This chpater was really exciting to write! We are finally going to get clues on Sakura's plan... I wonder what it could be? Enjoy! Please review if you have time, I would really like to know if you like the way the story is going. Thank you!
At the Akatsuki hideout:
Itachi woke with the sun as usual. He rose from his bed and walked down the hall. He debating on checking up on his little brother, but decided against it since Sasuke would probably be aggravated by his presence. Itachi began to make himself a simple breakfast, and only moments after he sat down to eat, Kisame entered the kitchen.
"Morning, Itachi." Kisame said while making himself something to eat.
"Morning."
"Itachi, I wanted to ask you about something… Yesterday I saw you go into Sasuke's room and then I heard him start to scream like you were trying to murder him. What was that all about?" He questioned as he took a seat across from his partner.
"Let's just say he wasn't overly happy to see me."
Kisame snickered. "Well, you expected that much, didn't you?"
Itachi sighed. "Yes, I did."
The next person to enter the room was the only female in the organization. Konan took a seat next to Itachi at the table.
"Aren't you going to get something to eat?" Kisame asked the woman.
"I will in a few minutes." She replied while stifling a yawn.
More members began to groggily make their way to the kitchen. Before the hour was up, all of the Akatsuki were present.
'Deidara," Pain said, "go get Sasuke. We are going to get answers from him, through force if necessary."
"What?" Deidara replied. "I got him last time, hn. And he kicked me in the stomach!"
"Why?" Hidan asked. "Did you start coming onto him?" He started to laugh hysterically as he insulted Deidara. Itachi held back an evil stare when Hidan made such an assumption about his little brother.
"Shut up, Hidan! All I did was grab his arm to pull him out here and freaked out. And I'm not gay! So top implying it, hn."
"Well if you didn't wear your hair like a damn girl, I wouldn't!"
"That's enough! Pain scolded the two bickering members. "Deidara, just go get him."
"I don't need this, hn…"" Deidara mumbled to himself as he went to fetch the younger Uchiha. When he arrived at the doorway, he could sense no chakra. He opened the door and looked around. "Damn it!"
He rushed back down the hall to the others. "He's not there, hn!"
"Damn brat! I knew we shouldn't have been so soft on him! Going easy on someone only gives them a chance to get away!" Hidan shouted.
"What do you mean he's not there?" Kakuzu asked.
"I mean he's not there, hn. He wasn't in the bathroom either. Looks like he ran off."
"Damn kid probably went back to that snake guy." Hidan muttered.
"Shut up, Hidan." Kakuzu snapped.
"Why don't you make me, you old bastard?" Hidan spit back.
"If you could die, you would most certainly be dead right now!"
"Enough of this!" Pain screamed. "We have a serious problem, so stop acting like children!"
Hidan sighed and sat down, "so what now?"
"We need to go after Sasuke." Pain responded.
"Why can't we just kill Orochimaru, hn? All he's doing is getting in our way." Deidara commented.
"We can't do that. It is crucial that we do not draw attention to ourselves. I want everyone to go search for Sasuke; we need to bring him back here."
"But we don't have any idea where he went, hn."
"Deidara's right. He could have traveled all the way to the sand village by now." Kakuzu said.
"That makes no difference. Orochimaru is a threat to our plans. We can not simply take him out; word of his death would spread at an immense rate and every nation would then become aware of who killed him. If they were to discover our motive of capturing the jinjuriki, our task would become much more complex. The simple solution is to find Sasuke. Since he has intelligence on us now, he could easily inform Orochimaru of our location and intentions. We must prevent this."
Several members of the group nodded as others just sighed at the troublesome situation. However, they obeyed the order and broke into their usual partners. The groups of two scattered from the hideout in pursuit of Sasuke.
Itachi and Kisame decided to go to the land of rice, which harbored the sound village.
"Itachi," Kisame began, "do you think that Sasuke returned to Orochimaru?"
"I can't say for sure."
"I suppose no one can…"
Itachi was certain that Sasuke would not have willingly returned to the sannin. However, he did not think that his brother would have been abducted, either. He saw that possibility as rather impossible since an intruder would have to sneak past nine S-rank criminals. He figured that Sasuke decided to try to escape since Itachi had caused him great emotional pain yesterday. Whatever the case was, Itachi was determined to find his little brother.
Village hidden in the leaves:
The squad had just reached the entrance of the village. "We need to report to Lady Tsunade about our encounter with Orochimaru." Yamato said as the group walked through the main gate.
"Alright! Let's go!" Naruto said cheerfully.
"You seem much more positive than you did earlier…" Yamato said suspiciously.
"Oh… I'm just glad to be back; that's all! Besides, we did find out a little."
"Yeah," Sakura chimed in, "at least we gained a little knowledge on Orochimaru."
"I guess that's true. I'm glad to see you two aren't too upset anymore." Yamato smiled. "Now let's get to Lady Tsunade's office."
As they walked to the hokage tower, Sai watched his new teammates with suspicion. I don't understand, he thought, they were so upset when we at the border, but now they are filled with joy… It seems a bit odd to me, but emotions are such strange things…
When they entered the hokage's office, they saw Kakashi speaking with Lady Tsunade.
"Nice to see you up and around." Yamato said to his former Anbu teammate.
"I'm glad to be out of the hospital, too." He smiled under his mask.
"Since you're back, I'm willing to believe you found Orochimaru's hideout?" Tsunade cut in.
"Well, not exactly."
"Then why are you back here?" Tsunade squinted.
"We came across a problem during the search; Sakura and I ran into Orochimaru."
Tsunade's eyes widened. "You ran into him? How? What happened?"
"He was walking around in the forest we were in. He didn't try to fight us, but he did say something worth mentioning: he claims that he doesn't know where Sasuke is. We can't be certain that that's the truth. However, our discovery lead to the failure of the mission, so decided that our best move would be to report back to you, Lady Tsunade."
"I see…" Tsunade said.
Kakashi spoke before Lady Tsunade could finish her statement. "He didn't try to engage you in battle?"
Yamato looked at Kakashi, "No. He said he had other things to take care of and ran off. We didn't want trouble, so we had no choice but to return."
"Hmmm…" Kakashi hummed as he thought over the situation. His attention turned towards Naruto. "I have just one more question for you, Yamato." He suddenly pulled a kunai from his pocket and through it at the boy.
"Kakashi!" Tsunade yelled as the weapon traveled through the air and sliced into Naruto's cheek. To everyone's surprise, (except Kakashi) the blond teen turned to white smoke and disappeared.
Kakashi returned his gaze to an utterly shocked Yamato. "How did you not realize that this was a shadow clone?"
