Nozomi reverse-summoned the trio, having already stocked up the fridge in the 'house' they would be staying at, which had hammocks rather than actual futons.
She hadn't expected Deidara, but at least now she had someone to talk explosive seals with.
She had made sure to give him a separate 'house'.
Then she gave Deidara and Kisame a video camera and a regular camera.
The reunion of the Uchiha brothers was in Eggman's fortress, primarily because it had multiple cameras...and because Sasuke apparently had a thing for explosions much like Nozomi did. Then again, Uchiha were always a bunch of pyromaniacs.
The second Sasuke enacted his revenge for the Tsukiyomi induced trauma and making him the sole target of the damn Uchiha fangirls (even for the dead Uchiha) Deidara laughed so hard he had hiccups.
Itachi was in immense pain...and it only got worse when Tsunade showed up shortly after. His dislike of medics was well known in the Akatsuki, so finding out Nozomi had made sure he wouldn't be moving while the woman gave him a much overdue physical was making even Kisame giggle evilly.
Best of all they could sell the video to Kakuzu for a bit of cash!
Tsunade immediately frowned when she got to Itachi's chest.
"And when, exactly, were you planning to have your lungs checked young man?" she demanded.
Itachi winced.
"Wait, what this about his lungs?" said Sasuke.
"Good kick, gaki. A bit rough, but you have some potential. Your idiot brother here has a lung condition. A bad one. And if left untreated it will kill him before he turns twenty-five," said Tsunade flatly.
Sasuke's glare went up a notch.
"Just because you took out mom doesn't mean you should be so lax about your own health, baka!" said Sasuke.
Nozomi choked back a laugh. It was pretty damn funny to see Sasuke had a mother-hen side to him, but then again he had always been close to Itachi.
Nozomi had an evil idea.
"Since you're here Granny, how about training Sasuke in the basics of iryojutsu? Make it so Itachi won't be able to escape the medic nins, ever?"
"An Uchiha medic. Now that has some potential. That Hyuuga girl you dropped with me has some of the best instincts I've seen in a long time, and even better control. I wonder how well an Uchiha could do?"
Seeing Itachi's slightly horrified look, Deidara and Kisame laughed harder.
"You are an evil, twisted bitch. I think I'm in love," said Deidara, once he got over his giggles, though he still had the hiccups.
"The fact he'll be using most of it on his reluctant brother has nothing to do with it, I bet."
Deidara was still pissed with Itachi for forcing him to join the Akatsuki. So seeing Itachi being tag-teamed by the best medic in the Elemental Countries and his own brother after being hit so hard in the balls...well, he felt vindicated.
Kisame just loved the fact that Itachi had broken his Uchiha Mask for once, and because of a pair of kids!
Itachi was forced to endure Tsunade's tender mercies for a full month before she cleared him.
Hinata never thought that four and a half months after the genin exams, she would learn one of Konoha's less pleasant secrets.
That the Hokage and his trio of advisers had ordered Itachi to murder his family and become a spy. Or that the entire reason Nozomi failed the first genin exam was because the instructors were so determined to bring down the village weapon that they brought down the rest of the class with her.
Tsunade had been openly disgusted upon finding how poor Hinata's skills were, and they were roughly at the top of the class practice wise, with Ino being a close second. Academically, it would have been Sakura.
Nozomi had been in the bottom because she constantly got kicked out of class for flimsy reasons, and found it was much more productive to study on the island. At least there, she was given unprejudiced training.
So yes, Tsunade spent a good two months getting Hinata's skills up to par, along with breaking her timid nature.
They were medics, battlefield medics. A timid and shy nature simply wouldn't cut it. Her gentle nature was acceptable, provided she directed it correctly, but being unsure of her skill in the midst of battle would get her killed.
Besides, it would give Tsunade a great deal of satisfaction to see the look on Hiashi's face when his 'timid, weak' daughter and heir broke his nose.
However once he was cleared for training, the gloves were off.
Itachi put his brother through the ringer, teaching him little tricks to get his Sharingan fully upgraded within a short amount of time. Nozomi too, though in her case it was more about teaching her how to use her speed in a fight.
Sonic might have shown her how to run for long distances and how to use her wind element to augment her natural fighting skills...but when it came to battles he was more of a speed-freak who ran circles until the opponent left an opening. A fact Eggman had tried to break repeatedly.
Itachi was fast, and while Nozomi was faster she had no real experience using her taijutsu and that speed at the same time.
"I'm bored," said Kisame.
This vacation was great, but he was a ninja. After a while even training would get boring as hell.
"Pay up," said Nozomi to Tsunade. The Sannin grumbled before shelling out five thousand to the grinning red-head.
Kisame sat up, anticipating the red head's plan. She was always good for a laugh.
"So what do you have in mind red?"
"A certain little troll, who shall remain nameless, short changed me for a delivery. He then thought he could bribe me to forget that he's a cheapskate of a civilian. I heard rumors the idiot's trying to take over Wave, and he has one of your colleagues keeping the Hunter Nin busy with an accomplice. I plan to bankrupt the little shit. Maybe make an outpost and train up some civilians to expand the business," said Nozomi evilly.
"Spiteful. I like it. What's in it for me?"
"Depends...how badly do you want to upstage Konoha and possible make Zabuza shit himself?"
"Hell, count me in, Un!" said Deidara eagerly. Pissing off Konoha was always something he would agree to.
