Last Time on S.O.S

On with the Story!

After camping for about 3 hours and surviving perilous attacks from Tazuna's unwitting humor, the members of Cell 7 and their client finally! Made it to the harbor where they took a boat to the land of Nami no Kuni.

"So… bridge builder…"

Anei blatantly cut through the peaceful silence with a rather rough drawl.

"I would like to know why you lied to us about the mission and why exactly the Demon Brothers were just attempting to kill us."

Sweat poured from Tazuna's head as he contemplated his chances of survival between a creepy, maybe psychotic not-so-much genin, and the ocean…

Since he couldn't swim, the ocean was a no go and he had no choice but to look at the kid. He kept his eyes down and opened his mouth and began to tell his excuse/reason. That was until Kakashi broke in.

"Anei, how exactly do you know of the Demon Brothers?" he said. 'This kid needs to stop surprising me…'

Anei simply knelt down. "Haruno, come here."

Sakura stepped towards him; albeit hesitantly and stayed still. Hey, they may be teammates and their teamwork may have improved, but everyone learned to be careful about the enigmatic Anei as he had no qualms with using other to get his goals.

"Turn around." He drawled out.

Ok, at this point let me fill you in on what's happening with everyone else. Anei was known to be completely evil (depending on your perspective), unpredictable, and ingenious. Kakashi's mind was having a field day and going into overdrive about the things that could happen if this was a scene in his "holiest of holies". Of course, on the outside he kept his indifferent mask on. Hey, he's a jounin. You can't be a jounin and not have a little control over your emotions… that is unless you're Anei who thinks that if you have ties with the council in Konoha that's all you need to be set for life.

She turned around so that the sun hit her face and a shadow was placed over Anei who was behind her. Now just for a second picture this. A boy kills people like it's an everyday occurrence. He commands you to turn around and is directly behind you. You cannot see him. That's what Sakura's feeling.

Quickly, in a blink of an eye, Anei took his hand and plunged it into the bottom of the boat with the ease of a hot knife through butter. They noticed slight ripples seemed to originate from his hand as he moved it in the shadow as if looking for something.

He pulled out his hand and then placed it in front of Kakashi.

The only indication of Kakashi being surprised was the slight raise of his eyebrows while his mouth, if not held up by the mask would have been on the floor.

"To answer one question it's called shadow storage. It's when I put something in a void that can later be taken out again. I suggest you don't try to enter one when I open it as if you don't have the Jikokugan will be completely torn apart by the void as it tries to find equilibrium."

While he let the other people on the boat digest this information he dropped the object in his hand at Kakashi's feet.

"Secondly, this is a standard Bingo Book, Hatake."

Kakashi frowned. "I know that genin, but you shouldn't have access to that."

"Am I a normal genin?"

"…."

"Case and point."

Sasuke and Sakura's P.O.V

'Pwned….'

Kakashi's P.O.V

'Damn… see? This is why I didn't want a genin team! I just knew I was gonna get a weird one…'

Third Person P.O.V

Anei sat back down and went into a meditative state.

He had been having these weird …. 'Things' pop up in his mind and he was trying to sort them out.

'Really… I've been getting these weird flashes of information… thoughts that aren't mine… at least I don't think they're mine… and they are definitely not Kyuubi's… they aren't blood thirsty enough…'

Pause.

'I wonder what the old fox is doing...'

In Anei's Mindscape

'Hfmp… I let the guy run the place and it turns into this…'

He looked at the medieval castle in front of him with gallows, stretchers, and guillotines everywhere behind the bars that imprisoned the walking fossil.

"Kyuubi!"

The fox demon materialized in front of him and the castle about the size of a horse.

"Ahhh, my vessel… it's been so long since you've visited my humble abode."

Kyuubi walked towards the castle tapping the large metal doors with one of his tails causing it to open.

"Well come on…"

"Actually I just needed to see if you were okay…"

"Oh. Well then. This is awkward…."

"Why?"

"I had the tortures chambers set up for you already…" Kyuubi stated simply.

"Uh huh…" "I'll be taking my leave now…"

"Don't forget to write!" was the last comment by Kyuubi as he left his mindscape.

Real World.

'Back to my thoughts… I really need to find this "Itachi" and "Pein"… apparently they are powerful…. I see them and I feel fear…. That doesn't bode well for me or them… I tend to dislike those who unsettle me…'

He came back to the real world able to catch just a little bit of the conversation between Tazuna and Team 7.

"So basically you need us to kill this "Gato" for you right?" Sasuke laid out the real reason for the mission right there.

