Well, I must say I am amazed at the response to this story. It just tells me I'm doing something right. Thank you all very much.

Funny Fates 2.

I was astounded in wonderment.

Contrary to popular belief, the Akatsuki are not as organised as the let on. Yes, they carry out their missions with immediate prompt and ruthlessly take out anyone that stands in their way, and they are, without a shadow of a doubt exceptionally powerful and competent shinobi, but they were the most childish lot of over eighteens I'd ever had the misfortune to meet. I wondered how the hell they managed to work together. Throw in the madness that Konoha shinobi were known for and you have a near disaster in your hands.

I think the only reason the listened to Pein was because of the unimaginable power the Rinnengan holds and the only reason they listened to Shishou was because she could come up with the most creative medical ways to slowly, quietly and painfully end their lives and/or beat them to a bloody, unrecognisable pulp.

"Why the fuck do these women have to be so violent, yeah? Can't even air our own opinions," a now conscious Deidara whined, broken jaw healed and pouting like an overgrown spoilt brat.

Hidan smirked. "Serves you right, you retarded asshole."

Deidara glared at him and Kakuzu sighed. "Sometimes I question my mentality when it comes to associating myself with members of this organisation," he muttered shaking his head.

"Well, this is lively," Kisame, in all his seven foot tall, blue stature said, rather amused.

Konan just looked around, deciding not to comment.

"My workshop has a hole in the wall. Who is responsible for it? I am not fixing it again," Sasori muttered, despite the indifferent look on his face.

Really, what had I gotten myself into?

The Konoha side however, was the exact opposite of what it should be. There were no exuberant shouts of you from either Gai-sensei or Lee. Kurenai-sensei quietly played with little Roku. Shihsou and Jiraiya-sama sat next to each other, heads huddled together, talking in whispers. Kakashi-sensei's gaze was far off and distant, as if he mentally wasn't even here. Shizune nee was looking at her hands, neatly folded on her laps. Ten-Ten was sharpening a kunai. Naruto simply sat, elbows on his knees and his cheeks in his hands.

I swallowed heavily. All of us were missing nin, had been for the past three years. There were other shinobi I hadn't seen or heard of ever since we fled. I shook my head. I didn't want to think about it.

"Oi, kiddo, what's up?" Shisui suddenly asked.

I looked up at him, and he was dead serious. The smirk was wiped off his face, and instead was an emotionless face, calculating onyx eyes giving nothing away.

He may have seemed different, but this Shisui guy was an Uchiha through and through.

"There are so many more survivors than you think, youngin. Don't be too depressed. This is something none of us thought would happen. We just have to deal with it," he told me.

"Tell me your story. Aren't you supposed to be dead?" I asked suddenly, and the whole room quieted down, turning their attention to us.

He gave a small chuckle. "With time, kid, with time. If you're anything like our gorgeous Hokage here, I can safely assume that patience isn't one of your stronger suites. My story is a tad bit annoyingly complicated, but fear not, the right time will come when I'll tell you."

Uchiha weren't exactly known for their trustworthiness. Of all shinobi clans in and out of Konoha, the Uchiha were famed for four things: intelligence, power, sex appeal and ruthlessness. There is not an Uchiha known who had an IQ of less than 120. Very few of them ever activated their kekkei genkai, and even those were universally feared. Even then they still excelled at the ninja arts. The Uchiha did not have ugly in their vocabulary. It was as if the fates preordained it. Every single generation of people born in the Uchiha clan were just disturbingly good looking. Their most feared trait, probably on par with their sharingan, was their ruthlessness. They decided what they wanted, and they went for it, no questions asked, regardless of who or what stood in their way. It was a blessing and a curse. A blessing because there's no way Konoha would have won previous shinobi wars without their help, and a curse because it had brought their clan to near extinction.

I smirked at that. "You're an Uchiha. Why should I trust you?" I asked him raising an eyebrow.

He, in turn raised his eyebrow at me. "I can understand how you feel. However, you must remember that my clan has been reduced to three. Three. I can't afford to start bringing pride into this. If I did, we'd be reduced to zero. I don't want that," he smirked. "After all, I am an Uchiha, as you say."

"Actually, you're reduced to four," Naruto pointed out, butting in by yelling obnoxiously. Jiraiya-sama, Pein and Konan sighed. "If you count Madara-"

"We do not count Madara as one of us because the reason we've kept ourselves alive until this very moment is to annihilate him," Itachi interrupted smoothly. I turned around to look at him. He was casually leaning on the wall next to Kakashi-sensei, the sole of his left foot flat against said wall. He had one arm across his chest as he spun a kunai on his long slender finger.

I bit my lip and immediately looked away. Che, cocky bastard.

"Kakashi-sensei?" I asked instead, fiddling around with one of my gloves.

He looked at me and sighed, already knowing the silent question I asked him.

"Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, I had my suspicions. I aired them to Tsunade-sama, naturally, and adequate preparations were made. By the time Danzou attacked, we were set, and by the time Madara came in, we were good to go. We organised everything; who was to flee when, where and why. We arranged for Kurenai's safety until Roku was older than three years old. We never informed any of you because you were still too young. You wouldn't understand. After we split up, well, we knew you'd have fended for yourselves. We always just hoped that you'd turn up, or we'd find you and we'd bring you here. D'you know why I gave you those kunai? They are very special to me, and they are the kunai that Minato-sensei gave me when I joined ANBU. After he fell at Madara's hand, I swore I'd never lose them, and I thought I'd hand them over to you, because I thought you'd need them for the difficult times that were coming."

"What went wrong?"I whispered, the tears threatening.

"Madara decreed all members of a clan were to never leave the walls of Konoha without ROOT, that's what happened," Shishou said harshly.

"Weren't you expecting that?" I asked, my voice slightly rising, the tears flowing.

"We only expected it for the Aburames, the Hyuuga and the Akimichi, because they are the noble clans. We never expected it for all of them," Jiraiya-sama said quietly.

"Then Sai...Sai died in vain?" by now my voice was shaking, my hands trembling, the floodgates were threatening.

It was an awkward silence. Pein was the one brave enough to talk. "No. He did not die in vain. He di-"

"You don't even know who the fuck Sai is. Why are you talking?" I screamed.

"Because he died fighting against Madara. That is why. He died fighting an enemy of mine. That is enough for me. That is all I need to avenge his death," he replied quietly.

I could not help but dissolve in my tears. I didn't know what to say. I heard this guy, this Pein, this immensely powerful shinobi was a student of Jiraiya-sama, and I could see it now. I could see the lessons he got from his teacher.

"Tch, you're still useless, crying all the time. Still weak. It's a wonder how you've survived being a missing nin so long" Sasuke said.

I froze. For a moment, time stopped moving. Then my Inner came out in full aplomb, guns blazing in our rage.

"Duuuuuuude, I think she's pissed as fuck," Hidan muttered.

"Excuse me?" I said calmly tear streaks still running down my face. "Weak? You just called me weak?"

Before anyone else could move, I was in front of Sasuke and had grabbed him by the collar violently.

"Listen to me, you filthy defiled trash," I seethed. "I worked so fucking hard, so fucking hard to get to the level I have. I had to beg Shishou to take me on. I had to grovel to Kurenai-sensei and Kakashi-sensei to train me for ANBU. All I had going for me was chakra control, and you better damn fucking believe that chakra control has brought me far. Right now, I can think of eight hundred poisons and another thirty ways of infusing into your bloodstream without you realising it. This very second, I can come up with ten ways to induce a cardiac arrest to your heart. Or, I can just beat your brains out of your stupid, duck-butt head. I did it the hard way. You ran off to disgustingness extraordinaire. You took the fucking shortcut, have no idea what it is like to fight off and lose an invasion of your home. You've never fought a bijuu. You've never gone weeks without food because you can't afford to buy it. You've never slept in rivers and streams for long minutes to avoid ROOT. You've never almost had nervous breakdowns due to paranoia of being watched. You've never been scared shitless of torture and interrogation. You have no right, Uchiha Sasuke, you have no motherfucking right whatsoever to call me weak."

I pushed him into a wall, until his body formed a hole in it. "You still think I'm weak? I'm still weak? Then maybe we can take this out to the training grounds tomorrow, and I'll show you just how weak I really am," I whispered venomously, poking a chakra infused finger into his shoulder and breaking both his collar bone and his shoulder blade.

I removed him from the wall and flung him across the room. He went through three walls, and I heard his pained groan.

"Let me get one thing straight, Sasuke," I said coldly. My fists were clenched and I was facing the ground. "I hate you. I fucking hate you with every fibre of my being. Don't expect me to come swooning in your direction anymore, because it's not fucking happening. I've been a missing nin for three years, and I've learnt the art of ruthlessly murdering those that come in my way well. Do not provoke me."

Without thinking twice, I turned to my heel and stormed out of that room. I didn't even know where the hell I was going. I traced my steps back to the room I woke up in and violently shoved the door open. I got in and slammed it so hard that it fell off its hinges. I sat on the bed and begun crying, tears of rage and sadness. These were tears I'd left in for so long and I felt that I needed to let them out. I never even had a chance to mourn Sai properly because I was too busy fleeing for my life.

He went to break a barrier, which was set up by Danzou. There was no way that he'd do it without being identified, since he was a member of ROOT and the retard would somehow know. He wanted to break it for the clans to be able to sneak out. He knew he would definitely be killed, but he went ahead and did it anyway. What we didn't know is that he knew it was futile for the clans to escape, and he was doing it to buy us time. Naruto was already surrounded by Zetsu's army, and disabling that barrier would take all the troops to the area surrounding it. The plan worked, and Naruto high tailed it out of there, bawling his eyes out. By then, Sai was dead. We don't even know how he died.

We never forgot Sai, and we made a small memorial of him in the outskirts of Konoha and hid it with a genjutsu. Ten-Ten told me that Kiba, Shino, Hinata, Neji, Shikamaru, Ino and Chouji went there every week to pay their respects for a colleague who felled for our sake.

I don't know how long I lay on the bed, bawling my eyes out, but I eventually drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Very fast update. You guessed it, I have no life. Three weeks into university and I'm already over it. Nope, no life whatsoever.