Take Two Round Two

by Third Fang

What do you get when you cross several interdimensional god like beings, raw boredom, a world of Naruto that went wrong, several years worth of off screen training, common sense, insanity, humor, sarcasm, the Log, explosions, plot, and overall chaos? Apparently a lot of headache medicine for Tsunade. May the Games Begin. Sequel to Yet Again With A Little Extra Help.

2. Chapter 1

Chapter One: Everyone's a bit of an asshole sometimes. The only exceptions are the people that are bound to snap and go on a killing spree at some point.

I don't own Naruto, any of its characters, or any references in this story. If I did, horrible things would happen. Neither do I own any other anime that I reference. I do own all OC's and new Jutsu in the story as well as every ounce of pure awesome spawned by this.

o. o. o.

A bar in Konoha:

"Well, put your bets up people." Azuma sighed as he drank some hard whisky. It was foreign and expensive, but he needed something to take the edge off at the moment. "How long do you think before we get our first of many world defining S ranks?"

"Stop being such a pessimist." Kurenai chided her fiancée from his side. "Just because you think that Naruto-kun and Ghost are back doesn't mean…"

"A week." Kakashi interrupted the woman casually without taking his eye off his latest book. "Two tops."

"Kakashi!" The Genjutsu user snapped.

"Mm. Sounds about right." Gai nodded from the cyclops' other side. "I will have to stick to light training for the time in order to ensure that I am in PEAK YOUTHFUL CONDITION!"

A half empty bottle shattered itself against his head… or rather his hair. "Shut up already! For the last time we don't care about your youth you middle aged mid life crisis nut!"

"Sit down Gai. You don't want the owner to chase you out of here again." Kakashi sighed, clearly not surprised by the recent turn of events.

"And stick to extra light training." Kurenai added. "Your "light" training is enough to exhaust most jonin and… wait what am I saying? We're not getting a suicide mission in two weeks guys."

"Oh ye of little faith." Azuma chuckled, taking another drink. "Ok then. Different wager. How long will it take for one of the two to screw something up big time?"

"Azuma!" The illusionist chided.

"Not even worth considering. They've probably done something so absurd that we're better off not knowing already." Kakshi shook his head condescendingly.

Gai frowned. "Come now. I know that Naruto-kun and Ghost-san are rather energetic, but they certainly are not that bad."

o. o. o.

Somewhere in the middle of the elemental nations:

Ghost limped slowly towards Itachi and Kisame, who had oddly enough been walking on the same road in the opposite direction. The haunted man was in horrible shape with his clothes and body covered in scratches, blood, bruises, and several horrifically smelling fluids that no one wanted to try to identify.

"Hey Itachi." Kisame blinked. "Does that guy look familiar to you?"

"Clean… me…" The immortal whispered to them in a possessed voice.

"… What?" The shark man blanched.

"Clean... me…" The blind man repeated, continuing to stagger unevenly towards the S ranked criminals.

"He's delirious. Not even worth killing." Itachi stated calmly. "Come Kisame. We have to-"

"Clean… me… or… I… will… hug… you." Ghost continued, causing both men to stop in their tracks.

"… Is it me, or was that honestly one of the more terrifying threats that you've heard in your life?" Kisame turned to his partner.

Itachi merely responded by jumping over the man and continuing to walk on forward, soon followed by his partner.

Five minutes later around a hill of boulders he had reappeared, seemingly even more deranged looking with a new large branch caught in his hair and clothes.

"The smell… will not leave… for weeks. It will haunt you… like it has me…"

Despite Itachi's and Kisame's best efforts, they would not be able to shake the man until Kisame blew him up with one of his water shark ninjutsu in a fit of rage.

The two criminals made a silent agreement that they would never speak of the incident again.

o. o. o.

"You're overreacting." Kurenai snorted as she drank a bit deeper from her glass of wine than she probably assumed.

"I wouldn't be too sure." Kakashi mused. "Naruto does have that habit of naturally making his missions more difficult than they normally are just by being there."

"Not you too Kakashi." Gai chided. "Where is your faith in your student?"

"In his loyalty, quick thinking, and his fighting abilities." The Cyclops replied without hesitation. "His luck on the other hand is something else completely."

"I'm with Gai on this Kakashi." Kurenai nodded. "Naruto's a bit… eccentric, but wherever he is, I'm sure he's on top of things."

o. o. o.

With Naruto on top of some nameless mountain range:

"WHERE AM I?!"

o. o. o.

"I guess you're right." The silver haired man relented. "After all the crap he's been through, there's no way he'd let himself be caught off guard for something too obvious by now."

"Well regardless of that, I just hope they get back soon." Asuma drawled. "It'll be a bit noisier here, but at least we'll know where they are. Plus the kids would be eager to see Naruto again."

Kurenai smiled. "Hinata more than anyone. That girl's got it bad."

"Gotta be careful with that one." Kakashi noted. "She's perfectly behaved and polite when it comes to most things, but I pity anyone that stands between her and Naruto when he finally gets back."

"Hundred ryo says that at least two Oogakari try to tape it when it happens." Asuma grinned.

"Bump it up to five hundred. You get three or more and I get two or less and we have a deal." Kakashi negotiated without hesitation.

"Done." The smoker nodded before shaking the pervert's hand officially.

"Men." Kurenai groaned.

"Speaking of destructive events, I hear that your team's out on another mission Gai." Kakashi mused, turning a page. "Who is it this time?"

The taijusu expert smirked knowingly. "You know that I cannot divulge such information my rival. No doubt you are jealous of my team's reputation and mission record together, but even so…"

"Hm?" The Copycat blinked and looked up. "I'm sorry. I spaced out again and the words "three for three" blocked out everything you just said."

Gai slammed his hands on the table in rage. "Damn it Kakashi that was three years ago! Things are different and you know it!"

"It still gets to him." Kurenai shook her head shamefully.

"Yep." Asuma chuckled. "Hard to imagine that all that mess happened only three years ago."

"Hard to imagine that they're all so strong you mean." His fiancé corrected. "A good number of them are stronger than me and you."

"I consider it a good thing." The smoker shrugged. "They're on our side and they listen to us. They'll live longer and we get the credit for getting them that far. That's a win win in my book."

"Speaking of your lack of progress, are we still sparring later today?" Kakashi lazily glanced at the other two Jonin while ignoring the still ranting Gai.

Azuma rolled his eyes. "You know better than to underestimate my ninjutsu after what happened last month."

"And need I remind you of what happened the last time you underestimated my illusions." Kurenai playfully growled. "Despite what people assume, there are PLENTY of genjutsu that the Sharingan can't cancel out."

Suppressing a warranted shiver, the silver haired man simply eye smiled. "Touchy. I was just joking."

"Yeah. Joking. At least your head hasn't gotten any bigger since you were announced to be a Hokage candidate should anything happen to Tsunade." The smoker drolled before drinking some more booze.

Kakashi shrugged. "Well I couldn't see your father taking the hat again. The poor man's more than earned his retirement."

"Here here." Gai nodded before downing some standard sake. "Some even say he's done more for the village than Shodaime-sama himself." Waterfalls of tears fell down his face. "It was because of him that I was able to get my beloved Lee into the ninja system. I'm so grateful."

"Yes yes we're all grateful. Lee's a wonderful shinobi that everyone is proud of." Azuma placated the man before he became even more emotional.

"Speaking of our students, I think that there's a chance that they might refuse to go on missions out of the village for a while." Kurenai smirked. "After all, Konoha is going to be the first place Naruto will go to now. They'll all want to see their friend after he's been gone for so long."

"And fight him." Kakashi added. "Don't even try to pretend that's not the case. Naruto's always been the one to beat among that generation. When they train, he's the one they see in front of them at all times. Sasuke and Sakura have not made it a secret that they want to see how well they measure up to him when he finally gets back."

"Hate to see where they choose to test that bout out." Azuma shivered. "It's going to be an expensive spar, that's for sure."

"We'll manage. The village has been getting plenty of business recently." Kurenai shrugged. "In fact, aren't the Chunin exams being hosted here soon?"

o. o. o.

With Naruto:

"I'm beginning to suspect that running off in a random direction was not the smartest thing to do." The teen mused thoughtfully as he sat down on a random tree branch.

"Your logical skills are something to behold." Kyubi muttered sarcastically from within his container. "Truly you are an ideal example of your species."

"Hey I kicked your ass didn't I?" The blonde snorted out loud as he continued to expand his senses. "At full strength I might add."

"Congratulations. You're the fourth human to be able to do so. Unfortunately you need to be in the first three to get a prize. My condolences."

"I noticed that you didn't count Ero-ni or his family in that list." Naruto observed.

"Since when do any of us consider those freaks human?"

"Point taken." The human nodded understandingly before pausing as he detected something. "Hello. I got someone nearby. Finally. They can point me in the direction of the nearest town. I'm starving."

"I'd ignore him if I were you. Knowing your luck it's probably a member of Akastuki."

"Kurama! Stop being such a pessimist!" Kushina snapped at the fox. "Just because my son happens to occasionally be at the wrong place at the wrong time on occasion doesn't mean that this will be the same."

"Mom's right." Naruto nodded as he ran through the woods with surprising fluidity and speed, barely making any sound or impact during his traveling. "You should really be more optimistic Kurama."

Three seconds later, Naruto landed in front of a man walking slowly through the woods, wearing a hooded black coat that covered his entire body. His skin was pale, but smooth, and his glasses were very much visible underneath the hood as was some of his silver grey hair…

"… Naruto-kun." Kabuto blinked in surprise. "This is… most unexpected."

"If you don't mind, I will now interpret any and all silence from all of you as your way of apologizing."

"…"

"…"

"Gurrrrgle."

Kabuto blinked at a loss as the blonde boy in front of him began to cry and held his stomach. "I take it you haven't eaten recently."

"Fooooood." Naruto moaned childishly.

The spy smiled pleasantly, already recovered from his initial surprise thanks to his years of practice thinking on the spot. "You do know that I tried to kill you in your sleep during the chunin exams don't you?"

"I fail to see how that makes you special or unique in the slightest."

The elder male blinked. He had never seen someone react like that to that line before. "… And that worked for Orochimaru-sama and tried to kidnap Sasuke-kun during the invasion, right?"

"And I killed a good number of your forces, killed that six armed guy, and knew about the invasion at least half a year in advance." The jinchuriki replied without changing his childish persona. "But that happened YEARS ago! Tell me you know of a village or restaurant or SOME place that has food nearby man! I'm starving!"

Kabuto faltered at the teen's revelation of seemingly restricted information. "… Well then… that certainly explains a lot. Likewise, it is pleasant to come across someone that doesn't hold petty grudges."

"Food takes priority. I've been living off of nothing but herbs and cardboard ration bars for three months. Also, like I said, we screwed each other equally. It's pointless to pretend that I was the only one wronged." Naruto pouted.

"A humbling experience I'm sure." The spy nodded. "But that does not mean that I am willing to aid you. What makes you think that I won't attack and kidnap or kill you now while you're weak?"

"Because you're interested in what I'll do when things get off the ground. Because you know Akatsuki and Konoha will be all over your ass if you kill me. Because I still have some mysterious role in the grand scheme of things. And because I probably fascinate you for some reason." The jinchuriki deadpanned, as if what he just said was the most obvious thing in the world.

The right hand to Orochimaru blinked, clearly surprised by the teen's answer before laughing. "Haha. You're right. Impressively so. It's almost as if you've known me for far longer than the few conversations we've had."

"You're a secretive spy type. You keep close to yourself, but despite that, you tend to be interested in those that will be the most influential in future major events." The jinchuriki added. "It's kinda easy to predict how you think to that degree at least. I have no idea on what drives you though."

Kabuto once again found himself for a loss of words. "I… see. I didn't know that those of my status were so easy to peg to that degree. I'll have to do something about that."

"Do it later. Food now!" The blonde snapped.

"Gurrrrgle."

"See! Even Mr. Tummy is getting annoyed with all the talking!"

Finally getting used to Naruto's erratic personality, the loner sighed in defeat. "Fine. If you are that hungry, there is a village a few miles from here. It probably doesn't have anything impressive, but it acts as a rest stop for travelers so there should be a shop or two." He began to walk past the teen. "You are fortunate I'm not in any rush. The only reason why I'm here was because I came to inspe-"

That was as far as the scientist got before he got to his closest to Naruto and instantly froze.

