Here goes the next one! :D
-Konoha Road-
"This orchestra came to the Leaf Village about two years ago. The Hokage had been trying to put on a formal party or something so the ninja of our village could meet with rich nobles and hopefully get some money that way. So... it was a fundraiser." I paused. Something was shuffling in the bushes. The wind changed direction and brought the scent of a rabbit to my nose.
"He was in the orchestra. I didn't really notice him until afterwards when he was running around searching for his reed. (1. Which had been taken by a few low brass members, characteristically x) He nearly knocked me over when he saw it sitting in a cup and ran for it." Gin laughed at the image. "After apologizing enough that I was ready to stuff his reed down his throat, he introduced himself as William Westra."
"William Westra? The Westras are a family in my village," Gin informed me.
I perked up. Family members? :D "I know he said he came from Sunagakure, but he never said anything about his family."
Gin nodded thoughfully. "I remember them saying they had four kids, but I only remember three of them. Either way, I've interrupted." He turned his gaze to me again, offering his full attention.
I chuckled. "Nah, you didn't. There really isn't much left... We got married about six months ago." Well, I could go on for hours about Will, but that would only make it worse. What is it, Carpe diem? Good thing to follow.
Gin seemed to sense my unwillingness to go on, but his curiousity overtook him. "What happened to him?"
I looked into the fire and realized my soup had gone cold. Dammit! "About two months-,"
CRACK!
"What the-!" A kunai flew out of nowhere, targeting Gin's throat.
I let power surge through me, and with a roar that seemed to shake the forest, I deflected the kunai with a claw and sheltered Gin with my arm. He was terrified.
"Z-zero...?"
I glanced at him, trying to look comforting rather than say anything. HUGE mistake. While I looked away, a sword smacked into me and carried us off our feet. I kicked out after I hit the ground and made a connection. I sprang to my feet to see an enormous, muscled, blue man...shark? O.O Wait, am I high...?
SMACK!
The shark-man hit me again with his sword, but I took Gin with me when I flew to the ground and then rolled away. Keeping Gin behind an arm, I slashed upwards as a second shadow came at us. I succesfully hit the shadow up and into the trees. Out of the corner of my eye, the shark-man charged me again.
I kicked the sword away. These men's chakra scared me. Shark-man's was an insane amount matching only Naruto's, and the other one had a dealy, calculating and cold feel to it. But their brash attack sequence didn't make any sense. It was far too easy to combat them.
Or was that what they wanted? Me to fight them head on until I ran out of energy? Fending off the shadow again, I turned and grabbed Gin. And then we ran.
I dropped to four legs and pushed Gin onto my back. He was frozen in shock and fear. My ears twitched as they picked up the sounds of the men beginning to chase us. Good.
They were men, I was a werewolf. They were screwed in this race to the finish line, I would be the victor. Grinning, I put on a burst of speed. If we got there with enough distance between us, maybe Gin's village could take him to safety and then we could fight and capture these men.
It was perfect! I was already gaining distance from them! And we were nearly there! Alright, now to just keep this pace and-
Was that Sasuke gaining! No, wait, that was the shadowed man's chakra, not Sasuke's. So, who-
"Itachi!" I cried out and nearly tripped.
That was all he needed. He used his momentum and threw a kunai, nailing me perfectly in the achille's tendon. I yelped and fell to the ground. But I had to keep going. I hopped up and pushed Gin forward. "Run!" I cried out to him. The old man finally seem to come to his senses.
He ran, but he kept glancing back at me, worried about my life. "Keep going! Don't worry!" I shouted. And then I turned on my older cousin.
Roaring, I put all my weight into a paw and clubbed him. But by this time shark-man had caught up; he neatly landed a blow to my head, and the last thing I remembered was Itachi crashing to the ground in sync with my paw and me.
-Village Hidden in the Waves-
Gin ran through the gates. "Help!" he shouted as loud as he could, out of breath. A guard at the entrance lifted a spear threateningly at him.
