A/N: Ah another update! I have so many ideas for this story that I don't know how to get them all together!

Chapter 14: Shot

Naruto sighed as he scanned the run down wooden houses and darkly dressed villagers walking about. Tsunade had given the team special permission for this recon mission. Sai wasn't present since he had apparently gone on a mission with Yamato so the old team 7 was finally doing a real mission, years after disbandment. Kakashi was off to the side with sakura and Sasuke walking ahead to the village.

They had initially thought about splitting up but Kakashi went against the idea until they had some sort of new information. 'Tsunade probably told him to keep his eyes on me.'

'This is what you get for your stupidity. I told you to keep your mouth shut!"

Naruto mentally rolled his eyes at the demon before continuing to scan the surroundings. Kakashi straightened up his posture and nodded at him. Naruto sighed and moved forward to follow Kakashi into the village and stopped at once. The red haze filled his vision and in seconds his muscles were edgy with anticipation. For anyone looking at Naruto, his eyes would have changed into red and teeth would have a animalistic edge. He looked around cautiously, and few steps ahead Kakashi had stopped and was alert too.

"It's him! But I thought it was madara?"

'There's something wrong here. We need to meet up with the spy soon.'

"What is it Naruto?" Kakashi was right in front of him now, his eyes looking around for a threat. Naruto slowly relaxed and replied.

"It's nothing. I thought I smelled something."

Kakashi's visible dark eye narrowed slightly. "What was it?"

Sasuke and sakura were heading in their direction now, and Naruto quickly corrected himself. "It was nothing. I think I just confused some scents."

"Hurry!"

"Come on Kakashi sensei. We need to get the information from the villagers. We should probably split up to cover ground quickly." He raised his voice slightly when the other two reached them "We're drawing straws!"

Sakura was quick to react to that statement. "What? Why? We can just split up as usual."

Naruto laughed, already into his act after weeks of laying it on thickly. "But we should do it fair and square right sakura-chan?"

Sasuke was the one to get a piece of paper from his pack and divide it. After the four had pieces of paper they compared the thinly ripped slips. Sakura's displeasure could be felt like a physical blow. Naruto waved cheerily at her, ignoring her glare, as he watched Kakashi and sakura walk to the west side of the village. He turned back to face his silent partner to scour the east side of the village.

Naruto didn't bother to break the silence between them, instead focusing on planning to get away from Sasuke when the other spoke up. "I'll go look this way, you go the other way."

"Oh?"

"Yeah alright. Meet you back here in half an hour then." The dark haired boy nodded before walking off the to the other street in the forked junction and Naruto faced the street left for him.

'How convenient.'

"Too convenient."

'Yes.' Naruto looked back at the street Sasuke had gone off to but Naruto couldn't find the Uchiha anywhere. There weren't many people in the street but it was full of buildings while Naruto's street faced the side of the village fields. He sighed again before setting off on the path, looking to find a person who looked easier to approach. But all the villagers looked uneasily at him.

'Looks like the recent murders got hold of many imaginations.'

"I could give them a bloodbath to give them something to remember as truth."

'No.'

Naruto looked at the building that was slightly off the path. It looked like an abandoned farm house but when he got closer he saw the silhouettes behind the closed windows. He quickly scanned around him and slipped behind the building, staying out of sight from the windows. It took only seconds to duplicate himself and then disguise himself. The duplicate kept walking towards the woods off the path, and Naruto slipped back to the path to walk back to the village.

He reached the dilapidated sake-ya in minutes and slipped inside. The dingy room was filled with smoke and a faint smell of vomit. He silently flit into a room on the side and waited. The lone waitress approached the table and Naruto ordered the regular drink that was a code between the spy and himself.

The waitress moved back towards the elevated table that was situated as a bar and came back with a blue sake bottle and a chipped cup. He waited until the girl had left and discreetly eyed the scarcely crowded room before tipping back the cup from the turned over position and subtly pocketing the tiny paper. He reached the woods that his duplicate had gone into from behind the sake-ya, hobbling and bent among the villagers. He reached his duplicate and the other dispelled and Naruto settled down to decipher the coded message. It took two minutes for him to decipher the two sentences, and another minute for it to sink in.

'She's a fine female. Very good with her job."

'Yes she is'.

The southern crow arrived on the full moon.

Death came with the crescent moon.

'So there were two of them. But if Itachi arrived with Kisame, then was madara already here? It doesn't make sense for two Akatsuki members to show themselves in this village to meet up with its leader.'

"Yes, unless it wasn't Madara."

Naruto could feel his forehead scrunching at the new idea. 'But why? Itachi would not show himself unless there is a reason to. And the reports all said it was Madara.'

"No the reports said that the villagers gave a description that looked like Madara. None who actually knew that bastard was here to identify him."

'If that's true then why would Itachi go through all this trouble to frame Madara for the murders of a couple of villagers from nowhere?'

"Unless he wanted YOU to come here." And Naruto stopped midstride on the road, shocked.

'It still doesn't answer the question why.'

"When you got the report from the female before, she said she saw Madara. Itachi arrived here only yesterday."

'So?'

"He only showed up when he was sure all the spies had already reported. And the hokage woman only knew it was Madara who showed up. Itachi was never in the reports."

'SO?'

"You useless human! Itachi probably knows who the spy is! And he is using that knowledge to send a message only to you! And the smaller Uchiha brat went off!"