Power.

So much power was leaking out of the blonde it was ludicrous. How he had not noticed it before was beyond him as he attempted to regain control over his body from the shock. In continuous and relentless waves the chakra flew out and into the air without halting or hesitation, setting off Kabuto's senses like fireworks and nearly blinding him with the sudden exposure.

More terrifying was the fact that the teen seemed to be discharging this power on mere reflex, as if he didn't even notice the fact that the amount of chakra he was emitting would kill your standard jonin in two minutes tops.

Monster.

That was the closest thing Kabuto could use to describe Naruto Uzumaki at that moment. No wonder the boy had not flinched or reacted to his previous threat. To emit so much chakra and not show any signs of exertion or stress was beyond rational.

One could only imagine how absurd his levels were when he fought with all his strength… no… how large they could be when he used his Biju's strength. It would without a doubt be best to not anger this one. At least for now…

Upon regaining more of his senses, Kabuto realized that Naruto was probably the reason why he was in the area in the first place. His instruments had detected a sudden large mass of natural energy that had been moving around lately, and he had left to where he predicted they would go next.

Naruto was the mysterious source of power. All the chakra that leaked out of his body was merging and enhancing the natural energy in the air, spreading out and setting off his detectors.

This must have been the seventh sense technique he had heard about in passing. A technique that supposedly is only capable of being performed by the utmost skilled and powerful wind ninjutsu users. If it was… then he would not be surprised if the rumors about Naruto being the wind equivalent of Tobirama Senju were more than just speculation, especially if the teen had been using it since before the chunin exams.

Deep down he knew that Akatsuki was going to have a far more difficult time getting their hands on the missing jinchuriki than they originally thought.

"Oi. You ok?" Naruto raised an eyebrow, clearly not deciphering what the other male's reaction was all about. "You're not going to go crazy on me are you? I'd like to talk to someone that's a little closer to sane than what I've been dealing with lately."

The hooded male blinked back to reality and turned to Naruto skeptically, slowly distancing himself in the process and feeling the oppressive wind chakra turn into natural energy after a very short distance, much to his relief. "You do realize that as a person who worked closely with Orochimaru-sama, I am not exactly a textbook definition of sane."

"Do you rant about ridiculous and nonsensical things such as cat to toaster ratios?"

"What?"

"You're saner than what I've been dealing with lately." The blonde stated with finality before pointing to the distance randomly. "Now let us eat for Mr. Tummy demands it!"

"Gurrgle."

Kabuto couldn't help but look down at the jinchuriki as if he really was a child. His playful immature behavior was getting quite tiring rather fast. At the very least, if he kept on talking to the blonde he would most likely be able to find out something interesting. He WAS a spy after all. Information was his bread and butter. "Come on then. We'll get something to eat and then we'll be off in our own directions."

Half an hour later the pair had managed to find themselves in a small stand at a table with menus in front of them.

"See anything good?" The jinchuriki asked curiously without looking up.

"Surprisingly enough yes. I see some smoked mackerel." The spy admitted, silently urging a snake to slither under the table and towards his new temporary travel partner, if anything to see if he could detect it. "So I am curious, where have you been these past few years? As far as anyone knows, you just dropped off the face of the planet."

The blonde snorted. "You're not that far off. Trust me, you wouldn't believe it even if I told you." He clicked his teeth irritably. "Damn. They don't have ramen here."

"I'll take your word for it." Kabuto relented. If he pushed there was a chance he would get less information later on. "Could you at least tell me how you managed to land yourself in the middle of the elemental nations so suddenly? From the way my devices were set off, it was almost as if you just teleported back."

Naruto chuckled. "The fourth wasn't the only one that knew how to abuse timespace ninjutsu. Granted I suck at it, but I still knew a few people that were quite good at it."

"You are referring to your father." The other male corrected, allowing a smirk to pass his lips as his snake detected a slight twitch in the teen's legs. "Don't be so surprised. Surely you know that Tsunade-sama announced it to everyone shortly after you left. Your encounter with the Gobi left many tremors in the political world. In fact, it might be a bit dangerous for you to walk around as yourself around these parts. We are in Iwa territory after all."

The jinchuriki merely responded by lowering his menu and revealing his face to Kabuto, showing that his hair had turned black and his whiskers had disappeared when he wasn't paying attention. "Thanks for the warning, but I think I have it covered."

The spy's eyes narrowed curiously. "That's not a transformation… a genjutsu? I didn't even notice him use it. But with his reserves, even something as subtle as this should be impossible for him to do." "Of course if people overhear our conversation, your appearance will be worth next to nothing…"

He was interrupted as the blonde suddenly slammed a hand down on his table hard, making a loud bang and putting Kabuto on guard. His reaction was unwarranted though as the teen simply retracted his hand and pointed to the other customers and people in the building. All of them had not reacted to the sudden loud noise in the slightest.

"He set up sound suppressing genjutsu as well without me noticing. We can hear them but they can't hear us. He's better than I thought." "You enjoy showing off don't you?"

"The way I see it, there are two kinds of shinobi that truly excel right now. The ones that are visible, and the ones that aren't. If you expect to live being visible and heaven forbid famous, you better have the power, the moves, and the fifty thousand skills that no one knows about to back it up." The son of the yellow flash shrugged casually.

"Sound logic." Kabuto nodded in agreement. "And what dare I ask is needed for someone like myself, who wishes to stay unknown?"

"Easy, the ability to know when to back off and not get too close."

That was as much a sign as any for the spy to withdraw the snake from under the table.

"Speaking of people you know, where is your master? Ghost I believe was his name. I thought you were travelling with him during these past few years."

Naruto turned a page. "Oh I was up until a couple of days ago. I finally saw my chance to get away from the bastard and took it. Right now I'm free as a bird and living it up to its fullest… which unfortunately includes me getting lost in the middle of nowhere."

"True freedom enables both good and bad opportunities." Kabuto sagely commented.

"I think I read that in a fortune cookie once." Naruto mumbled to himself. "So who are you working for these days? Orochimaru's dead and I don't see you settling for some two bit organization or one of the major villages. You don't really pass as a careless type."

"My pulse and breathing are no doubt proof of that." The introvert wittedly observed. "As much as it would surprise you, I am self employed at the moment, and working on personal projects. With all the resources I managed to scrounge from Orochimaru-sama's various bases, I have found that I am in little need of monetary funds."

"Bet you could host some insane Halloween parties at those bases if you cleaned some of them up right." The blonde chuckled before realizing that Kabuto was looking at him funny and remembering that the holiday didn't exist in this world. "Er. Sorry. Just talking about a foreign culture I came across in my travels."

"No, it's quite all right." Kabuto waved the apology aside. "I know just how hard it is to adapt to different cultures frequently after living in another one for so long. You don't get as good as I am when it comes to espionage unless you've successfully infiltrated and lasted a good six months each in at least four different countries."

Naruto whistled impressed. "Wow. That's impressive. And here I thought your major selling points were just your silver tongue and your insane if not sadistic medical skills."

The spy smirked. "Well then if that's all then I've been doing a better job than I thought."

"Excuse me. Are you two ready to order?" A young waitress in a kimono asked politely as she walked up to their table. Apparently there was a space just outside the table where the genjutsu wasn't effective so that said waitress could talk to them without suspecting anything.

"I'll have the smoked mackerel if you please. Just water."

"The grilled pork for me. I'll have water as well."

"Thank you very much." The girl nodded before taking the menus. "I'll have your meals shortly."

"So what's been going on lately anyway Spy-san?" Naruto asked curiously with an amused grin. "Surely you know all the juicy gossip that's known and not known these days."

Said spy irritably leered at the teen. "I have you know that I do not dabble with simple gossip Naruto-kun, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't call my resources as such."

"Touchy much?"

"I have been in the information business for quite some time Naruto-kun. I'd at least like to have it respected when dealing in it."

"Fine. Fine. My mistake." The blonde surrendered with his hands up in mock defeat.

Kabuto leered at Naruto skeptically before sighing. "No. You know next to nothing about me. I should not blame you for things you don't know." He leaned back in his seat. "So what would you like to know? There has been much going on since you left your dear home."

"Eh. Let's start with the basics and work our way from there. Did anyone important die and are there any wars going on at the moment?" Naruto let his hands down.

"Important deaths? Well there have been a large number of Daimyo and Missing Nin that have been taken out recently, but none of the ones I believe you are interested in. In retrospect, many of the rulers mentioned have been known to be rather inept or rather corrupt. Actually Wind Country's Daimyo was almost among that list as well, but he was rescued by the Kazekage's sister at the last moment. I believe you know her? Temari of the Desert?"

"Heh. So Gaara became Kazekage? I'm not surprised in the slightest. I gotta get him something as a congratulations gift. Better late than never." The blonde smirked and shook his head. "And about the wars?"

Kabuto remained quiet as he took in the teen's reaction. It was almost as if he had expected the redhead to get the hat by the time he returned. "Well, there are still quite a few minor conflicts between the lesser countries, which is expected especially with many of their lords being picked off, however the one to make note of is of course between Iwa and Konoha. Your encounter with Han caused more than just some ripples in a few ponds Naruto-kun."

"Ugh. Don't remind me. That mission set the high bar on how messed up one can get. Literally." The jinchuriki moaned. "When I left they were talking about sending me on missions that already went wrong so I'm not able to jinx the normal missions anymore."

The spy couldn't help but chuckle at that comment. "That's a bit of a stretch isn't it?"

The blonde looked at him with a calm and serious expression. "You're the information specialist. Have a look at my mission history and you tell me what you see."

Kabuto had to suppress a shiver going down his spine. "I-I'll keep that in mind."

Sighing, Naruto leaned back in his seat and slumped. "So what's the story about Iwa right now? I knew they were going to act all childish about the event and my identity being revealed, but I don't know how its turned out since I got back."

"Hmm. Well then let me inform you of what I know. War has not been officially declared, but tension is rather high between Konoha and Iwa. The Sandaime Tsuchikage is still in control and trying to reign in his people, however there is discontent on how he's handling the situation. In fact rumor has it that the village is close to a civil war between those who desire a more assertive approach to international relations and those who simply want to let bygones be bygones. Many of the former are calling for your head, whether it be due to your father's deeds in the third war, or due to you publically embarrassing them by beating their jinchuriki where everyone knows it."

"Yes. Because I totally planned to be assaulted by thirty something missing nin and a jinchuriki while in command of a chunin and six genin." Naruto rolled his slit eyes sarcastically. "Honestly? Our education system sucks something terrible. We're taught to fight and kill and history and poisons and healing and formations and signals and all that stuff, but we don't have a single class for beating humility into others and teaching people how to shut up on their own. It's like the Jonin-sensei are supposed to do the jobs of normal teachers and parents when it comes to a young shinobi's education. I mean we have genin in their forties who still have decision making skills of academy students! And civilians are supposed to believe that THESE guys are going to protect them? Scratch that, we are actually trusting explosives and deadly ninjutsu to these morons? No wonder we have so many wars."

Kabuto couldn't help but smile genuinely at the blonde. His respect for him had gone up tremendously with that rant. "You do have a valid point, and I completely agree, but then again the villages do need the manpower to perform all the missions we undergo. Beggars can't be choosers after all."

"When I become Hokage, I swear the first thing I'm gonna do is have everyone go under a psych exam. Better yet, I'll make a psych branch of shinobi run by retired Yamanaka so that I get a better idea of whose reliable and who needs to go back to school. Wait for a few years for it to take effect. Then I'll show it to all the other villages and point out to them how dumb their own mass forces are. With the distinct reduction of stupid in the world, the distance between wars should increase dramatically."

"I must say, that does sound like one of the more interesting and creative ways I've heard to spread peace recently." The spy chuckled. "And it addresses something that I've found rather irritating as well. We intellects do get rather agitated by the simplicity of the masses every now and then after all. Do try not to make them too smart though. It would be counterproductive if everyone started to believe that they were smart enough to lead a country."

"Hey. I'm just trying to make people less stupid. Trying to them actually smart is another thing completely." The blonde brushed aside the warning easily before looking a bit tired. "So Iwa's pretty much a powder keg huh? Gotta hand it to old man Onoki for being able to keep it together for this long, even if Iwa's reputation is pretty shitty."

