asleep so shut up." What sounded like Kisame retorted.
"Ah, go screw yourself. I'll yell when I god damn please you fish bitch."
I knitted my eyebrows together and my nose slightly scrunched in anger. Hidan continued to yell and curse at the loudest octive his vocal cords would allow even with everyone pointing out that I was on the couch 'asleep'. Finally I had had enough of his damn yelling and threw a lightning shuriken at his head brazing his ear. He shut up immediately as did everyone else. I opened my eyes and my kekkei genkai, Dāku·Enjeru, was released. I glared directly at the loud mouth and I could see him visibly sweat. A growl built up in my throat and made it's way past my lips. He backed away and retreated to his room.
"Damn loud mouth." I muttered, released my kekki genkai and went back to resting.
"For someone who looks so adorable, she sure is scary." Kisame chuckled.
"Whatever, just let me rest." I grumbled and relaxed.
Forgetting someone was next to me I turned my head to the left and felt my head bump into someone. I opened my eyes slightly and realized I was now resting my head on Itachi's arm. Out of a weird instinct I shut my eyes and pretended to just rest. He made no move to shake me off so either he was scared to move or he really didn't care, knowing Itachi it was option number two. A few minutes later I did start to doze off again and the others started leaving for missions or training. Itachi never moved an inch and I kind of was enjoying it. After a majority of the others were gone I decided that I should get ready for training. I hopped off the couch and walked quietly to my room. Once inside, I locked my door and went over to my closet to grab my clothes. I slipped out of my pajamas and changed into my outfit. It was a pair of short black shorts, a side slide white skirt, black knee high shinobi sandal boots, my normal black tube top and a dark purple short sleeved kimono top since it was about winter time.
I walked back outside and not much had changed. Kisame was now waiting for me and Itachi was still reading. I rolled my eyes and headed for the door. At the door I turned around to them and motioned for them to follow. Not waiting for their response I headed out into the big cave area. I stood in the center of an area that was surrounded by water that lead deep down into some random sea caverns. I closed my eyes and began concentrating on my chakra flow. A few minutes later I felt Kisame's chakra fluctuate and heard the water around me move. My eyes opened and my kekkei genkai was released. Kisame had used his water clone jutsu and surrounded me with the clones. I tensed up and waited for them to attack, it was eight to one just the way I liked my odds. With my kekkei genkai released I wouldn't have to see to know where they were coming from. The first to move was the one to the back left of me, I turned concentrated my chakra to my left hand and created lightning shuriken. With the shuriken in hand I turned around and threw them into the clone killing it. The one parallel to the first one ran at me from behind which I easily flipped over my body and shoved another one of my shuriken through its neck. The remain clones attack quicker than the first two but were easily killed with my shuriken. Seven were down, and the last one was standing right in front of me. I concentrated my lightning release into my hand and created a sphere of lightning. I smirk spread across my lips and I slammed the orb down into the puddle that lead to where the clone was standing. The lightning spread quickly and the clone died within seconds.
"Jesus kitten, can't you let the poor clones last more than two minutes." Kisame chuckled.
"I shouldn't even let them live that long." I smiled at him.
"You sadistic psycho." He muttered.
"Aw, thank you fishy." I chirped and moved on to some taijutsu practice on the rocks.
Kisame and Itachi were practicing their ninjutsu on each other. I watched them while I worked on my stuff, I found it interesting to watch them joke while trying to kill one another. Eventually I gave up on what I had been doing and settled for watching their match. Every attack Kisame made Itachi countered perfectly, almost every attack Itachi made Kisame countered. There were a few times I nearly jumped up to interfere because I thought Kisame was going to hurt Itachi but he always moved out of the way in time. After a few hours the two of them stopped for a break. Itachi went back inside leaving Kisame and I were we had been training. I sat down near the edge of the lake like thing and Kisame soon joined me.
"You've gotten better fishy."
"Is there a way I could have gotten worse?" He laughed.
"There's always a way to get worse." I snickered.
"So do you feel more relaxed?" He had noticed me watching.
"Tch, who said I haven't been relaxed this entire time." I tried to act as if he was just seeing things.
"You suck at lying. Just admit you were afraid I'd hurt your boyfriend." Kisame teased.
"I-idiot!" I screamed and wacked him in the back of the head. "Itachi isn't my boyfriend." I dropped my glare to the floor and muttered under my breath. "I doubt we're even friends."
"I wouldn't doubt it. You two were cuddling earlier." He smirked.
"Shut it. My head was barely touching his arm, that's not exactly cuddling." I grumbled.
"Pretty close to it. How come you act as if you want to kill him when you actually like him?" He asked.
"I don't know, it's just instinct I guess. Plus it would do no good for anyone to act like a lost kitten or something like that."
"I don't know, anything could be better than the 'I want to see your dead bloody body' look you give him." He chuckled.
"I don't give him that look, if anything that's the look he gives me whenever I'm in the room."
"Nah, his 'I want to see your dead bloody body look' is accompanied by his sharingan which has never been activated when he's near you." He pointed out.
I rolled my eyes and started staring into the water. From behind us I heard the door open and closed, followed by light footsteps. Kisame nudged my arm and I nudged him back. He got a weird smile on his face and next thing I knew I was in the lake thing. I grabbed onto the edge and pulled myself back up hissing at kisame and socked him in the head.
"Bastard." I growled and climbed out of the water.
Kisame was laughing his ass off and holding his now bleeding nose. There was a sound of a stifled chuckle, the sound came from Itachi. I looked back at Kisame and mouthed 'you are so dead fish boy' to him and went back inside. In the living room Sasori, Zetsu, Tobi, Pein and Kakuzu were sitting and chatting. The noise died down as I walked by everyone, Tobi and Zetsu started snickering but stopped when I glared daggers at them.
"What happened to you Nya?" Pein asked before I could reach the hall.
"What the hell do you think happened. Fish boy pushed me into the dam lake." I growled.
"Again?"
"No for the first flipping time you dipshit." I seethed and went to my room to dry off and change.
After I was mostly dry and in another set of clothes I laid across my bed with my arms over my face still grumbling. Kisame and the others were probably still laughing their asses off. I'll beat them senseless later. A devilish smile appeared on myself as I imagined them becoming bloody was a light knock on the door followed by it opening and whoever it was walking in. I looked from under my arms and it was fishboy.
"You alright?"
"Go away." I muttered and rolled onto my stomach.
"That doesn't answer my question."
"You're not getting one, moron." I grumbled.
"Ah, come on kitten. I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd actually go in." He started laughing again.
"Well I did."
"Want me to bring Ita-"
"No." I barked before he could finish the name.
"Well, someone's testy now aren't they?"
"You think this is me being testy? I'll get testy with you." I threatened.
Kisame stuck his hands up in some sort of defense. "Alright, you aren't being testy, just moody."
"Didn't I already tell you to shut it?"
"If it makes you feel any better, it made Itachi smile." He tried mending the situation again.
My face became flushed and I buried it within a pillow I head dragged over earlier. Eventually he got up and left, which was probably his smartest move today. I waited a few hours to calm down and rejoined whoever was still in the living room. It was Kisame, Pein, Sasori and Itachi, none of them tried talking to me and it probably was a good idea. I grabbed a random book from the near by shelf, sat down on the couch away from anyone and started reading it.