"Identify yourself!"
Btween heavy breaths, he replied, "Gin Ryuuga, a jewler from the next village over. Two rogue ninja are trying to kill my escort!"
But by the time they got to the spot, the only ones standing there were a blonde kid of Zero's age and a silver-haried ninja. Neither had anything to do with the attack. The two ninja and Gin stared at the bloodspots on the ground.
-Unkown-
"Damn! That girl's got power!"
Ouch. My head really hurt, and my ankle felt like it was going to fall off. I opened my eyes to try and see the owner of the voice, but my vision swam before me. Ugh, where and what...?
"Hmph," came the reply. That voice sounded familiar.
"Aw, you're just sore 'cause she knocked you out." Knocked who out? Wait... I remembered everything!
I opened my eyes again as the other voice replied coldly, "Shut your mouth, Kisame. She's awake."
I lifted myself to a sitting position slowly, my head throbbing in protest. Groaning, I put my head on my knees until my vision came into focus. Carefully so as not to upset my head or stomach, I glared at Weasel and pulled my lips back into a feral snarl.
"You're not in your wolf form; that snarl looks absolutely ridiculous," Itachi stated without even looking at me.
I let my lips down into a scowl. "Go die, Weasel."
"Not a chance. Then poor Kisame would be all alone."
I looked shark-man and nodded at him as he smiled cheerfully at me. "Good game, you're a far better ninja than he is," I told him. "You have balls while he does not."
He chuckled. "I'm Kisame, nice to meet you." He stuck out his hand. "Never realized there was a decent member of the Uchiha clan."
Itachi rolled his eyes. "And what do you mean by decent? We're all criminals."
"Oh, yes. By the way," Kisame fixed my with his beady-eyed gaze, "You're joining our orgainzation for both research and man-power. Welcome, your only hazing from me is the nasty bump on your head."
I blinked. "Uh, no."
"Too bad, cousin. It's not choice. You are a member of the Akatsuki." Each word of his last sentence was forced out. Itachi then got up. "Let's go, I want to be home."
He began to walk west. "Uh, no. Home's that way." I pointed east, towards Konoha.
"Not anymore." He kept walking.
Kisame began to follow, but stopped an looked at me. "You coming or not?"
"Nope."
He rolled his eyes. "Then you die."
"I know."
He shook his head, then went to grab me with his huge hands. "I can walk!" I leaped up and limped after Itachi. Kisame smirked and followed a few steps behind me.
Our progress was slow due to my injured heel. I was going to try walking on all fours in my wolf form, but Kisame and Itachi wouldn't allow it, for fear I would run off. Grumbling, I did my best not to hinder them.
But then, I realized how stupid that was. If we were slow enough, perhaps we'd be trailed by Konoha ninja and then we could attack the Akatsuki and finish them before the organization could start anything. So I steadily slowed.
No luck. Kisame grabbed me and carried me at a much faster pace. "Much better. I'll let you walk before we get home so you don't get on everyone's bad side." I had to formulate a plan...
We made it into Akatsuki territroy in no time at all. Kisame dropped me(1. Literally x) to the ground and continued to the large house concealed by some sort of justu(2. I'm not very fluent in anything but taijutsu...). Itachi waited for me to get off the ground and catch up to him.
"Now, refrain from judgement until you get to know them well. Otherwise, they will kill you. And then you can't relate any intelligence to the Village." Without anymore words, we stepped(3. Or in my case tripped) up the steps and through the door.
A large entry way greeted me, dyed in warm colours. Sunlight poured in from the windows and lit up the room pleasantly. Not what I expected. I didn't think there'd be corpses lying about and screams filling my ears instead of comfortable silence, but apparently my subconcious had been expecting that.
