The room she had been placed in was terribly tacky…that was the first thing Julie noticed when the heavy fog cleared from her mind. Julie recalled vague memories of being moved about and carried into her velvet-covered chamber, but none of them were vivid enough for her to get a grasp on where she was…though Julie had a hunch. The Akatsuki's base. She also had a hunch as to whose room she was in.
The bed Julie had been placed on was large and heart shaped, with a backboard made of richly colored oak. The silk sheets, which had obviously been covered with a thin layer of dust until recently, were a faded red. Their smooth texture clashed with the superfluous amount of velvet that covered the interior of the room. In fact, just about everything in that room was clashing. The only Akatsuki member who would have a room like this, a room so neglected and gaudy, would be none other than Orochimaru. Julie shuddered audibly and flung herself from the bed. Disgusting! She could only imagine the twisted things that serpent of a man could've done in there. At least Orochimaru wasn't in the organization anymore… Julie could find comfort in that one fact.
After her shudders ceased, Julie crept soundlessly across the room's shag carpeting towards a beam of light that was shining out through the gap underneath a door. If she listened carefully enough, Julie could hear murmurs coming from another room. It was hard out to pick out single voices in the garbled audio, but Julie tried anyway.
"This is fucking ridiculous!" A voice that sounded an awful like Hidan's yelled from the other room, "Five hundred channels with nothing on? Jashin would be ashamed!" That made Julie laugh a bit, which she instantly regretted doing. This wasn't a laughing matter at all! Here she was, stuck in a strange (and rather kinky bedroom) with several mass murderers outside of her door and she was laughing? Julie forced herself to straighten out her expression, then leaned in closer towards the door.
"No…no…still no. Come on, Sasori! You're just making it worse. Twist the antenna THAT way!" Another member yelled out. Julie shivered again. This time it was Kisame speaking. His low voice offended her eardrums, making her mind flash back to the scene with him and Courtney in the hallway. His blue skin and jagged rows of teeth…if it wasn't for another voice cutting through the rumble of sound, Julie certainly would have become terribly lost in her hellish recollections. The low, calm vibrato of a man's voice rung out clearly from the gap under her door.
"Will you three be quiet, I'm trying to read." The rich voice demanded. Julie recognized it as belonging to Kakuzu, the man who had acted in her capture. Julie raised her hand up to her bruised neck and rubbed it gingerly. Despite the fact that these people had captured her and nearly snapped her neck, the casual conversation they were having didn't seem like the banter of normal villains. This realization gave Julie the strength to slowly inch her hand towards the door and grasp the dusty, golden handle that protruded from it.
Julie cringed when the door creaked as it was pushed open. She wished her entrance hadn't been so obvious, but it was too late now. Instead of being timid, Julie threw to door open the remainder of the way with a bang and stepped forward into her new surroundings…those of which were much different than she had anticipated.
Frat boys…that seemed like a good way to describe the scene in front of her. Multiple male Akatsuki members were strewn about the cluttered room. Garbage and half-empty take out boxes coated the top of an old and rather rickety coffee table. A small T.V. was shoved up against a white plaster wall and behind a torn sofa was a kitchen with an island and bar stools. The second they all caught sight of her, the Akatsuki members froze where they stood. Not out of fear, of course, but out of surprise. The red-haired puppeteer Sasori was standing in front of a cheap, blocky television, both of his hands glued to the twisted metal antenna. He stared at Julie with a low level of interest before shrugging off her presence then returning to the task at hand. Hidan was slouched over in a beanbag chair in the corner, random splatters of red peppering his skin and the tattered remains of his most recently issued black and red cloak. A bruise discolored the left side of his sneering face, probably the repercussion of swearing at Kakuzu back at the school. For a moment, however, Julie could've sworn the wound was fading…right before her eyes. Speaking of Kakuzu, Julie has spotted him on the tan sofa in the center of the room, peering over the top of his newspaper with those strange, green eyes. She remembered those eyes…vaguely recalling them looming over her in that dark, and rather tacky, room she had just freed herself from. Suddenly they were gone again, Kakuzu had raised his reading material up to further shield his face.
Julie turned back to glare at Hidan, who still had that fox-like grin slashed across his face. "Iron skin's a bitch, isn't it?" She snapped, referring to one of Kakuzu's favorite jutsu's. That wiped the albino's grin off his face pretty fast, but only for a moment as the gears in his brain spun rapidly, trying to find a decent comeback.
"Well, it looks like you would know!" Hidan replied, laughing at himself as he pointed at the bruises that formed a muted collar around Julie's neck. Kakuzu shook his head at his partner's remark. The joke was fine, the timing was just way off…as was typical.
"The leader wanted to see this girl, you know. Someone should take her, I'm not about to myself." Kakuzu mumbled, his low, rumbling voice cutting through the noise in the organization's living room. Hidan stopped laughing and pressed his right finger against his nose, shouting out "Not it!" in a rather childish manner. No one else in the room mimicked him, but by their lazy expressions it was clear that they didn't want to either. Kakuzu let out a low groan, folding back up his paper as he rose up to his feet. "Fine, I'll do it myself. Just like everything else around here! The bills, the expenses…" The stitched-nin grumbled, stepping over to Julie who suddenly felt very small in his midst. Kakuzu was the second tallest member of the Akatsuki, Kisame being the first. The older ninja reached down and gripped onto Julie's wrist. His movement were fast, but for some reason his hold was light as he swept Julie down across the cluttered media-room and down a dimly lit corridor, where a black door stood ominously at the end.