"It depends who you ask." Kabuto shrugged. "In all honesty, they are more reliable and willing than the other nations when it comes to high risk missions... although that might simply just be their desperation showing." His eyes looked up curiously. "They do after all employ Akatsuki for a good deal of missions after all."

Naruto blinked in surprise before sighing dejectedly. "I should have guessed that at least one of the major countries hired them for something. There's no way that they would pass up the chance to get inside info and money at the same time." He paused and leered at Kabuto warily. "Speaking of Akatsuki…"

"If you are asking if any of the members have changed from your encounters with them, no. Hidan, Kakuzu, Kisame, Itachi, Sasori and Deidara are still alive, well, and doing missions for the highest bidder." The spy replied neutrally.

"And the other three mystery members?" The blonde raised an eyebrow.

Kabuto frowned. "How did… no, apparently Jiraiya-sama's information network is more detailed than I assumed. They are still active. One of them is the leader and is running things behind the scenes."

Naruto sighed and propped his head up with hand. "Mysterious organization. Hidden agenda. Secret boss hiding behind the scenes. This is playing out like some kind of comic. Be honest with me Kabuto. What are the odds that there's some hidden "true" leader behind this secret boss of Akatsuki? Because to be perfectly honest, with my luck I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case… twice over at least."

The silver haired spy remained impassive and silent, as if he was attempting to figure out what the right thing to say was.

"Log damn it." The blonde wept, taking Kabuto's silence as confirmation. "Whoever's in charge is probably obsessed with some take over the world scheme too. I hoped I'd at least have some final battle with a guy that didn't have his head up his ass. At least Orochimaru did what he did because it was simply something he wanted. The man had selfish goals and was twisted as hell yeah, but at least he was honest with them and didn't try to back them up with some half assed logic."

"An interesting way of seeing things. Not entirely agreeable to me, but I'll let it pass for now." Kabuto frowned momentarily before his eyes looked to the side.

"Thank you for waiting." The waitress smiled as she came with their food and drinks before walking away again.

She didn't make it halfway across the room before Naruto had taken his first bite of meat.

"Mmm. Good stuff." The blonde smiled happily. "They use some interesting spices here."

"Gurgle."

"Mr. Tummy approves as well."

Shaking his head at the teen's lackluster table manners, Kabuto decided to humor his companion and eat as well. "It is quite good." He agreed. He had honestly had better, but all in all the fish wasn't that bad. "They overdid the salt though."

The pair had silently ate for several more minutes before the blonde had momentarily paused and looked at the exit for a moment before turning back to his meal.

"Something the matter?" The spy asked curiously.

Naruto remained quiet for a few moments before putting on a sly and wicked grin. "Hey. You wanna play a game while we eat?"

"I consider it poor table manners to do such a thing, but I will humor you none the less." Kabuto warily raised an eyebrow. "What do you have in mind?"

Suddenly a large amount of screaming was heard from the village outside and many people ran by the stand. "The bandits are attacking again!" Some nameless villager shouted. "Everyone get inside!"

"Ah." The spy relented, not caring for the cries of fear and pain that reached his ears. He had heard far worse during his employment to Orochimaru. "I can see where this is going."

"One to take out the least bandits foots the bill?" Naruto grinned, not paying attention as the other people in the restaurant began to run away and go back home.

"I hardly find that fair considering how many clones you can make." Kabuto deadpanned, clearly not amused by the odds.

"Fine. Rules are, we stay here, I can't use clones, minimum property damage, and no killing." The teen sighed, as if doing the other male a favor.

"No killing? You just took half the fun away." The other contestant hungrily grinned.

"Gotta make this challenging somehow, don't I?" The blonde matched the spy's expression with one of his own.

"Hm. I suppose." Kabuto relented as he picked up another piece of fish just as Naruto picked another bit of pork. The two stared at one another with dangerous glints in their eyes, both silently agreeing to one another the terms of the contest.

The moment the pair bit into their food again, a new set of screams echoed throughout the small village…

o. o. o.

Konoha:

"WE HAVE THE DEMOOOOOON!" A young male voice shouted in triumph in the woods. "And it's ATTACKING MY FAAAAAAACE!"

"Could he have said that any louder?" A more subdued and congested boy's voice moaned in pain from a short distance away.

"Don't tempt him." A young female voice grumbled tiredly.

"At least we have the target." A second and more assertive girl sighed.

In a clearing nearby, four fresh genin gathered together, one of them currently getting mauled by a very large tabby cat. "HANABI-CHAN! HELP!"

Rolling her eyes, the younger daughter of Hiashi Hyuga ran forward and with a few precise strikes managed to paralyze the rampaging beast and stop its rampage of terror on her teammate's head. "And you're supposed to be our fearless leader?" She raised an eyebrow as her friend collapsed onto the ground holding his face in pain.

"The claws. The fur. They were… everywhere." The grandson of the third Hokage shivered while trying to hold back tears.

"We told you to wait for us Konohamaru-kun." Moegi pouted as she took out a first aid kit and began to treat him. "Udon could have trapped Tora without anyone getting scratched. What were you thinking?"

"Knowing him? He wasn't." Hanabi smirked as she picked up the paralyzed cat and began to pet it mockingly.

"You're both evil." The little monkey grumbled sullenly. "You and the cat. You're made for one another."

Moegi failed to hide a smirk as she treated the scratches.

Hanabi's eyebrow twitched. "Just for that I'm not helping you the next time."

"Stingy." The clueless boy grumbled in a huff.

"It's times like this that I'm glad I'm not in a major family." Udon sighed to himself.

"Team! I assume that you have the de… I mean the target." Ebisu asked in an authoritative tone as he landed in front of the group.

"More or less Sensei." Moegi replied while still treating Konohamaru.

"Devil Cat." Said casualty of war hissed.

"Child." Hanabi rolled her eyes.

"Yes. Well. Let us be off then." Ebisu coughed sheepishly. "The faster we hand in Tora, the sooner we can get back to training."

"Just let me clean this last bit up." Moegi added as she swiped the cleaning pad against Konohamaru's face gently. "Honestly Konohamaru-kun. You're not Naruto-nii-san. You can't heal like he can."

"If Naruto-nii can do it I can too! I will not let him beat me!" The Hokage hopeful argued stubbornly as he got back up.

"Idiot." Hanabi frowned. "Do you think Uzumaki-san would be happy if you did nothing but copy him? Even I know that he would want you to find your own way to be strong."

Everyone blinked momentarily before Konohamaru smacked himself his forhead. "Damn it! I hate it when you're right like this Hanabi-chan. Why are you always right!?"

"Because I'm the best." The Hyuuga smirked confidently.

"Oh?" A new and more mature female voice mused from behind the girl, causing her to stiffen instantly in fear. "Is that right? I'm surprised that you improved so much while I was gone Hanabi-chan."

"N-Nee-sama." The girl shakily turned around to see her elder sister smiling innocently behind her. "I didn't know you were back."

"Ah! It's Hinata-sama!" Udon backed up warily.

"Hinata-sama!" Moegi squealed with joy.

"Hey! It's boss' girlfriend!" Konohamaru grinned.

"Hinata-sama." Ebisu bowed politely, trying hard not to show his surprise that the teen managed to sneak up on him without his knowing.

"Honestly. I keep telling you all to just call me Hinata-san or Hinata. We aren't strangers are we?" The Princess pouted childishly, though none of the others there bought it.

"Be that as it may, proper manners dictates that we must call you as such." Ebisu reluctantly disagreed while adjusting his glasses, a habit he had whenever he was nervous. "I take it your mission went well."

Hinata nodded. "Yes. There were a few minor bumps, but nothing that Kiba-kun, Shino-kun and I couldn't handle." She paused and looked at them all curiously. "By any chance, did anything interesting happen while I was gone?"

The genin and their teacher looked at one another curiously before they all shrugged. "Other than us getting a bit stronger and learning a few new techniques and maneuvers, nothing really special has happened." Udon sniffed.

"Uncle Azuma and the old geezer have been going out on a few more "secret" meetings lately, but really I just think they're peeping again because they always come back smelling like booze, smoke, and they keep on joking about Kurenai-sensei." Konohamaru noted.

The others there wisely didn't make any comment about that.

"I think some of the local guard is moving more frequently than normal." Moegi added. "… I think."

"If anything important was needed to be known, you would have been told already Hinata-sama." Ebisu stated. "You are after all a Jonin. There is little confidential information that you don't have access to given your status."

"Is something wrong Nee-sama?" Hanabi asked curiously, noting her sister's downtrodden expression. "You look disappointed."

"No. It's nothing important Hanabi-chan." Hinata sighed and shook her head. "I just got my hopes up for nothing." She turned to confused teacher. "Enough about me. How are you doing Ebisu-san? I hope that having a team of four isn't too much."

The tutor snorted and shifted his glasses again. "Please Hinata-sama, give me some credit. Teaching is what I am best at. While it is unusual for four man teams to exist, it is not unheard of, and the team here happens to have a great deal of potential, especially when they work together."

The kids there all blushed and looked away embarrassed by the praise.

Hinata smiled sincerely. "That's a relief. I was a bit worried when I saw that the team was set up this way by Iruka-sensei due to the number of students in the class graduating, but now I see that it was all for nothing." She bowed to Ebisu. "I have to leave now. I leave my adorable sister in your hands. Farewell."

In a brief flash of dull blue light, the young woman disappeared without a trace.

"I've said it once, I'll say it again. Your sister is scary Hanabi-chan." Konohamaru shivered.

"She's so strong." Moegi sighed in awe. "A jonin at such a young age, and yet she's so pretty and nice."

I heard that she's already considered one of the strongest kunoichi in the village." Udon sniffed. "People are also saying that she's been getting a lot of marriage proposals lately from actors and royalty, but she keeps on turning them all down."

"Yeah… she is pretty amazing isn't she?" Hanabi smiled almost as if she was stuck between deciding to do it or not. "My big strong sister. Hard to believe that four years ago I was beating her constantly isn't it?"

o. o. o.

Back with Naruto:

"I should have been more specific when I said no killing." The blonde sighed in depression as he and Kabuto left the small town after paying the bill.

"If you had a problem with me permanently crippling my targets, you should have said so sooner." The spy chuckled innocently in a good mood despite losing the bet.

"You crushed at least seven of the bandit's spines with giant snakes and bit off the legs of twelve others." The blonde stated in a dead tone.

"Don't be such a poor winner. You took out twice as many bandits as I did, and I as the loser paid for lunch as we agreed. Considering you somehow made a good number of them fly headfirst into walls doesn't make you any more innocent than I." Kabuto continued still in a good mood. "I believe that the townsfolk were talking about the place being guarded by some vengeful snake spirit when we were leaving the building. They don't even know that we were involved in the "divine retribution.""

"Paid my ass. You used your snakes to loot the bodies of the ones you crippled to pay for it." Naruto deadpanned. "Don't think I didn't notice."

"To the winner go the spoils." Kabuto continued to chuckle in good humor. "I must admit though, whatever technique you were using to dispatch the bandits with was quite impressive. The fact that you seemed to be aware of everything around you without looking almost made it seem like you had the Byakugan."

"Trust me. It's harder than it looks." The other male groaned. "Handling all that info at once is a pain. There's a reason why you often see Hyuuga meditating a lot to train. Trying to see something as small and specific as Tenketsu, while still paying attention to everything else you can see in a 360 degree range vision hurts me just thinking about it. Thank all that is holy I don't have one."

The spy laughed even harder. "Hmhm. Quite ironic isn't it then that you gave Neji-kun your eye then three years ago." He inspected the boy's two eyes curiously. "I assume that your regenerative abilities can be attributed to the Kyubi."

The teen shrugged. "That and me being an Uzumaki. Being a jinchuriki already gave me a strong regeneration factor. Being an Uzumaki just made it better to the point that I was able to regrow my eye back."

The scientist's eyes flashed with curiosity. "So it IS true then. With your blonde hair I had thought that you were merely given the last name as a way to honor an old ally and to hide your identity."

Naruto frowned. "Oh no you don't. I know exactly what's going through your head Kabuto. No. I am not volunteering for any experiments. I'm already going to have to deal with Scab doing the same thing when I get back to Konoha. Get your experimenting jollies off on someone else."