"Well, I was going to ask you for protection while I finish the bridge, but that works too!" Tazuna said gleefully.

"Sorry team, that's not our mission. Once Tazuna arrives at his house he's no longer our problem. The Leaf cannot afford to lose ninja's on fake missions."

Kakashi's face was completely straight and impassive.

'I wonder how they'll respond under this type of pressure. Finish the original terms of the mission, or change the details to help the client if needed…'

"There's no way we can just leave all those women and children to that type of fate."

'Sakura: Pass.'

"Hey, what about me?" Tazuna exclaimed, insulted.

She spared a glance towards him.

"Screw you, you lied to us."

'Sakura: Uncertain.'

"Sakura's right. But… I may find a worthy opponent here to test my abilities." 'And finally put the training Anei gave us to use.' Sasuke added mentally.

'Sasuke: Pass, even if reasons are questionable…'

Everyone turned to Anei's position expecting his reply.

Or…. Lack thereof…

As they looked around they saw a black cloak billowing out in the distance…

Walking on water…

They looked at each other.

"I guess we'll take that as a 'yes'."

It had taken some time, but they had finally docked and begun the third and final part of their journey. There was only one problem.

Walking for about 2 days, taking a boat for one and having to stay completely awake and alert the whole time?

Needless to say, the members of Team 7 were not happy campers.

Sasuke's eyes were constantly changing between his normal onyx color and the red, crimson of the sharingan, which he acquired along the way with a drawn out, and extremely terrifying battle to the death with a chicken. Anei of course was the one that made it attack him, and he could just swear he was chuckling inside that cloak of his.

Hey, it's possible. I saw this fat guy on TV. Get the crap beat out of him by one. I loved the talking baby though… Anyway! (Note Sarcasm: . I mean really… who hasn't watched that episode of family?)

Sakura was cracking her knuckles, producing the sound of a drum line and Kakashi was mad because somewhere, sometime during the boat ride his precious Icha Icha Paradise had gone M.I.A. He suspected a certain fallen-angel-looking genin, but didn't voice his thoughts (Because it may start an all out brawl for his precious Icha Icha which could possibly have a worst effect on the terrain then global warming) and settles for daydreaming about the next volumes of his beloved series.

Anei was wearing his usual unemotional mask, which no one know how they could tell, since he always had his hood up.

In reality, he was EXTREMELY PISSED. He couldn't do anything. He tried looking at the outcomes of different combinations of hand signs would produce, but all he got was the scent of burning wood to follow him. He couldn't even train, because for some reason, he found himself locked out of his own mind. It was one of his only havens!

What's worse is that that damned fox was completely silent and wouldn't answer his calls. He couldn't remember the last time he say eye, ear, or tail of that damned fox.

So now there was an annoyed Uchiha, a killing-happy Haruno, a suspicious, porn less, perverted Jounin, and an ever so slightly, antsy, shadow manipulation, time twisting Jinchuuriki….

'Btw, I took away your training area, it was taking up too much space and I needed a place to put my big-screen plasma and my XBOX.'

Anei stopped for a full 3 seconds, in which everything just stopped and fell silent.

The birds didn't chirp, humming birds fell from the sky, a mouse and cat stopped chasing each other with frying pans, and even the Akatsuki felt slightly unnerved by the mass killing intent that swept most likely every reaches of the world.

Yep. I pity the poor fool who messes with them.

CRUNCH!

They all stopped rigid as a wave of sharp pointy objects went sailing into the nearby foliage. They continue to press on however, as they saw they had only pinned a rabbit to a tree by its ears with kunai, his left paw cut off by shuriken, its eyes gouged out by black tentacles, and finally its body half roasted from a katon jutsu and it was of no importance to them. At least, that's what half of them thought.

They all paused and jumped into position quickly surrounding Tazuna. Sasuke and Sakura were on the wings, Kakashi watched the back, and Anei stood at the front with his body fully shrouded by his cloak.

Sure enough, there was a whistling sound.

Kakashi's eyes widened. "Everybody get down!"

Every dived to the ground and prepared themselves for a battle as a huge broad sword flew over them.

Anei just stretched out his hand grasped the handle of the sword. Or… that's what he planned on, before he was forcefully ejected in the air by an expulsion of force from the sword and was sent shooting off into a nearby tree and knocked out. All he saw next were a pair of legs in front of him and a gruffly voice say, "I'll be taking my sword back, Gaki." Shadows swam before the corners of his eyes as he floated into unconsciousness.

He heard a faint voice in the back of his head. "Jytuk ojud nyrut, May it Begin."