Oh My God!!! I'm so sorry I haven't posted anything! My Word is down and I'm using a temporary fix right now. I'll try to post really often to make up for that!
Thaks goes to... *drumroll*
Ichigofan01,
Kuragari Rya Eovin SuicideAngel1369 (nice number)
You Can Run But You Can't Hide,
DementedxAngelxx,
XWeirdLover23X,
TrainReckX,
myself, sadly.
Foxxy1st,
AnsemMesna,
and Dusk Raider

You guys ROCK!!!! I'm suprised, I always thought my writing sucked... ///_^0 ~*~*~*~*~*~*$$$~*~*~*~*~*~*$$$~*~*~*~*~*~*$$$~*~*~*~*~*~*$$$~**~*~*~*~*~*$$$~*~*~*~*~*~*$$$~*~*~*~

"So... are you going to ask me those questions now?"

Naruto was now sitting up with a very pissed off Sasori glaring at him from the foot of the bed.

"First off, I would like to point out the fact that you should still be unconscious..."

Naruto looked at him with big, innocent, wide blue eyes.

"But, Sasori-chan... I'm a medical miracle!" He said, in an imitation of those horrible, horrible Uchiha fangirls...

Sasori's eye twitched. Violently. Itachi just looked scared...

"For the sake of all my hard work, I am going to ignore that last bit. Explain. Now."

"Nuh-uh, no way! If I'm gonna explain, I want an explanation too!"

Itachi looked at him curiously.

"What kind of explanation?"

"Uuummm... How about we start out with the fact that I'm A) Not dead, B) Not strapped to some freaky-ass statue with you guys trying to suck out the damn furball-"

Itachi burst out laughing.

"What? What's so damn funny?!"

"You... Kyuubi.... evil, nine-tailed demon... furball!"

And there went all of Itachi's self-control. Poor, poor Itachi...

"Fine. Quid pro quo, then? A question for a question."

Trust Sasori to be the smart one...

"That's agreeable. I'll go first. Hmmm, how about 'What the hell?!' Is that a legitimate question?"

Sasori lifted an eyebrow.

"Be a little more specific?"

"Ok. What the hell is with the random personality changes? I mean, last time I met up with you, you were trying to kill me, and now your here being almost, dare I say it... civil? Not evil? Nice?!"

Itachi had calmed down and was now standing next to Sasori.

"There is an explanation... but it's complicated. Itachi? I think you'd better..."

Itachi sighed and sat down on the end of the bed.

"Well, this sucks... Sasori, you should probably make sure Deidara doesn't kill himself... I'll answer the questions..."

"Alright. I shall return."

Sasori turned on his heel and walked out of the room, presumably to find Deidara and inform him of Naruto's condition. Naruto stared after him with wide eyes.

"Dude..."

Itachi looked at him.

"What?"

"He totally acts like one of those cheesy bad guys from one of Ero-sennin's novels..."

Itachi just stared at him.

"Ahem! Ok! How about those damn explanations?"

Itachi sighed and stared out the window.

"Akatsuki started out as a haven for those who either weren't welcome in a village or wanted better. Personally, I don't really know why some of the other members joined at first, but for me, well..."

"The Uchiha Massacre."

A butterfly, red and black in colour, landed on the window sill. Itachi watched as it fluttered it's wings slightly.

"... I didn't... I..."

"You didn't kill them."

Both Naruto and Itachi watched as the butterfly's wings stilled...

"No. It was Orochimaru under a henge. They wouldn't deal with him. He wanted me. They were willing to give him Sasuke, but..."

The butterfly twiched its wings, but made no move to fly away.

"I always thought he was a greedy bastard."

A bitter smirk grew on Itachi's face, making the lines appear more prominent and morphing his face to look much older than his 20 years.

"That he was. Of course, the village was already suspicious because of the whole Shunsui ordeal- he really did commit suicide, by the way- so to them, the logical conclusion was, well, me. And we both know how that turned out. I went and joined Akatsuki."

The butterfly made as if to take off, but only made it to the other side of the sill before landing.

"At first, it was good. We did missions, of course, but the main focus was money, not world domination. Then, Pein joined. He killed the previous leader and took over. None of us realized exactly what that meant."

The silence was heavy.

"What did it mean?"

Red met blue...

"Pain. Humiliation. Loss of control. I think that was the worst part. When we refused to help, he used a jutsu similar to the Yamanaka Kekkei Genkai to control us. To put it lightly, it sucked."

Naruto snorted. Itachi just looked back out the window. The butterfly was still there.

"That only changed recently. We actually have Kimimarou to thank for our freedome..."

Such unusual colouring... beautiful, yes, but strange...

"How?"

"Hidan found him. He was out wandering around and stumbled across him, much like how I found you. It turns out that Orochimaru found out about his illness, which Sasori was able to partially cure, and decided that he wasn't useful as a fighter anymore. He turned him into an experiment and..."

"And what?"

"Pretty much a personal sex-toy. One of the experiments gave him his gift, and another his curse."

It was fluttering again...

"The gift was Sight."

Didn't the poor thing know it was futile?

"Kimimarou gained the ability to see past, present, and future images in water, and the ability to see through the eyes of animals. That was his Gift."

Wings beat erratically, frantic and desperate.

"The curse... Luna's Gift. Lycanthropy."

Blue and red watched as the butterfly died.

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... Dear God, that was depressing...

BTW, I love spell check. I'm sorry it was so short, but I'm gonna try to post up antother chapter tomorrow, and it's already 1:50. Ja ne, minna.