'What does Sasuke have to do with this?'

And before Kyuubi could answer the screams started; and he followed the sounds to arrive at the sake-ya. There was a man scrambling away on his back at the entrance, probably the one who screamed. But the insides were what drew Naruto's anger. He had already gone inside when the other three arrived.

The whole room was decimated with debris and body parts everywhere. There were streams of thick blood all over the walls, the ceiling and the floor was soaked with it. The waitress's head was two feet away from her body and the barman's neck was a gaping slit. The two patrons of the old sake-ya were slumped over the table they had been drinking at, bodies slashed across and red from the blood.

Sakura approached each of the dead bodies and did a brief autopsy of each while Naruto was walking around the room. "It looks like a typical massacre. Someone wanted to put on a show, and did a bad job with it."

Kakashi glanced up from his book at the doorway. "Why would you say it's a bad job?"

Naruto smirked at him and pointed at the print on the floor; a single sandal imprint in a single blood-free spot of the floor. "He was sloppy."

Kakashi pocketed the orange book and walked forward as the other two came close to see too. "How interesting. It's a ninja sandal print."

Naruto nodded and walked to the door. Sakura looked up from where she was crouching next to the footprint. "Where are you going?", but Naruto didn't wait to reply.

"I told you so."

'Shut up.'

Naruto's seal on his was throbbing, and he didn't need that to tell him that Itachi was ready for a kill. It annoyed him that he could sense the other man like a part of himself.

"Well he sure did a hell of a job with that seal if you feel that way."

Kisame eyed the silent and still figure of his partner on the other side of the room. They were waiting for the signal to finish a assassination job. Kisame didn't like assassination jobs, they were too quiet and short for his like. Give him a bunch of people and tell him to start a bloodbath and he would be the happiest man alive. But Itachi lived for assassinations, and to Kisame watching the way Itachi killed was like watching someone paint. It was an art.

He wasn't too unhappy with his forced choice of a companion. On the contrary he was very satisfied with being stuck with the Uchiha boy, Kisame just wished that the boy would talk sometime. 'Meh at least I'm not stuck with hidan or deidara.'

Sometimes Kisame was tempted to talk to the boy, tell him to stop whatever he was doing because Madara knew everything. But he didn't. He didn't act or look like a man with any kind of honor, but Madara was too ingrained in his past for him to disobey him. Kisame knew from the start that he would have to give up everything to keep Madara's secrets, but at this point he was far too gone to look back.

The small abandoned building of the lightening tower they were at weren't the best standards in kisame's opinion. 'Why the heck is a high class delegate in a place like this anyway?'

The vibration of the phone on the wooden floor echoed lightly across the room and Kisame watched as the Uchiha straighten up from leaning against the doorway. Itachi crossed the room in two steps and was crouching at the edge of the broken window in seconds. Kisame waited stand by at the door, watchful for anyone. Their target this time was something they needed to be sensitive about.

Kisame turned slightly to alternative watch both the hallway and Itachi. The Uchiha stretched out his arm. Kisame could never understand how Itachi controlled something as instable as the dark power of the infamous high order chaos demon: karasumaru. Itachi could call it out, control it and effectively attack and defend at the same time. Then with the power that came from his sharingan and it's techniques, Itachi was invincible. And as he watched opaque tendrils of karasumaru's black chakra hovered from the arm, slowly collecting in the air above the arm. The roundish cloud of black matter slowly took the shape of an arrow and moved to the window.

Kisame turned back to the hallway for another minute as he watched Itachi lean slightly to watch the street below. The black arrow was still hovering next to Itachi's head, waiting for the prompt from the owner for the kill. Kisame's keen ears heard the rumble of engines as the three cars of their target and escorts stopped in the street below. Itachi lightly raised his arm and the arrow quivered lightly, Itachi's intent accumulating in the power. Kisame eyed the hallway and was about to stretch his senses to scan the surroundings when the single bullet grazed the tip of his nose and headed straight for Itachi.

Itachi jumped aside and the arrow dissolved in black smoke but both men didn't stay to watch it disappear. Kisame had jumped ahead from the window into the metal balcony of the window and tensed his muscled and jumped across to the next building. His fingers grasped the granite sill before he tightened his abdomen and pulled his legs up to the sill, pushing against it and jumping to the edge of the roof and grasping it. He pulled himself on top just in time to catch sight of a dark brown cloak as the shooter jumped down from the roof. Itachi was there the next second and they raced to the other end and jumped down.

The motorcycle rider raced along the emptied street with the shooter at his back. By then Kisame was angry enough to have his temper affect the water of the puddles around the street. The water sloshed around in agitation and Itachi calmly walked back towards their car. Then Kisame got in immediately as the Uchiha floored the gas pedal and they were racing towards the bike. It was several meters ahead but the street had been emptied before for the delegate they had been unsuccessful in killing.

A minute later there was the sound of bullets being fired and the small metal pieces rained on the windshield. Half a second later Itachi was cutting on the sides and the car was fish tailing on the road. The bike raced ahead while Kisame turned back and loaded the emergency guns. He would have to do with them until he got his power up to control the water in the sewers in a minute.

A/N: Got the idea for a chaos demon from FFVII. Vincent is super cool!

Kisame's akatsuki ring says 'south', it's a hint for the coded message.

Please review! And thank you for reading!