Kabuto frowned before sighing in defeat. "Hah. Oh well. Can't blame me for trying." He looked up. "Color me curious, but what do you intend to do? I hardly believe that you'd be willing to stay with me for much longer, despite how well we seem to get along…"

"Who are you kidding? We'd be trying to take each other out for the sport of it by the end of the week." The blonde snickered. "Odds are likely that we'll end up on opposite sides of some major conflict sooner or later."

"And it would look rather bad for the both of us if you were seen spending time with a missing nin when you should be back home in Konoha." The spy continued, neither acknowledging nor denying Naruto's statements. "Especially with Akatsuki on the move again."

Naruto laughed. "Yeah. I can see the headlines now. Konoha royalty eating a sandwich with crazed scientist, details on page… wait what was that about Akatsuki?"

"They've already captured the Rokubi." Kabuto stated calmly as he adjusted his glasses. "And my sources tell me that as soon as they seal it they will go after another jinchuriki. Given how long it has been since I was told this, I believe that they are already on their way to get it now."

The Kyubi's container let out a dry snort. "Leave it to you Kabuto to know things no one else does. I would put you on my payroll when I become Hokage, but you don't seem like the type to stick to any single employer for long."

"Even Orochimaru-sama had trouble telling where my loyalties lay on occasion." The medic smirked, denying nothing.

"So then." Naruto asked in a seemingly casual tone with his body relaxed. "Is there any chance that you know which jinchuriki in particular they are going to go after now?"

"Hmmm." Kabuto mused as if thinking it over. "Well I could give you some more details, but what sort of information broker would I be if I told you this without some sort of recompense? Truth be told, I have already told you many things that I would charge an arm and a leg for."

"And I've willingly shown and told you things that are just as valuable." The teen sighed. "The fact that you know that I'm here and where I would be going soon is worth a goldmine to someone like you if you work fast enough."

"Quite true. You know my trade better than most." The elder male nodded in agreement. "What makes you think that I would not lie to you and send you into a trap?"

The jinchuriki smirked and crossed his arms. "Because I'm able to get info that even you can't get at otherwise, and staying on my good side means that the possibility of future transactions will stay quite realistic."

Kabuto matched the smirk with one of his own. "My assumption that you enjoy the dangerous life was not off in the slightest it seems. People like you are a pleasant rarity Naruto Uzumaki. However I am still a man of business, and we are talking of trade. I would still be in possession of the pieces of information you have mentioned so long as I gave you a destination. Then again, you have been more than a pleasant travel companion despite our history." He snapped his fingers. "I have it. If you can tell me this, I will tell you who they are after next."

"Well that doesn't sound ominous in the slightest." Naruto observed casually.

"Oh rest easy, I don't need your help to get access to most bits of confidential information." The spy waved his hands casually. "No, what I want to know is something a bit more… speculative."

The blonde raised an eyebrow. "Still sounding pretty ominous to me."

"You're dealing with an information trade specialist in a world of shinobi, trained killers. I'd be surprised if you found high level information that wasn't ominous in some way."

"Touché."

"Now that we have that out of the way, perhaps you can finally sate my curiosity. You are after all the one that knows them best." Kabuto nodded. "Tell me. Just who are the Oogakari, and what do they want?"

o. o. o.

Konoha:

"Nothing yet?" Tsunade sighed as she sat in front of Ibiki and Inoichi.

"No." Inoichi replied. "No one in the information and espionage department have found anything regarding to Naruto-kun or Ghost-san. Save for what we know and your and the Rookie Twelve's supposed simultaneous reaction to their chakra signatures, they could still be anywhere by now."

"That's a sobering thought." Ibiki snorted.

"Not going to work." Tsunade grunted. "If I can binge with Jiraiya and Orochimaru as teammates, nothing short of impending war would get me to stop."

"That's not supposed to be something to let other people know Hokage-sama." Inoichi laughed nervously.

"You're in charge of the information departments. I'm confident you can keep your mouths shut." The woman stated as if it was obvious before closing her eyes and sighed. "Honestly. The longer we wait for those two, the more I have a feeling that it means that something is going to go off in our faces."

"You're not the only one." Ibiki nodded. "I know those two are noted to be remarkably sharp when needed, but having them alone and representing Konoha for any extended period of time doesn't leave me with pleasant feelings."

"Neither does leaving Jiraiya alone to travel the world, but we let him do that too." The Hokage added offhandedly.

No one dared to mention Tsunade's own "extended leave" of Konoha.

"What of the other Oogakari?" Inoichi asked curiously. "The ones that felt what you felt all seem eager for Naruto-kun's and Ghost-san's return, but what about them?"

"No real change as far as I can tell." Ibiki shrugged. "Still as crazy as ever. Still as unreadable as ever." He turned to Tsunade. "Didn't the old one walk into a meeting recently smelling like bacon?"

"Oh yeah. That happened." Inoichi sighed. "It wouldn't have been that bad if Choza didn't forget to eat that morning. He was fidgeting throughout the entire meeting. A few times I thought he might actually try to eat Waltz-sama."

"For some reason he smells like it when he's set on fire. Don't ask why. We probably don't want to know." Tsunade bluntly stated, silently ordering him to drop that particular topic.

"Nuts. All of them are nuts. Even the normal ones are warped in some way." The scarred interrogator sighed.

"So either they know something and aren't worried, they're better at hiding their insecurities than we are, or they just don't care what happens." Inoichi summarized reluctantly. "Any way you see it, unless things get out of hand it doesn't look like they'll be willing to do anything to help us find them."

"I'm not surprised." The Hokage observed. "Knowing them they'd probably hope for things to get worse just so that dealing with whatever happens gets more interesting." She closed her eyes. "They wouldn't be responsible for it no, but if they knew something that could prevent it early, they would go out of their way to ensure that no one found out about it." She held back a laugh. "That is of course unless the threat was too big or if the enemy targeted kids. Then they'd probably be wiped out before even Danzo knew what happened."

Ibiki smirked. "Gotta admit. That old geezer sure knew what he was doing when he interrogated that Hyuuga. The giant prune set the record on how fast and badly you could traumatize an adult dojutsu user with your bare hands and not give them immediate life threatening injuries. The boys are still trying to figure out the physics of how he nailed that one guy to the ceiling with his own arm while he was still alive."

"Ugh. Not that again." Inoichi groaned. As a senior member of the interrogation department with Ibiki, he was well aware that the lower ranks there tended to focus their spare time on some of the most morally disturbing topics. "If I have to hear about the angle of impact and the time needed to get a body up there before they suffered from the shock of being de-armed one more time…"

"A little over four seconds, give or take given who it is, what they were doing at the time, and what their medical history is like." Tsunade offhandedly yawned before noting the looks the two men were giving her. "Oi don't give me that look. I'm the world's strongest woman and best medic around for a reason you know. I did a lot of dirty work in the second war."

"Right." Ibiki nodded. "Well for the most part we have nothing more to report Hokage-sama. Hopefully Jiraiya-sama will have better luck. If what you said about sensing the kid is true, then there's little doubt that he's caught onto it as well."

"That's who I was going to call next." The woman admitted shamelessly. "Let me know if you find anything new."

"Right." Both men nodded before each disappearing in a puff of smoke.

"Honestly. Even when he's not here the brat is making us worry needlessly." The Hokage grunted as she leaned back in her chair and felt her spine pop. "Isn't that right?"

"He wouldn't be Naruto-kun if he didn't." Hinata replied as she appeared just outside the woman's window. "So he isn't here yet."

"If he was, there'd be a great deal more high pitched screaming and explosions in the village." The elder woman snorted without turning around. "Come inside Hinata. You're not ANBU. You don't have to hide yourself when talking to me."

Faster and smoother than most eyes could follow, the Hyuuga heiress entered the room and closed the window behind her before stopping in front of her leader's desk. "I take it you wish to talk to me Hokage-sama?"

"What? Can't us girls enjoy casual chatting every once in a while?" The middle aged woman raised an eyebrow wryly before inspecting the girl in front of her. "My my how time flies. I can't believe that the you in front of me now came from that tiny little thing those years ago…"

What Tsunade didn't mention was that she was referring to the old old Hinata. The small child before the time travelling, before Akatsuki, before Naruto developed a second brain cell.

Stuttering. Lacking of confidence. Trying her hardest to grow even the slightest to simply prove to herself that she was worth something.

The young woman in front of her was none of that. She stood calm and confident with enough power and skill to be considered one of the best in the village, even at her young age. And yet she remained humble to such a degree that few people even thought she was the ideal kunoichi… at least for advertisement purposes.

It was times like this that Tsunade was in fact grateful for the Oogakari's interference.

"Come now Tsunade-sama." Hinata sheepishly blushed. "There are still plenty of others who are better than me. I'm just doing the best I can to help everyone out."

"Of course there are people better than you out there. You're fifteen. You're not supposed to be the best." The Hokage rolled her eyes lazily as if she was stating the obvious. "You are on the other hand one of the most promising kunoichi in your age group I have ever seen. Myself included. Given a few more years and I might even consider you to be a candidate for the hat."

The pale eyed girl blinked in surprise. "F-F-for Hokage? Tsunade-sama you must be joking. I'm so young and I'm the Hyuuga Heiress and…"

"The current Kazekage is your age, and unless you've forgotten, I'm the clan head for the Senju… though the latter doesn't really matter much at this point." The blonde woman interrupted the girl casually. "Power wise you're still a bit underwhelming compared to what's expected out of someone in the position, but you still have time to grow. You're more mature than half of my jonin. You're more familiar with politics than nearly ALL of them, and your loyalty is unquestionable. Experience wise is the same as power. You have plenty of it, but you can get more with more time."

The Hyuuga shifted around uncomfortably. "But what about Jiraiya-sama, or Kakashi-sensei…"

"Or Naruto? Right?" Tsunade knowingly finished. "They are all being considered as well. I only said that you have the potential to get the hat, not that you would get it. Truth be told, that lazy friend of yours Shikamaru is also being looked at, but less than the others. He's got the head for the job, but people like him are better for jobs other than slaving behind a desk and dealing with politics. And truth be told…" She leaned over her desk and put her hand over her mouth as if telling a secret. "… I'm honestly a bit scared about what laws the brat would make up if he was put in charge. We'd possibly be in debt due to over purchasing ramen within a month."

Hinata blinked for a moment before giggling. "That is a possibility Tsunade-sama, but if he ever got that bad, his friends would be there to stop him."

"Or you would. Whichever came first." The leader grinned wryly. "Your group really don't know how good you have it. I barely remember the names of the shinobi my age save for Jiraiya and Orochimaru. The academy was more strict when I was young and so socializing was down to a minimum so we could focus more on training."

She didn't mention that she was a bit of a brat when she was a kid. Damn Hashirama, spoiling her silly as a brat.

"It didn't help that the second and third wars combined with countless missions and our hazardous occupation culled down their numbers down to virtually nothing. I think I remember inspecting some of their bodies during the second war in particular when I was on corpse retrieval duty. Hanzo really was a relentless monster then." The woman sighed, leaning back into her chair. "And now every few months or so Jiraiya and I go out to get smashed and talk about the good old days and what several of your parents were like when they were annoying kids. Honestly. When did I get so old?"

Hinata remained quiet, not exactly sure what to say at the woman's rather sobering reminiscing.

"Being so close to so many friends is a blessing and a curse in our occupation Hinata. Never forget that." The woman continued on. "They can be your greatest strength and your greatest weakness in so many ways. My fiancée was a Hokage candidate before he was killed. My little brother was killed even earlier. Both shinobi and both scarred me heavily. If I wasn't such a wreck at the time, Orochimaru's betrayal would have affected me more than it did. Of course Jiraiya and Sensei would still be hurt more by it than me."

"Ah, and the worst part of it was that even though I was a big name even then, my closest loved ones were simply a casualty of circumstance. I blamed myself for not being able to heal them. I blamed Konoha for a while for being the reason why they died. But in the end the story was the same. The world can be merciless at the drop of the hat, for no reason, for no purpose, for no alternative plot. Misfortune is just as natural as the wind, as is happiness, joy, pain, love, and loss. To dwell on the situation is the same as to dwell on the weather. Unless it leads to something it's better to simply stop after a short amount of time."

