A/n: Okay. So I was just itching to write a fight scene. That's one of very few things that I can immediately list that this story doesn't have. So I wrote one. And...sigh. Child of Itachi/Tobi's is just screaming MARY SUUUUUUUUEE!!!!!!!11one!1!!!
So, I'm writing the story, a bunch later (you've probably picked up on my system by now) and I wrote this chapter, and this chapter was, like, seven pages long! (most of these seem more like three) So I'm going to try and be more regular on my posting so that I can be annoying and repetitive and borrow that little technique where I have you guys wait twice as long and then show you something twice as long (actually, that might be closer to three times as long, seeing as by "three" I mean "two-or-three")
Except, if I'm going to do that, I'm going to need to stop being a bad girl and get my mom to let me use the computer more so I can post more.
Which would mean that I wouldn't be able to writeas fast.
Which might possibly mean that I'd eventually wind up leaving you guys stuck waiting for me to finish writing a chapter before I can post it.
If that does happen, I'm sorry.
And yeah, I took entirely too long to post this. Something happened...yeah, did I mention that my mother and I haven't been getting along so great? Yeah...I kinda ran off because I was kinda mad...and yeah, I came back (not that I wanted to) and didn't talk to her at all for a day or two and now we're on okay terms, but I had very little computer time because of that.
I know you don't really need to hear my life's story, but otherwise I'd be vague and I'm sure someone somewhere sometime would eventually ask me exactly what happened.
Have you ever noticed--Akatsuki seems to live off of pancakes and waffles? I have. Because I wrote it that way. And my dad usually makes a pretty elaborate and original breakfast, you'd think that I'd be able to think of something better for them to eat. Eggs benedict or something.
Of course, I never said that any of them have the creativity or whatever else to do that.
Or so says my excuse.
Oh well. One of the future chapters includes Tobi cooking eggs. Which reminds me that nobody ever seems to make the food, it's just there.
Maybe Akatsuki has house elves or something.
Disclaimer: All presumably adult characters in this story ("presumably adult" as in old-enough-to-drive-except-they-probably-wouldn't-because-they-don't-exactly-have-cars-so-that-kind-of-killed-that-idea-pretty-quickly) belong to Masashi Kishimoto.
That cute little bundle of :ahem: "joy" with the ifyouthinkaboutitIhopeyourealizeherphysicalcharacteristicsareratheralotlikeItachi'sexceptshe'sagirlandItachi'skindofnot kind of characteristics belongs to me. And yes I'm being evasive about her name. And no that's not because I don't know it. I just revel in making you squirm.
The next morning, Pein woke up with a headache. Kai had already gone downstairs for breakfast when he awoke, but she seemed to leave the door open. A long time ago, they made a decision, and that was that the door to his room would always remain closed, except when entering or leaving, or in the case of an emergency. She would only leave the door open if there was an attack and she didn't have time to wake him.
Pein leapt up, grabbing the closest thing that could possibly be used as a weapon, which just so happened to be the lamp. He hesitated for the briefest fraction of a second to realize that he was a superb and skilled ninja who was going to defend his home with a lamp, before deciding that it proved him a great ninja to be able to use something as improvised as a lamp.
He perked his senses, listening intently for any sound of battle, smelling the air for any trace of spilled blood, but he didn't detect anything; he heard no sound and smelled only waffles.
Waffles?
Pein dismissed the waffles; he could not be distracted. This was not the time to wa…never mind. He had to pay attention to the battle that supposedly was taking place, not puns on the meal that would be served if this was a false alarm or something. But it wasn't a false alarm, because Kai wouldn't leave the door open unless it was real. He was the only one who ran drills; nobody would dare mess with his mind.
He took a battle-ready position, the lamp held threateningly over his head as he kicked the plug out of the outlet.
Pein sensed a stir near the door and tensed imperceptibly. His enemy was near, and he was about to strike, but something came flying at him first, and he waved the lamp into that object's trajectory to deflect it, but not before he recognized it as one of his own kunai knives, and the brief confusion from his own weapon being used against him gave his opponent an opening to come flying at him foot-first.
Grasping his attacker's foot with one hand, Pein dropped the lamp in his other, and used that other hand to spin his surprisingly light foe, but she landed on one hand and used the other to pivot around and swing her legs at him again. Pein backed up, and his assailant's foot connected instead with the bed and not his leg, causing her to lose her balance and fall over with a thud. She quickly leapt up, and the trickle of light coming through the doorway shed just enough illumination to show that his attacker had a young body and long black hair that fell in her face before she threw a punch at Pein.
Pein sidestepped the attack and took her neck in the crook of his elbow, picking her up off the ground. The girl struggled as he tensed his arm, tightening her throat, until the door flew open and a familiar voice exclaimed, "Pein-chan!"
Pein whipped around, the girl's body swinging about with his. "Kai-chan! Don't call me that!"
The girl made a noise somewhere between a gurgle, a growl, and a gasp, and Pein's grip tightened slightly more.
Kai's lips pursed. "Sir, have you forgotten about yesterday?"
Pein's hold loosened very slightly as he thought back on the previous day's events. Which started with breakfast, at which time…Tobi brought that girl home. That girl with a young body and long black hair that fell in her face.
He looked sourly down at his captive, and sure enough, that was the very same girl that Tobi had claimed parental authority over, her face reddening from his clutch, her teeth grinding irritatedly and her dark eyes glaring hatefully up at him with—was that a tint of red? No, that was Pein's imagination. It was early for him and he had a headache and a ten-year-old girl had just tried to assassinate him. Of course it was his imagination.