Itachi removed his sandals and looked at my feet until I did so. I smirked at my quiet cousin. We used to give him so much crap when we were all small... In good fun, of course. He had been a good person then, but now-
Wait, no judgement. I wasn't allowed to judge anyone. It would hurt things more than help. (I love irony; please don't judge my self-preservation.) Well, my not-judging was going well until some orange-masked idiot with a ball came charging into the room, throwing the ball at us and knocking over a vase of flowers.
"TOBI!" I heard a man scream.
Oh, dear.
The masked man, Tobi, apparently, ran out of the room. A rather feminine man with long, blonde hair came into the room. "Where did he go? Where's that ball?"
Itachi pointed in Tobi's direction, I reached down hesitantly and grabbed the ball, tossing it to the man. He took off. On the second thought, I didn't really know what to make of all that. It definetly was not anything like the stereotypical criminal lair...
"Come with me," Itachi commanded. I followed down a hall, past a kitchen, down another hall, up a flight of stairs and down another hall, stopping at the front of large, heavy door. "This is where you can contact our Leader. You know who he is, right?"
I shook my head. "I do not know the name." We only knew of his, Kisame's, and Orochimaru's former association with the organization. Their intentions were unclear. It was a dangerous and very secretive organization. But I wouldn't let them know that.
"Adress him as either Leader or Pein-sama." With that, Itachi knocked on the door two times, waited a few seconds, and then walked in, me behind him. We entered a cozy, carpeted room with a desk, window overlooking a lake and a garden, and couch situated near a shelf of books. A man sat at the desk, covered in peircings with flaming orange hair and spiral-like eyes. "Pein-sama, Kisame and I captured Zero but were unable to kill the witness she was with."
The man nodded. "Thank you, Itachi. I appreciate your efforts. I will give you further instructions in a bit. As for right now, I would like to question our new member." He turned to me and looked into my eyes. A challenge of authority. First to look away lost. I stared as stoically as I could back.
It didn't last long.
His essence demanded authority, his stature solid, his emotions cool and collected, his chakra dark and powerful. There wasn't any questions of him being the Alpha. "Leader, sir." I quietly acknowledged, looking at the floor in defeat. And he didn't gloat over his victory; in fact, he seemed to accept me into their organization as if I had been there the whole time, or as if I had gone missing and they were happy to find me and bring me back. But I was still afraid.
"Your name is Zero, correct? And you are of the Uchiha clan?"
I nodded.
"Zero, I can sense your fear. Don't worry. You can look up." I looked up at him. He offered a smile. "Now, we'll give you about a month to get used to the routine here before sending you off with a partner on missions. You should get to know everyone during that time, and any rebellious actions will be dealt with. I will talk to you later, but until then, Itachi will show you to your room.
"And before you go, what exactly do you like to do in your free time?"
I was taken off guard by that question. "Uh," I squeaked, then cleared my throat and answered, "I enjoy music, sir."
He smiled like a child who had done something right and nodded to Itachi. He tapped me on my shoulder and led me out the door. We shut it quietly. "Alright, you'll have your own room downstairs near the kitchen. I am sorry."
I was a bit confused. But we reached my room with no problem, and upon opening it, I found my clarinet awaiting me. Rushing to it, I took it up in my arms and examined it. "How did-"
"The lock on your room was awfukl in Konoha," Itachi said, staring boredly at something along the wall. I glanced over and grinned. That was a lovely trombone, with the initials I.U. engraved on the bell and gleaming as if recently polished. "I don't play any more. It's yours."
I looked at him for a few moments. Why was he being so nice? Didn't he kill our whole family? "Thank you." I tentatively walked over to him and put my arms around him in a hug. He gently returned it.
Then he awkwardly opened his mouth and closed it. He looked at the ring on my finger then at me. Then he left.
My stomach dropped. William... Everything seemed even darker now than right after he was... I sat on the bed and just stared out the window and into the beautiful, pink sunset that reflected off the lake and matched the colour of flowers directly beneath my window. Liam...