"… May I ask why you are telling me this Hokage-sama?" Hinata asked with formality and with a hint of coldness. "As a jonin and a designated commander of Konoha's forces, I have undergone the training and conditioning regarding these subjects."

She did not mention how little she cared for such conditioning, as it involved subjecting her to mock missions without her knowing and subjecting her to genjutsu to see her teams and loved ones die or get tortured right in front of her. It took her five unexpected attempts before she managed to get used to the effects and keep her head on enough to pass the test, and even then she was rather unnerved after the success. It was a rather cruel thing to do, but necessary as she needed to ensure that she could make the right decisions in any situation.

It didn't help that instead of a standard genjutsu, the proctors had been taken to using another one of Crypt's seals to provide the illusion, ensuring that whoever was trapped in it to at least be shaken up and at most be absolutely hysterical.

And that was AFTER they told him to tone down the effects.

Ibiki used the earlier versions for interrogating the more stubborn prisoners. He was far from disappointed.

"Mmm." Tsunade mused aridly. "One of the strongest signs of a Kage is being able to hold things together no matter how bad the situation becomes. Dealing with poor events is one thing, but to be responsible, to have your NAME as the reason why they did it in the first place, and still manage it to come out on top is another thing completely… and being able to recover when you lose horribly." She looked at the girl carefully. "The sad truth of the matter is that you will have to be familiar with great loss of your own machination to be truly capable of doing this job properly. You would be essentially sending people to their potential deaths with this hat. This includes friends, family, and loved ones. Over and over and over again."

The woman shook her head. "I wasn't kidding when I first said this job is cursed. No one in their right mind would truly want it, not if they paid attention to what it truly meant. Not in our world. I guess it's part of the reason why all the Kage in the world are a bit twisted in some way… or they're incredibly thick. One of the two at least."

"… And this is what you look for in candidates as well?" Hinata asked warily.

"One could say it has to be one of their strongest traits." Tsunade dryly smirked. "The more normal ones gotta have outlets to relieve the stress, otherwise they'll snap. Kakashi. Jiraiya… even Naruto have this in great degrees. They are strong in this area. They are all a bit off, but they know when to take risks and handle great unfortunate responsibility and keep on going the next day to the best of their abilities regardless of how much it hurts."

"You are saying that I don't have this." The Hyuuga stated skeptically.

"No. Everyone has it." Tsunade shook her head. "It's whether or not you can control yourself enough to use it that's the problem. You have the same issue I do when it comes to this… you care a great deal for others."

The girl frowned in confusion. "I'm afraid I don't understand Tsunade-sama. What do you mean by that?"

The elder woman leaned back into her chair. "When my brother and fiancée died, with the latter doing so slowly right in front of me despite my best efforts, my heart and soul were crushed, and I developed a strong case of hemophobia. Soon after that I left the village on a drinking and gambling spree that few could hope to ever match, all in a vain attempt to forget the past. I ignored my family, my friends, my teachers, virtually everyone because of my self pity. All because I put all of my heart and being into supporting those two and had them cruelly ripped away."

She leered at the girl. "I am not blind Hinata. You trained as hard as you did primarily because of Naruto, because of the challenges he has to face soon… very soon in fact. You have a great heart and care deeply about those around you, and your strength is proof of that. What I am afraid of is what would happen if one of them died because of something that you blame yourself for."

"I don't want you to end up like me if things don't turn out the way we hope them to."

o. o. o.

Suna:

"So this is Suna hm?" Deidara raised an eyebrow as he and Sasori approached the east entrance at three in the morning. The sky was dark and the land cold, as expected of the desert in the middle of the night. It made the massive walls of the hidden village all the more prominent and ominous as one walked closer to it. "There's a sort of beauty here. The way it just appears like this in the middle of nowhere like a fleeting illusion. Hm."

"There's a massive but simple seal array that makes the village appear like a mirage from a distance. The local sandstorms help make the charade more believable." Sasori explained stoically. "Unless you know the proper way to approach the village, you'll be disoriented by the illusions and you'll get lost in the storms."

"Scary scary." The bomb specialist smirked. "That's certainly an unartistic way to go."

"They were still occasionally finding bodies from the first war when I left." The puppetmaster admitted.

"It's a more interesting setup than what Iwa has." Deidara mused. "The mountains hide and do most of the work defending that boring place. Whenever we were attacked, we'd just use ninjutsu to cause rockslides or use the underground tunnels to outmaneuver them." He spat to the side. "Cowards."

"But it worked." Sasori pointed out before stopping, looking up at the rows of Suna shinobi that were standing on the slabs of sandstone that made up the main walls of the village.

"Yeah, but it left little room to be creative." Deidara continued without apparently taking note of the enemy in front of him. "Save for using my art to make MORE rockslides and route the enemy, I was left with nothing to do. When I left my balls were bluer than Kisame's. Hm."

"What have I told you about going too far with your descriptions?" The elder missing nin growled irritably, trying to banish the mental images from his head.

"Halt!" Some random jonin shouted with so much authority he was adorable to the intruders. "Black coats with red clouds. You are members of Akatsuki! Surrender now or we will-"

BANG!

A clay spider had jumped up from the shadows during the man's speech, attached itself to his face, and blown up his head in a spectacular show of blood and gore.

The natives there would probably have reacted to it, but at the same time several other spiders had jumped out and assaulted other members all over the wall, executing them in much the same bloody manner.

"Hey Sasori-danna. Just wondering, do you know why Leader was dumb enough to make us all wear a uniform that anyone can easily identify?" The bomb artist asked curiously, completely ignoring the massacre and screaming in front of him.

"Because he's strong enough to make us do it, and we're strong enough that being identified doesn't really matter." Sasori replied in a bored tone, deflecting the few sparse kunai and weapons thrown at them with his giant tail. "I was interested in the project, and didn't really care much about the uniform, so I went with it. Arguing would have served no real purpose in the end and caused things to take longer. And I hate waiting."

Reaching up to his mouth, the puppetmaster undid the mask of his, or rather Hiruko's face, and revealed his mechanical mouth opening. Within moments hundreds of metal senbon coated in deadly poison shot out with the force of bullets in a wide spread at the enemy, causing more death and chaos among the ranks.

"Scary." The blonde man chuckled as he saw men and women drop like flies in front of him. Unable to regroup. Unable to find cover. Unable to gain enough time to form seals.

Among all the members of Akatsuki, Sasori could be considered to be the best equipped and have among the widest range of skills. Deidara had more powerful and destructive ninjutsu, but they were limited in their area of effect. Where they went off was where the damage was. Sasori on the other hand could switch from precise to spread damage to seals with mechanical and destructive ease. It was this adaptability that made the man from Suna one of the more dangerous members of the organization. No one knew just what his full range of skills was or what he would use for any given situation if pushed.

In less than a minute, the roughly hundred shinobi standing guard had been either been blown apart, skewered, poisoned, or fallen to their deaths from their perch.

"Hmm." Sasori growled as he inspected the area skeptically.

"Something the matter? Did you use an extra senbon?" Deidara mocked.

"I had a sleeper spy set up here." Sasori replied. "When I activated his seal, he was supposed to be in charge of this entrance." He tilted his head down darkly, the hat he wore did nothing to hide the malevolent look in his mechanical eyes. "I don't like being made to wait."

"He probably got caught." The bomber shrugged as he casually walked down the narrow groove in the wall that led into the village. "It doesn't matter much. Hm. All we have to do is stir things up a bit to flush the jinchuriki out and then get him."

"It'll take longer than I want." The elder grumbled irritably, clearly not wanting to deal with the harder way. "But it appears that we have no choice. Be quick about it. The longer we wait, the more of a chance they'll find out where we came in from and make it a pain to escape."

"Sometimes I wonder which one of us is the brat with how much you moan. Hn." The blonde laughed genuinely as he stuck a hand into one of his clay pouches. "Well regardless, I've heard that this jinchuriki is pretty strong, so I stocked up on extra clay."

"Don't go overboard brat. Remember, we need him alive." Sasori reminded Deidara as they emerged on the other side of the wall, overlooking a good portion of the village.

"Humph." The younger snorted as he took out his hand and held out a bird molded out of clay. "Do I look like Hidan to you? I know what Leader said." Whipping out his arm, he threw the sculpture and flared his chakra, causing the tiny toy to transform into a giant pale and odd looking bird. Moments later he jumped onto the creature with natural ease and looked down at his partner. "Don't worry. I'll get the target. No one can stand up to my art."

"Just don't take forever this time. You're always playing around when it comes to stronger targets." The puppetmaster frowned.

"What can I say? I'm a man that enjoys his job and tries to get the most out of it whenever inspiration arrives! Hm!" Deidara laughed as he took to the sky with a sadistic grin on his face. Truly nothing got him more excited than when he was about to undertake another large project, because any "big" job for him normally required "big" explosions, something he loved from the bottom of his heart. The fact that he was allowed to go buck wild on an entire village if needed only further excited the nineteen year old fanatic.

Feeling the dry cold air whip his long hair around, the explosives expert allowed himself to do a few aerial tricks for the hell of it before getting down to business and scanning the land below with the scope on his left eye.

"One. Two. Three. Four… Huh." The man raised an eyebrow as he counted the number of shinobi who appeared to be inspecting the sky. "At least a dozen? That's more than I expected."

His statement had some logic behind it. The number of shinobi in the world that were capable of flight over long distances, even if it was with the aid of summons, was notoriously low. In fact the save for himself and Onoki, Deidara only knew of two other living people off the top of his head that could pull it off with ease, Pain and Konan. Which meant…

"They've been expecting me. Hm." The bomber's glare deepened before his hands went to his pouches. Contrary to his eyes, his mouth merely widened its grin into something savage. "Well then. If that's the case, I might as well not disappoint them. I'll just have to turn this entire village into my gallery by the time I'm gone." He turned to the large building in the center of the village and looked at the guards around the area. "But first the jinchuriki…"

Say what you would about Deidara, but none could deny that his ninjutsu and his use of it was artful in a sense. Using nothing more than a lump of shaped clay the size of a large marble for each target, the man easily killed at least half a dozen trained shinobi before they knew what hit them. Each lump of clay had landed on the building near their target, turning into a large spider that silently crept up upon their target and exploded with lethal but surprisingly minimal force. The sounds from the explosions echoed briefly across the village, but the damage had been made only to their targets ensuring that as little attention was drawn to them as possible.

Flying down towards the top of the building, the explosive specialist's next step was to try and sneak into the Kazekage tower and take out the jinchuriki when he slept. Then he'd escape, blowing up the tower in the process in a show of art, perhaps set off a C3 bomb on his flight back to Sasori, and then be home free…

His planning for the near future however were instantly thrown out the window however as his senses screamed at him to dodge. Not even hesitating, the man commanded his animated bird to beat its wings hard and rose just in time to avoid something impossibly fast flash right past him. His ordeal wasn't finished yet however as he then had to hold on when the aftershock the thing had made buffeted his mount around violently, cutting up his work quite a bit on the underside. Beneath him, he vaguely heard several windows of the building beneath him crack from the pressure as well.

"What the hell?! Hn!" The artist swore as he gained more elevation and turned to see what on earth had nearly torn him to shreds… and saw a blonde woman in a black robe and the standard vest roughly his age surfing on a large ornate battle fan which was flying through the air faster than anything he had ever seen. Within moments his attacker had u-turned and flown to his direction with unnatural ease.

"Deidara of Iwa. S class missing nin and member of Akatsuki." The woman crossed her arms sternly as she approached him. "Why do I have the feeling you are not here to surrender?"

Not at all intimidated by the woman's attack, the fellow blonde man stood up straight again and lowered his hands to his pouches. "You tell me." He grinned while eyeing her and her weapon. "I gotta say, I'm impressed. You must be Suna's Sora no Mai I've heard about. Yeah… you definitely have a great artistic quality on you."

"I have a boyfriend pervert." Temari frowned. "I'd surrender if I were you."

"Humph. Don't underestimate me or my art woman." Deidara snorted as he began to mould and shape the clay in his hands. "Just curious though. How did you know I was here?"

A tinge of red appeared on the woman's face. "One of the guards you killed was right above my apartment."