Pein sighed, oh-so-irritated, and released her. She fell onto her hands and knees, where she took several long and unrushed breaths; she seemed rather wary of letting Pein see any weakness in her. If she hadn't just tried to kill him, and if she'd been old enough to be able to understand more things about their organization, Pein would have to say that she could very easily become a member of Akatsuki. But she most certainly wasn't, and most certainly had just tried to kill Pein. Needless to say, Pein most certainly was not going to give her anything she wanted, much less something that permanently put her in a rather close position to him, even if that was exactly what she didn't want and even if she obviously was close enough to threaten his life anyway.
The girl stood up, threw a glare at Pein, and ran out of the room, down the hall, to the room that had once been Itachi and Kisame's, the room that was now Itachi and Tobi's.
Pein sighed again and started toward the door to go down the stairs to breakfast, passing Kai on the way. "Kai-chan," he began, his voice not much louder than a whisper. "How long do you think it will be until that child is out of our base for good?"
"With all due respect, Pein-sama," Kai responded, no louder than Pein, "you are the one who said she could stay."
As they continued down the hallway, Pein pointed out tartly, "Yes, well, that was before she tried to kill me."
"It's not like she succeeded," Kai hissed. "If anyone was actually going to kill anyone, you would be killing her."
"Kai," Pein scolded, his voice quiet but still sharp. "The only reason she failed was because I was alert because the door was open."
Kai shook her head subtly, muttering, "Pein-sama, I'm sure she had one reason or another. I'm sure with a little mediation—"
"Kai-chan," Pein protested, careful to keep his voice from bouncing as he stepped off the last stair, "this is Akatsuki, not Congress. I make the decisions, and I may or may not, but most likely will not, listen to any advice that is given to me. I do not need a mediation to know that I want that girl gone."
Kai closed her eyes tolerantly, knowing the layout of the house well enough that she could sit down at her seat quite perfectly without opening them at all.
Pein sat at his own seat, looking about at the table: Hidan and Tobi were nowhere to be seen; Kakuzu was grumbling to himself; Sasori and Deidara seemed almost a little smug as they stared into each other's eyes; Zetsu looked rather distracted by his own thoughts, licking his lips suspiciously every so-often; Kisame seemed determinedly ignorant to any other happenings in the world, shoveling breakfast into his eyes at high speed; Itachi was glancing about anxiously, picking distractedly at his food.
Itachi was distressed? This hadn't happened since Tobi was still recruiting family, and even then, he wasn't quite this obvious about it. Something had definitely happened.
A squeal from upstairs might have been a hint, considering that Itachi perked up at this sound and abruptly stood up and trotted toward that sound. It was Tobi's voice, right? That would explain a lot. It was hardly out of the question that Tobi had encountered a spider and Itachi knew that there was an arachnophobic young man behind that spiraling orange mask. Itachi would be the person to know it, after all, and also apparently the person to care when it became an issue.
Momentarily, Pein heard two sets of relatively soft footsteps descending the stairs, just before Itachi turned the corner, looking rather satisfied and considerably less nervous. Following him was Tobi, who carried his "child" with one arm under her knees and the other behind her back, which she very forcefully kept straight as she glared directly ahead at her destination, focusing the intensity of that glare when it landed on Pein.
Pein returned the glare in double, and Kai flinched, making a strangled hiccuping noise as she did so. It took him almost a full second to realize that she had halted a giggle, and he promptly began cursing himself. He was being so immature, holding such a foolish grudge against such a young child, so much like she did. He was Pein, the feared leader of the notorious Akatsuki, and yet he did exactly what this ten-year-old child did. What was this world coming to?
The very fact that there was a child in the Akatsuki household may have been a hint.
A/n again: Hmmm...what to A/n about...other than my stupid almost-pun? Really, I was just cruising along, and the next thing I know, I've typed, "This was no time to waffle!" I sat a moment in thought before backspacing it a bit.
"This is Akatsuki, not Congress." For some reason, I've had a bit of a fascination with that line. Because it's so blunt. And so...yeah. Pein in a more humorous way.
Oddly, when I add the concept of humor to Pein I think only of that very first fiction that technically included him. I probably mentioned this already at some point, but in case you've forgotten, it was crack about road trips and Pein was riding in the trunk. You say "Pein is funny," I think, "Pein is riding in the trunk of Kisame and Zetsu's car, which is picking up an irrate Temari and passed-out Kankuro, who are currently hitchhiking by a bog in Maine." Ah, memories.
Preview: Screw the formalities. I'm just going to tell you that it wraps this one up nicely and cutely and Mary-Sue-ly.
Special: Pein Mustang: (Did I mention that I'm instituting specials?)
AHA! I figured out who Pein is!
Pein is...ROY PEINALDS! (roy mustang + pein + malcolm reynolds roy peinalds)
See? And then Kai is, like...um... Riza Kainara? (riza hawkeye+kai+inara)
Or maybe he's just Pein Mustang because I guess Malcolm Reynolds would fit somewhere between those two...
But, seriously, can't you see the resemblance???? Doesn't that just seem SO MUCH like something that would happen between Roy and Riza?
:cut to scene:
(Roy strangling attacker in the dark of his room)
Riza:flings door open: SIR!
Roy:turning around: Riza, I told you, just call me Roy here!
Riza: Um, sir...did you forget about that new recruit?
Roy: Hm:thinks about it, then looks at his captive:
Ed:being strangled by Roy:glare intensely while flailing arms about:
Roy: Oh yeah, I forgot about that new short kid...
Ed: WHO ARE YOU CALLING A TINY LITTLE--
:end scene:
Yeah, that's about it.