"And what about the Uchihas?"
"Konoha is too close to where we're going. And Itachi is starting Sasuke on the basics of kenjutsu, so you can have fun traumatizing him later. And the tree-huggers still have no idea that the Orange Flash is actually their missing weapon. Let's go screw with their heads a bit and lay down confusing leads that go nowhere and possibly piss off the other countries."
"Count me in, un!"
"Me too. It'll be fun to annoy Zabuza again, and if nothing else we could help you rope him into being your courier at the outpost!" cackled Kisame.
Nozomi didn't live in Iron Country for the prices or the fact that they didn't have the same instinctive hatred of her. She lived there because they didn't give a damn about shinobi or jinchuriki. Once she showed the official document from the Hokage stating that "Naruko Uzumaki" had been banned from the Konoha Shinobi Corps, the leader of Iron Country officially made her a full citizen. And then he legally changed her name and made it public to any shinobi that wanted to look up where Naruko Uzumaki lived.
All legal and above board. It wasn't his problem if the Konoha shinobi hadn't been able to stop her from abandoning her ties to the village. And as long as she wasn't officially part of any country's shinobi army, then legally Konoha couldn't come and claim her.
A fact she would gleefully shove in the Hokage's face, along with the entire Council. It was too little, too late for them to clean up their act.
"Bring back pocky," said Itachi, when he heard where they were reverse summoning to.
"And tomatoes!" shouted Sasuke. The shared garden between the friends wouldn't be in season for a month. It was one of their few hobbies that didn't involve destruction. Nozomi chuckled.
Sasuke had an addiction to tomatoes.
She gave them a two fingered salute, before they packed up a few things to scare any other skin-flint civilians to think twice about trying to cheat the Orange Flash out of her payment.
What they found had them re-evaluating their priorities.
The Copy-Nin Kakashi was there with a trio of wet-nosed Genin. Deidara wanted to kill him, because of the number of deaths to his clan.
Nozomi had a better, more evil idea.
She was going to steal his porn from under his nose and then humiliate him in order to get it back. And then have it video-taped for blackmail.
And that was revenge the insane bomber could get behind. Killing an enemy was all and good, but humiliating them and getting good blackmail was more satisfying.
And if nothing else, it would be fun to kill Kakashi later.
"No killing the genin. We want them to actually be fun when whatever plan that idiot with the white mask has planned comes into play," said Nozomi.
"There's a reason I always liked you gaki. What about torture?"
"Traumatize them if you must, but they must be more or less intact. Otherwise Pein will never stop bitching about it when he finds out. So we might as well leave the cloaks behind."
It was ironic, really. The secret "true" leader of the Akatsuki had no idea that one of the very people he was planning to hunt down and kill had the entire group in her back pocket. Either because they liked her too much or respected her as a fellow warrior and tactician. She understood the group of outcasts far better than the 'leader' did, and got along fine with almost all of them.
So it was debatable whether they would go after her or not.
It took all of ten minutes to locate Zabuza, and fifteen for Nozomi to convince him to give up the location to Gatou's base. His apprentice, Haku, had been tense right up until he/she heard Zabuza trade ideas for how slowly the midget would be killed.
For the most part, Zabuza was pretty reasonable...especially when he found out Nozomi was from Iron Country, not any of the hidden villages.
He was also all for pranking the hell out of Kakashi and his snot-nosed brats. They had gotten lucky when they managed to escape him the first time.
"So let's see if I got this straight. You want me to act as a courier?"
"Or as a front-man for the shop. Let's face it, because you're a former Kiri nin, Iron won't have you. But...it will allow you to make connections for the rebels in Mist to use in order to get much needed supplies and aid. Ignore Konoha though...they still have to clean up after the mess their Jinchuruki left behind, and kami knows they'll try to lord it over you like they did Suna."
Zabuza winced.
"I don't get it. Why would you care about Konoha anyway?"
"I'm the one who left," stated Nozomi...then she grinned "And I happened to have absconded with the heirs of their two most prestigious clans. All I ask in return is that you give me a week's notice if you're planning to break from my 'employ' and that you don't betray me or exceed the boundaries of good taste like Orochimaru has."
There was a point when even shinobi had to say things had gone too far. And Orochimaru had gone past that point when he started jumping bodies in his efforts to learn everything. He was a cancer, and one she would not miss in the least.
Kabuto, at least, had agreed to continue the research Orochimaru left behind once he went past Nozomi's store of patience...just with a few tweaks.
Insane snake or not, Orochimaru was a genius.
"...You know Orochimaru?"
"I'm a courier. So long as I'm paid, I don't give a damn what my client has done unless they're stupid enough to short change me like Gatou did, and then I take my time to call in a few favors before I demonstrate what a phenomenally bad idea that is."
There was no kill like overkill...like calling in a couple of S-ranked Nukenin to deal with a civilian.
Zabuza's grin was terrifying.
"I like you kid. Can I watch while you explain to the bastard how badly he screwed up?"
"Can you walk, or do we have to rig up a TV and video camera for you to watch from afar?"
"I don't have to fight, do I?" he asked.
"Anyone stupid enough to try and stop us will meet Deidara, since I'm not letting him kill or maim the Konoha idiots. And anyone dumb enough to piss me off gets to meet Kisame."
"Then I can walk."
Barely.