The bomber smirked. "I see. So I interrupted your alone time with whatever fool you spend time with. Well then I have good news for you then!" He whipped out his hands, unleashing half a dozen flying exploding birds at the young woman. "At least your night will end with a bang!"

The birds didn't even make it halfway to their target before Temari reacted with gusto.

The instant she saw the attack coming, the blonde woman bent forward, retracted the small fan like protrusion on the top of her weapon so that it folded into the main shaft, grabbed it, and continued to flip forward with the fan following suit.

"FUTON! ANRYUU (Wind style: Undercurrent)!"

Deidara could confidently say that the following chaotic wall of air that erupted from the fan was the largest and most violent wind ninjutsu he had ever experienced or seen in his life. Only his quick reactions had enabled him to avoid a direct hit and merely escape with his mount's back right side torn to shreds alongside his failed attack birds, their remains flying back all over the village in sizes that would not enable any real destruction save for some minor wounds and property damage.

"Shit!" The bomber swore as his hands emerged from his pouches once again during his fall, having already been in there the moment he had finished his prior attack. In one hand was another bird like mount for him, this time in the shape of an owl, and in the other was several more bird bombs, ones of his faster and more agile variety. Whipping out his arms and letting loose his new creations, the man barely had time to evade Temari shoot by him on top of her fully expanded fan again. Thankfully this time the slipstream behind her was nowhere near as violent as before and merely gave him a few grazing cuts.

"She's good…" Deidara grimaced as he got to work making more bombs while rapidly climbing through the air, watching as she outraced his faster explosives by a wide margin. Her fuuton ninjutsu is really potent as was her speed. Even if she misses a charge, just being near where she was would cause some serious damage. His standard aerial dodging was useless here. Fighting her in the air is definitely not going to work in his favor, but going to the ground where rest of the village is would be worse.

He paused as he watched the girl turn widely towards his direction. Her agility was lower at high speeds though. He could use that to his advantage, but he would still have to be careful for the slipstream. That little trick alone would cause a good deal of trouble for him.

A direct attack would be useless against this one and would only prompt her to make another one of those monstrous wind attacks. He'd have to be more creative. Lucky for him, being creative was a requirement for an artist of his level.

When Temari managed to cross half the distance between the two, Deidara dove back down to the ground, or more accurately to the large village below.

"The hell you'll get away!" The woman yelled as she followed him down at breakneck speeds, crouching down to become more aerodynamic, blazing past the buildings of her home village so fast that it all looked like a blur.

The male blonde couldn't help but shiver in anticipation as his clay owl beat its wings hard to maintain its head start. Barely looking behind him, he could see his opponent rapidly catching up to him, distorting the air behind her visibly and violently in the process. "Scary. Scary. And to think I assumed only Jinchuriki would give me trouble. Lucky I brought extra clay for this, otherwise I might have run out. Hm."

A moment later his mouth beat its powerful wings in order to do a sharp right angle turn down another of the village's main streets. "Then again, I don't expect this to take long in the first place…"

Temari clicked her teeth in irritation as her target went out of sight. She had a good idea what his general plan was and in all honesty she probably would have done the same with the roles reversed, however there was little she could do about it. She had to stay on top of the man as much as possible or else he might start attacking the villagers.

Thrusting out her feet and thus the fan in front of her like a snowboard and ignoring the heavy inertia she placed on herself, the Jonin managed to slow down enough to obtain enough control to turn into the oncoming street, putting on another large burst of speed as she went down her new path…

She almost didn't notice the three dozen white spots jumping around the area she was crossing until it was too late.

"KATSU!" Deidara shouted in triumph as the easy to miss bombs exploded in mid air right in front of the woman, shattering the windows in the area and causing a good amount of screaming in the process. If he couldn't set them off on his target and couldn't catch her with them normally, he'd just have to set them off right in front of her…

His elation however only lasted for a second as a moment later the woman burst out of the fire and clouds virtually unharmed with a cone of what appeared to be wind coming from the tip of her fan encompassing her.

"Futon. Mahha Shouheki (Wind Style. Mach Barrier)." The female blonde growled irritably before instantly accelerating and causing her defense to narrow as a result.

"Damn!" The male swore as he barely managed to turn onto another street before the woman tore through where he was. It still didn't protect him and the buildings from the sonic boom that followed soon afterwards, all but shattering him, his eardrums, and the windows nearby. "I think she's actually doing more damage to the village than I am."

His best chance to take her out was in the sandstone jungle where he could plant his traps, however with all the chaos she was stirring up the entire village might as well be up by this point, meaning he was in striking distance for most of the local population.

"Heh. Damned if I do and damned if I don't." He shook his ringing head mockingly before taking his hands out of his pouches and began to mould more clay. "Regardless, I have to make this quick and get to the objective and this girl needs some extra firepower to take out… I guess it couldn't hurt to be a bit more generous with my art. A hidden village would make a fine gallery after all…"

Instead of trying to turn around and find Deidara up close, Temari had shot straight up to the sky for the aerial view soon after she had missed her charge, making a full half loop before twisting herself so that she was standing once more on her prized ramidreju. As a native of Sunagakure and having flown through its buildings and streets countless times for fun over the past few years, Temari knew all of the possible routes her target could have taken since she last saw him.

Looking down she could already see a good number of shinobi gathering outside, primarily gathering towards where the bomber had tried to kill her with those exploding crickets and where she broke the sound barrier.

In the back of her mind she winced. Gaara had chided her more than once about doing that within the village when she had initially been testing out how fast she could go. The property damage she managed to accumulate in one particular run had been hauntingly large as was the bill that came along with it. Royalty or not, shelling out that amount of cash had left her on a budget for a good while.

Hopefully if she managed to catch the asshat trying to kidnap her brother, she would get a reward large enough to cover for the damages.

It only took a few seconds for her to spot her target. For all the stealth he displayed earlier, he really was quite oblivious to the fact that his creations stuck out in the night with their pale complexions. The only way they could have stuck out more was if they reflected light or shown in all the colors of the rainbow.

"I'll get you this time." She growled as she once more dove towards the ground with terrifying speed, once more shattering the sound barrier with ease and waking more people in the village in the process. Not that she could see individual people at that point of course. Moving as fast as she was the Jonin had developed a solid case of tunnel vision with the rapidly growing white bird at its core. Its red and black passenger glanced back nervously, not expecting her to close up on him even faster than she had before.

She was going to get him this time. She could see his eye widening, his hands raised to defend himself… his grin widening and two fingers extended as his entire body turned the same pale color as its mount…

"Shi-!"

BOOM!

Once more Temari had run headfirst into Deidara's trap, and unlike last time this explosion had some definite kick to it proven by the buildings that took significant structural damage nearby.

Once more Temari had emerged on the other side of the debris. Intact, but not unharmed or unhindered as the arms she held in front of her head were fairly burnt, as were a few portions of the rest of her body which were unfortunately fused to her clothes, which happened occasionally when dealing with fire based damage. Her fan had a few minor tears in it but was for the most part still functional.

"That was dangerous." She winced. If she didn't have her shield up, that would have without a doubt killed her. Thankfully due to the way her Mach Barrier worked, the faster she went the stronger her defense became. It's one of the reasons why she was confident enough to do her head first charges in the first place, but her opponent was stronger than she thought. Unfortunately thanks to that blast she wasn't moving fast enough to make it a viable resource. "I have to get some distance again. I can't go my top speed now, but I can at least run interference until…"

Her thoughts were interrupted as her senses screamed at her to move, and against a member of Akatsuki she didn't bother to think about it.

Without even looking the Kazekage's sister in one movement collapsed and grabbed the tip of her fan while rolling forward and managed to blow off course the large pale dragon like bomb that had been heading straight for her like a charging bull, forcing it up and lacerating its body heavily in the process…

However it still wasn't enough to protect her when the damn thing blew up right over her head, burning her even more and throwing her violently down to the hard ground with her villagers watching in shock and fear…

Her landing though was softer and less painful than she had expected as layers and coils of sand caught her and cushioned her fall until she was resting comfortably on top of the coarse stones.

"I thought I told you not to break the sound barrier in the village." Gaara dryly chided from atop his own floating platform of sand while keeping his eyes on Deidara.

The blonde female winced as she got back up. Her right arm, side, and back were littered with burns of varying degrees. She wouldn't be able to fly or use taijutsu well anytime soon, however that didn't mean she was useless. "I was hoping the bounty would pay for it." She wittedly replied, looking up at her opponent, who had traded his bird themed mounts for a much larger dragon that had a long worm like tail.

"Not bad." Deidara smirked as he floated on his C2 Dragon. He had assumed that he would manage to waste the woman with that last attack, however her quick reaction time and the Jinchuriki's arrival managed to prove him wrong, not that he cared. His maneuver gave him the desired result of at least getting rid of the fellow blonde's mobility, which was what made her the most dangerous in his eyes. Without that, he could just take his time with her from outside her attack range.

More importantly though, was the fact that his target had finally showed himself.

"About time you woke up! Hm!" The Akatsuki smirked. "What took you so long? We were tearing up your little village for quite a while!"

Gaara didn't blink. "I was trying to sleep after trying to convince Shukaku that rampant genocide does not qualify as a legitimate hobby for three hours."

Temari couldn't help but snort despite the pain she was in. Even after three years her brother was still trying to domesticate, or at least temper the mad ichibi. Progress was slow… however the two did occasionally agree and work together on a few things with excellent synergy.

… Such as when they both wished to horrifically maim or kill something that irritated them greatly.

Raising his arms up slowly, Gaara commanded the desert sand around the village to rise like an encompassing ominous tsunami of sand.

As the walls gained in height, their summoner too seemed to become more malevolent in appearance as his skin began to develop blue markings from head to toe, and a large bushy tail the color of sand and bearing the same markings reared from his backside.

Deidara couldn't help but sweat as he looked around and saw the environment being turned against him. "Oi oi. This is a bit much for a simple terrain advantage isn't it?"

Everyone in the village shivered as they felt the desert seemingly awaken and rise. Someone had disturbed its slumber, and that someone was about to face the consequences of their actions tenfold.

o. o. o.

Elsewhere in the village:

"Honestly." Shikamaru snorted as he looked up and watched Gaara unleash hell upon Deidara in the form of massive claws coming in from every direction. "If I didn't know him better I'd almost think he's showing off."

He would have been angrier that his girlfriend had nearly been killed twice now, but in all honesty Gaara was doing a damn good job of exacting just revenge in his place. Plus Gaara would be able to protect the blonde better than the shadow user could in this situation.

"Astounding." Chiyo whispered. "He has completely surpassed anything the Third Kazekage could accomplish."

"Focus guys." Kankuro growled. "Akatsuki works in pairs. There's another S ranked nut around here and we don't know where he is. If the information is correct, then Deidara's partner is…"

"Sasori. We know." Shikamaru rolled his eyes before kneeling down and placing two fingers on the ground with one hand and holding up two more with his other in front of his face to focus.

In an instant, his shadow spread out in all directions like a spider web using thin nearly invisible strands of darkness, connecting to the larger building shadows near him… which in turn reached out to the next closest shadows nearby via the same method… and again… and again constantly and repeatedly with blinding speed until virtually every shadow and silhouette in the village walls were in some way connected to his own. The entire process took at most twenty seconds.

"Found him." The shadow user frowned as he stood back up and canceled the technique. "There's a person with a large chakra level at the opening to the east entrance with an abnormal body. Easily bigger than anyone else's reserves here in the village save for Gaara's."

"Abnormal body…" Chiyo frowned. "He might be using Hiruko. It would explain why we never heard of anybody matching his physical description since he disappeared."

"Is that so?" Kankuro frowned before reaching for one of the many scrolls hanging off his side. "Well then if you two don't mind, I think I'll take first crack at him. Out of the three of us, I'm the best when it comes to getting past heavy defenses…"

o. o. o.

With Sasori:

"… This may be too much." The puppetmaster frowned as he saw waves of sand assault his partner from all sides. Itachi or Kisame would have been more suitable for a fight like this. At the very least they should have lured him out of the desert by kidnapping someone.

Pain had vastly understated how much of a boost a terrain advantage would give their target big time. He would have to bring this up in the next meeting.

Sasori was not a fool. Unlike all the other members of Akatsuki save for maybe Konan, he had started off with a normal body with little to no real assets or connections. He did not have a bloodline like Pain, Deidara, Itachi, or Zetsu. He was not trained by a Kage or had access to a summoning contract or otherworldly existences or abnormally unique jutsu like Orochimaru, Kakuzu, or Hidan. And he certainly did not have a legendary weapon or an ungodly powerful body like Kisame.

All he had were his puppets, poisons, and his seals. All common branches of ninjutsu from Suna (save for the seals which were also far from unknown) that every shinobi worth their headband had heard, dealt, or seen of at one point or another.

Every strategy, every weapon, every tool he used were created from scratch by him from the ground up. In a way, it could easily be said that he was one of the most intelligent and creative members of Akatsuki. If not for his patience issues, he'd probably be the smartest one there.

In that sense, he could relate to Deidara pretty well, who also had created his own unique if not obnoxious ninjutsu by himself without aid. Despite their different views of "art" and the fact that their home villages are perpetually at one another's throats, they were pretty much treated the same. Both were pioneers of their craft. Both were openly denied the ability to further their research and expand their horizons.

Both didn't take rejection that well.

Despite these similarities however, one of their main differences was that Sasori was not illusioned with the idea that his craft was flawless.

Most of his weapons were designed to take out human and living based opponents, which was understandable since puppet ninjutsu was originally designed for assassination and support type shinobi in the first place.

His poison could knock out anyone, human or summon save for those like Orochimaru with just a scratch, and a surprise spray of kunai, senbon and shuriken fired fast enough was enough to take down Jonin when timed properly. A good part of the time, a salvo of exploding tags did the job faster and better than any jutsu could. The only thing preventing most shinobi from doing that more often was the financial cost of employing it.

For fights of greater caliber and scale however, such as fighting a biju itself, standard puppet tricks were woefully lacking in power, durability, and flexibility. Poison wouldn't work on them. Standard blades wouldn't cut the first layer of chakra dense skin. Seals took a good while to use. And trying to outmuscle a biju was laughable. Unless they possessed some sort of customized automatic seal array that could somehow deal with the situation, even an army of puppets would fall instantly to this sort of battle.

It was because of this that he always developing, growing, and progressing of course, but the presence of people and jutsu that could overcome his puppets and skills was perpetual…

… Which was what originally gave him the idea to make human puppets in the first place. If he could capture the potential that others had, that power, and make it his own, would that not cover the limitations of the standard puppet? How terrifying was a Kage level shinobi that would not bleed, no, even stop or stall if given a lethal wound or lost a limb? And then what if said unrelenting Kage was also littered with traps and poisons? Such tools would outshine even the Seven Swords of Kiri! Suna's puppets would turn the village into a force greater than that of Konoha!

But his ideas were turned down by the third Kazekage almost instantly. Inhumane. Cruel. Sickening he had said. Far be it for the hypocrite to remember that he sold lives to the highest bidder and had several dozen prisoners being tortured in the dungeons for information that would be killed soon afterwards.

The least they could have done was give him the bodies of the defeated foes for experimentation. He didn't even need the bodies of high profile individuals or bloodline users, just some people with decent chakra systems to tinker with…

But he was denied, and what more, he had been stripped of his position as head researcher of the puppet corps. They couldn't get rid of his Jonin rank. No, he was already Sasori of the Red Sands by that point. It would look bad to the other villages if they did that. Still it did block many resources from the then teen's reach.

It was fortunate that by then the redhead had already done some private research ahead of schedule in order to see if his hypothesis was correct at all. He had meant what he said at the time. He was only using the bodies of a few random genin from Iwa that had a few workable and simple jutsu he could toy with… plus it helped advance his medical skills.

Few people knew it, but when he left he had been just a test or two away from getting a practicing medical degree. He was a genius after all, and he did so hate waiting...

The straw that broke the camel's back however occurred later when he found out the real reason why the Kazekage had turned down his request.

Money.

As one of the main five villages, Suna had an image to protect. Kiri and Iwa already had the bloody anything goes image, though they also had the terrain training thing going as well. Konoha was friendly, approachable, and extremely loyal to their customers. Kumo was militaristic to a fault and had a good deal of muscle.

Suna on the other hand had quality, efficiency and resourcefulness. Their shinobi could take the most hits, last longer in the harshest conditions, and survive off of very little, getting the toughest job done with common household items.

However due to these rather "common" qualities, the fact that their village was an utter pain for most clients to reach normally, and their history of rather idiotic money hoarding Daimyo, Suna had frequently been passed up for other villages when it came to missions. If Sasori's plan had gone into effect, it would scare away even more customers regardless of how powerful the village became.

Sasori, who at that point was already well schooled at controlling his emotions, was infuriated when he learned of this. The fact that he was denied progress was one thing, but to actually be lied to about the reason for it was another story.

He could stomach a lot, being a shinobi after all. Secrets and death were practically his bread and butter… but… money? His reason for existing was being halted for such a base reason, and what more, they thought it was a good idea to hide it from him? The piss poor logic behind such absurd thinking was almost enough to astound him out of his rage.

Had they just told him, he would have handled it better. He would have made the puppets anyway, make them unrecognizable, and then just passed them off as his specials, but now? Oh no. He had barely any connection to the village in the first place save for his grandmother and a couple members of the puppet corps, and at that point human sentimentalism was far from enough to convince him to stay.

The village? Ranking? Nobility? He cared for none of those things. Only his craft truly mattered to him, and said craft was being threatened and stifled by his so called home and his so called leader…

So he dealt with both issues personally by leaving one for good, and taking the other with him.

Over the years he had never stepped foot in Suna, but he did keep tabs on any information that crept up. Any potential advances in puppetry were of course his priority, but general information was of use too.

He had snorted in amusement despite not having lungs when he learned of Pakura of the Scorched Sand's sacrifice to Kiri. The masses said that she was killed by Iwa. The nobles believed she was sacrificed to the bloodline hating Kiri to gain a temporary alliance…

The REAL reason she was killed though was once again… money.

Kiri had the monopoly when it came to sea based trade and missions with few exceptions. As a general, if relatively unknown, rule, the other hidden villages paid tribute to them to ensure that they didn't attack any of their ships so long as said ships carried what they were supposed to and not a weapon or shinobi more. During the third war, Kiri had been reneging a bit on that setup for obvious reasons, especially on Suna in particular who was rather dependant on their few ships that exited their country from the south via the few rivers that ran through the country.

Sasori learned that the main reason why Kiri picked on Suna at the time was because the Kazekage was the only one of the five kage at the time that technically had a bloodline. Onoki's Bloodline Selection, while powerful as all get out, technically wasn't a bloodline limit since it wasn't genetic. Pakura's sacrifice was made so that the ignorant bloodline hating fools would let up on Suna's few but vital trading routes. Indeed, just a few weeks after the woman's death the number of trading ships from Suna that "mysteriously sunk" or were attacked by pirates had dramatically decreased.

But that was beside the point. Sasori didn't have the patience to deal with the annoying politics of humans, run by unobservant fools that couldn't see even if they took their heads out of their asses. They mattered little to him unless it meant a job or something to do with puppetry.

The only reason why he got along with Kakuzu so well was because the miser was at least honest when it came to dealing finances, if a bit crooked, and the fact that the guy was his main source for expensive and hard to find parts.

Of course the fact that they both hated their partners was something they could relate to as well.

"This is a bit much…" The puppetmaster mused as he observed Deidara weave around the dozens of giant warped claws with apparent ease, but some effort as well. To be honest, Sasori was beginning to have doubts about encountering the jinchuriki alone himself should his blonde partner fail. In direct combat at least. "He's going to bitch about this for a long time, but I think it would be best if I got involved in this after all… looks like the Sandaime Kazekage's going to make a surprise appearance in his home town after twenty years…"

His thoughts were interrupted as something very large landed right in front of him, kicking up a great deal of dust in the process.

"This better be worth it." Sasori grumbled.

His ranting was interrupted as the thing that crashed in front of him slowly stood up on two legs… and grew… and grew…

In front of the slouched over figure stood a two story tall suit of dark grey western armor, compete with a metal body and a claymore whose blade alone was at least the size of Kisame.

The puppetmaster merely extended his tail out a small bit, preparing it to move. "… At the very least, this is different…"

Moving faster than expected, the large man shaped tool bolted forward and swung its weapon down with enough bone crushing force to put even Kisame on guard for a moment.

Sasori on the other hand merely frowned and used his sturdy and powerful tail to smack aside the blade with a resounding crack that could be heard for a great distance, forcing the weapon to crash into the ground just a few feet to the right of its target and a great deal closer than what the defender had expected…

However he could not do much about it as in the next moment his vision was obstructed by the armor's free hand, now fist, traveling straight for his face with unnatural speed.

"Fast!" The missing nin mentally swore as the blow connected like a pillar of steel and blasted him back into the village's tremendous stone walls.

"Tell me the truth guys." Kankuro snorted as he, Chiyo, and Shikamaru appeared a good ways behind his customized puppet. "What are the odds that I actually got him with that?"

"Do you really want to know?" The shadow user deadpanned.

Chiyo rolled her eyes. "We are dealing with S ranked shinobi Kankuro, not genin."

"Figures." Kankuro sighed shaking his head. The dust settled where Sasori had landed to reveal a large pile of sand where his body should have been. "You can come out now. We know you're there."

A dry chuckle met their ears as the real Sasori emerged from the sand nearby. The misshapen figure eyed Kankuro with malice and interest. "I'm somewhat impressed. The larger a puppet is the harder it is to control it, however you seem to have no issue making your tool follow your commands with astounding agility."

Even someone deemed unmatched in the world of puppetry didn't normally use such large constructs. They were too inflexible, slow, unwieldy, and used too much chakra to be put to practical purposes. The strain alone they put on the user's fingers was enough to turn them off to all but the dumbest of genin.

"Looks like you have an admirer." Shikamaru dryly observed.

"Sasori…" Chiyo growled darkly. "First you run away for decades, then you come back and attack the village, and you don't even bother to contact or call your dear grandmother after all I did for you?! You must be the most ungrateful grandchild in the elemental nations! I am going to give you such a spanking!"

"Please wait until I leave before you go through with that." The shadow user sighed. "That is definitely something I have no intention of watching."

"Chiyo-baa…" The missing nin glanced at his grandmother as if noticing her for the first time. "What a surprise. From what I've heard, you usually distance yourself from the village these days."

The old woman snorted. "The place is run by a bunch of fools, but I can only get your grandfather by playing dead so many times before it gets old. Doing it to a bunch of clueless brats in the middle of the street is much more amusing."

Kankuro hesitantly looked between the grandmother and grandson with skepticism. "Against my better judgment, was she like this when she was raising you? And by like this I mean…"

"Obnoxious beyond known reason to the point that she's barely tolerable for extended periods of time?" The redhead finished Kankuro's sentence knowingly. "The only thing senile about that woman is her sense of humor."

"Sasori! What have I told you about disrespecting me in public like that!?" Chiyo snapped irritably.

"… I fucking knew it…" The Kazekage's brother glared at his teacher menacingly before turning back to the task at hand…

… And swore under his breath before he quickly maneuvered his massive puppet to swing its sword in front of him. An instant later the constant pinging of poisoned senbon impacting it like rain was heard clearly as Sasori's sneak attack was blocked.

Chiyo, having taught Sasori in the first place and having a still very agile body easily danced and weaved through her part of the onslaught without any problems or scratches.

Shikamaru on the other hand merely raised a black shield composed of his shadows in front of him, which silently deflected every poisoned needle that came into contact with it.

It only took a few seconds before Sasori realized that he wouldn't get anywhere with this line of attack before he decided to improvise. They could block physical attacks, but what about chemical ones?

With an audible clicking inside Hiruko's body, he had switched the launcher inside his mouth from shooting poisoned senbon to poison gas pellets, and thus fired them off right in front of his surprised targets. Exploding just a few meters in front of them, the pellets unleashed their contents in the form of a giant purple cloud all over the area.

"That should take care of them." The attacker nodded in satisfaction, his tail slowly retracting in the process. "A single breath will paralyze them to the point of being helpless. Now to deal with the-"

He was interrupted as the tremendous knight puppet erupted from the cloud with its sword in both hands swinging down in an overhand strike with terrifying force. Sasori didn't even bother trying to defend against the blow and leapt to the side quickly to dodge the blow, appearing as if he was shifting sideways without moving…

Only to curse as at the last moment a hidden panel in the blade jutted out and blasted a short pulse of chakra that altered the weapon's course, allowing the once helmsplitting blow turn diagonal and cut off the puppet's right arm from its elbow.

"Damn it…" The puppet growled as it leapt back just in time to avoid the return swing that was covered in sparks as it ground up against the earth, but once again the master was not quick enough to dodge all the damage as the chest of Hiruko was slashed by a few inches, tearing through the wood and coat fabric there as if they didn't even exist.

It was times like this that Sasori cursed himself for sacrificing Hiruko's mobility in exchange for greater defensive capabilities and a wider range of traps. It served its purpose well against the bulk of enemies, but against those of a higher quality, his favorite puppet was next to useless as his defense and evasion capabilities were nowhere near enough to deal with them. Save for Zetsu, any of the other Akatsuki would have little to no issue at all dealing with his outer shell.

His irritation grew even more as the chest to the armor opened up suddenly, revealing several tubes that fired off several dozen hissing exploding kunai at him point blank.

"This is getting annoying." Sasori growled as his tail shot into action with absurd speed, shooting forward into the chest of the monstrosity while simultaneously whipping around its length to deflect the oncoming explosives. Without even paying attention to the explosions happening uncomfortably close to him and scorching some of his coat, Sasori impaled the armorless core of the metal armor relentlessly, spearing it so hard the giant heavy figure was pushed back a good dozen meters…

But much to his surprise and irritation it did not fall, still standing like an unstoppable monster. Unflinching. Uncaring, and still pushing back.

This must have been what other people felt like when they faced Kisame.

Before Sasori could retract his tail, the armor surprisingly dropped its sword and grabbed it with both of its metal hands. The surprise didn't stop there however as suddenly began to hum and glow electric blue. The chakra strings controlling it, once nearly invisible, were now clearly seen and radiating elemental chakra…

… Leading back to the boy controlling them and his comrades, the poison gas nowhere in sight.

"Raiton! Mattaki Chichi (Lightning style. Complete Loop)!"

The master's eyes widened as he saw the lightning chakra rapidly travel down his tail and swore before quickly disconnecting it midway before the attacked got any further.

His eyes narrowed in the momentary lull between the boy realizing the attack failed and pressing on forward, leaving the massive sword behind to save time. Now that he paid careful attention to the boy, he could see that the chakra strings he used were still visible and appeared to be different from the standard variety.

"He uses lightning chakra to accelerate the puppet's movements, probably by powering some sort of inertia device in all of the joints to make it move easier without using much power. Probably a flywheel or gyroscope type of mechanism… and in addition to that he can channel his element into his puppet and have it serve as the medium for his jutsu. Brilliant. Even my human puppets are limited to the jutsu that they performed during life and the standard traps I install in them. This boy… he has potential…"

Very briefly he glanced towards his other two opponents who so far had seemed to do nothing, more specifically the boy from Konoha that seemed to be looking at him with a critical eye. "However… I do not think he was the one that dealt with my poison gas…"

"… First things first though…"

Deciding that he had had enough, Sasori decided to end the little fight and get back to business. Darting out his tipless tail, the Akatsuki hammered the left knee of the charging armor, causing it to collapse on the ground halfway between the two groups.

"A puppet's only as strong as its weakest joint." The elder stated in a sickeningly amused tone with his left arm pointed forward… just before said warped arm shot off like a rocket. "Die."

Kankuro however had different plans as his entire body reacted quickly to the new trap, body and arms moving as fast as possible. "Like hell!"

Using its arms as leverage, the giant armor turned far faster than something that size should have been allowed to move and whipped out its right arm in the direction of the moving projectile… summoning it's previously dropped sword back to its hand and hammering the missile away into an empty warehouse where it detonated and speared everything inside.

"You're starting to annoy me boy." Sasori growled, momentarily looking up to see that Deidara had at some point abandoned his C2 Dragon for his faster and more maneuverable C1 flying models again, but using the former to provide cover fire from the dozens of tower like sand limbs trying to crush him. At this rate, the blonde fool would get frustrated soon, forget about the mission, and just nuke the village and the target to spite everyone. "I don't like being stalled."

"Tell me something I don't know you ungrateful brat!" Chiyo snapped as she whipped out a dozen kunai from her sleeves and shot them at her grandson using only chakra.

Sasori didn't even bother to verbally respond as he moved his tail in a majority of the blade's way, only suffering a few glancing blows that merely cut his robes to the point that they fell off. He could worry about his wardrobe later. The boy's puppet, as fascinating as it was, took priority.

Commanding Hiruko to open its mouth again and fire off volleys of senbon, Sasori got to work activating the customized seals on the puppet's shoulders, instantly replacing its broken or discarded limbs with spares. It wasn't like this was the first time his puppets had lost parts in battle after all. Only this time, BOTH arms were rigged. The attacker barely paid attention to the fact that the three had done the same thing the last time he did this, with the boy holding up his puppet's sword in the way, his grandmother dodging and the third boy using some sort of shadow shield…

"Let's see if they can handle this…" He muttered darkly as he held out both arms and pointed them to either side of the group before firing them off while still attacking from the front. A three sided attack would kill at least one of them and make things easier from there. Given from how they acted, the puppet wielding boy was their heavy hitter, while the other two were support. So long as he was out of the way, Hiruko was in no danger of being destroyed…

He almost grinned as he saw their faces when they realized what he was doing just a moment before he fired off his arms.

The chaos that ensued in the following few seconds was so intense that Sasori himself couldn't see what had truly happened. The debris kicked up by the hundreds if not thousands of pieces of metal flying in front of him could only give him glimpses of what occurred, but at the very least two of them should have been at least scratched by now. The shadow boy might be save if his defense covered all his sides, but the other boy and the hag had no proper way to defend against such and onslaught…

Or at least that was what he thought SHOULD have happened as he saw the giant armor in front of him turned around quickly and used its good leg to launch itself in the air at him with its sword raised.

The moment the thing had begun to move, Sasori had attempted to move to the side, but two things were making that difficult. The first was the lack of arms to improve his mobility, the second was that Hiruko wouldn't move its body.

"What?!" The master cursed as he attempted to move his still functional tail to attempt to deflect the oncoming blow… until that stopped prematurely against his will as well. "Damn it!"

The sound of the giant blade crashing through Hiruko's body and hard shell was a symphony of destructive noises to everyone's ears as the giant armor landed with violent discrimination. Despite the fact that it wielded a sword, the weapon was more geared for crushing heavy defenses with pure force, which was why the target had been smashed to pieces rather than slashed in half with the blow.

"Honestly… that was more troublesome than I thought." Shikamaru sighed as his shadow barrier faded away and he retracted the long thin and unnoticed tendril that had been connected to his opponent since he found him.

"You barely did anything you lazy shit!" Kankuro snapped as he stepped out of his customized Salamander puppet's defenses. "I almost didn't manage to get Sanshou out in time!"

"You boys are horrible. All three of you." Chiyo snorted as the Mother and Father puppets to her sides turned off their chakra shields. "No respect for women or your elders at all."

The three teammates warily looked at the remains of Hiruko lay crushed, and were not surprised as a shrouded figure leapt from the remains back a small distance and landed cleanly… Before standing up and revealing a young teenaged redhead smiling at them almost lazily.

"I see." Sasori mused as he looked at the remains of his puppet. "You were leading me on the entire time. The armored puppet was indeed the muscle, but Chiyo-baa's attack was designed to stick her chakra strings to my tail while the Naara pinned me down, ensuring that I was helpless when the final blow was made. I was so focused on this new piece that I didn't bother to notice either until it was too late." He looked at Kankuro. "Boy. What is your name?"

The Kazekage's brother frowned. "It's Kankuro." He pointed behind him to Gaara and Temari fighting. "And the guy your idiot partner is fighting is my brother."

"Ah. So you must be Kankuro of the black sand." Sasori of the Red Sand mused. He eyed the teen's method of defense curiously. "I see you possess some of my earlier works as well and have made modifications. You have potential."

The teen frowned. "Thanks for the compliment, but I'm far from flattered at the moment. Being praised by a traitor and the guy trying to kill my brother isn't exactly giving me a warm fuzzy feeling."

The redhead snorted. "Traitor. This farce of a village did nothing but hold me and my work back, worse, they tried to destroy it. To someone whose life is their craft that was unacceptable. In time you too will see this." He looked at his grandmother. "Mother and Father. I see you've made some modifications to them since the last time I played with them."

"You were so sloppy Sasori. Leaving such good toys on the ground. What kind of grandmother would I be if I didn't fix them up for you when you finally returned to visit?" The wry old woman smirked knowingly.

"I see." The Akatuki smirked as a scroll made its way to his hand from his sleeve and slowly began to unroll it. "Today truly does seem like one for reunions and meetings. I guess it's only proper that I bring this one out as well."

In a puff of smoke, a new mechanical humanoid figure appeared next to Sasori. Long ratty shoulder lengthed hair. Sharp teeth. A dirty shroud. And a very familiar face…

"Won't the people of Suna be so happy to know that their beloved Sandaime Kazekage has returned?"

o. o. o.

Omake:

What Shadow was doing while this was all happening:

Dancing down the street, Shadow Oogakari was singing loudly to herself and using only a tiny bit of her presence so that people around her were feeling uncomfortable.

And then she began to sing.

"When the Devil is too busy
And Death's a bit too much
They call on me by name you see
For my special touch.
To the gentlemen I'm Misfortune
To the ladies, I'm surprise
But call me by any name
Any way it's all the same…

I'm the fly in your soup.
I'm the pebble in your shoe.
I'm the pea beneath your bed.
I'm a bump on every head.
I'm the peel on which you slip.
I'm a pin in every hip.
I'm the thorn in your side.
Makes you wriggle and writhe."

It should be noted that at the moment, Shadow was singing loudly, in a shady part of town, it was roughly four thirty in the morning, using her presence, and for good measure she had made the world a lot darker, her eyes were glowing ice blue, and her teeth were like Crypts, sharp as hell and glowing white.

"And it's so easy when you're e-vil.
This is the life, you see.
The Devil tips his hat to me.
I do it all because I'm e-vil.
And I do it all for free.
Your tears are all the pay I'll ever need."

Shadow had nearly gone through the song three times in various parts of the village before the ANBU finally found her, tried to get her to stop, failed (miserably), tried to get Waltz to help out, came back to see that Crypt had joined in, then spent the rest of the morning cleaning up all the craters and human shaped holes in the area.

o. o. o.

A/N:

And I stalled posting for the e-vilz…

No wait. I'm just lazy. Damn.

For anyone that wants a good idea what Kankuro's new puppet looks like, just picture the Knight monster that was in the White trailer for RWBY… except slightly bigger.

So yeah, after roughly three months the first real chapter comes up and it has everything. Action. Comedy! Evils! Epics! Worship me damn it!

So yeah. On to other news. I'm in the process of buying a condo! Yay! And it's the cheapest two bedroom in town! Like STUPID cheap! Yay! And it's an 11th floor penthouse in great condition with access to a pool, a gym, across the street from the bus stop, walking distance to the mall and the train station, and it's in a good part of the neighborhood! Yay! And I'm renting it out to earn money and still staying in my parent's home because I'm a cheap bastard! Yay… I think!

But seriously. For anyone who hasn't gone through the process yet. Getting a mortgage is an utter pain in the ass. So much paperwork and managing… ugh. Thank god my folks are there to help me out with this. They really know what they're doing.

And before anyone asks, I'm buying this thing. No, this isn't a gift or anything from my folks. The only money being used for this thing is the stuff I got from working.

Not bad for a guy turning 24 this year eh?

But yeah, with grad school and work and buying the place, I've been pretty swamped lately, which is part of the reason why I haven't been able to pump out chapters like I used to. Still, I like to believe my ability to bring out awesome and hilarious in the same chapters all the damn time is still unmarred in the slightest.

Uh… so let's see… That's all I have right now. Thanks for the support and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

Review! Worship the log! Gaara now has teh fuzzies! And REVIEW AGAIN!