Normal POV

Ten seat available around the table, and ten seats filled. Everything was beginning to come to fruition. For years Pein had been planning and had been patiently waiting for the moment to start a revolution, and in this moment he would finally set his plan into motion.

"We're going to begin collecting the tailed beasts."

The other nine people sitting in the room didn't seem surprised. After all—even before now they'd known of the plan. 3 years ago Itachi and Kisame—two of the first members of Akatsuki—had gone after the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki…but the timing hadn't been right.

Now, however, with more accurate information on the whereabouts and powers of the tailed beasts, it was finally time to move.

Their discussion on the topic was brief—expected. They had one month before the hunt started. Deidara and Sasori would start with the Ichibi, and from there they would continue up the list. It would be a long and battle-filled process—they knew that much already—but they were confident they would succeed. They were all top-rank shinobi after all—who could possibly be powerful enough to stop them?

And so that was it. The meeting came to a close with Pein warning them to complete any current missions they were working on before the month was up, and they all bowed and mumbled replies in understanding. While they did so, Pein shifted his eyes to the doorway, watching as the shadow of a person quickly retreated away.

Closing his eyes and crossing his arms, Pein remained silent as his members dispersed from the room.

The tingle he had felt in the back of his conscious had faded minutes ago, yet he hadn't mentioned anything about the appearance of the girl who had caused it. Yes, Pein had felt Skylar approach, and had silently known that she'd been listening in on their meeting—but she needed to hear it.

Pein wasn't ignorant—he knew that Skylar was smart and knew of their plan. She knew much more than she had ever let onto them, and that meant she had known that this day would come. And so…the day had come—but what would she do now?

Well—

Pein stood from his chair in the now empty room and headed toward his private chambers. There were many different and old scrolls awaiting him.

—he'd see if he could find a solution to her problem.

The minute her butt hit the ground Skylar knew that something was going on, and as soon as she heard Pein's commanding voice echo down the hall she froze. The serious atmosphere was engulfing her, yet she still found that she was curious. So, quietly pushing herself up, she snuck up the corridor towards the meeting room.

The door was shut tightly, and she didn't dare open it, so instead she pushed herself up against the wall and honed her hearing in on their muffled voices.

"We're going to begin collecting the tailed beasts."

Her heart suddenly dropped, and Skylar gripped at her chest, wondering why. She had known that this would come—so why did she feel like this?

…probably because she hadn't expected this day to come so soon.

But what day? They hadn't started yet—they hadn't left her yet. They hadn't started to die yet—so why?

What was she supposed to do now? What was she—

"Meeting adjourned."

Suddenly Skylar came back to her senses and quickly turned, running up the hallway and towards the living room. A minute later she burst into the open area and dove onto the couch, trying to calm her still racing heart.

Despite the pounding in her ears she could still hear multiple sets of feet tapping down the hall and coming towards her, so with deep breaths she tried to gather herself. She couldn't let them know that she was freaking out—and she couldn't freak out because dammit if she ruined the fucking story line by opening her big mouth—!

"Skylar?"

She pushed herself up quicker than she should have and whipped her head around to look at the four males who had just entered the room.

"Hey," she said, somewhat breathily, hoping she didn't look as frazzled as she felt. "What's up?"

Of course, the males could tell that she wasn't herself. They didn't know why, but they could tell. They were trained to look for abnormal behavior for god's sake—and besides that, they'd gotten used to her over the last half year.

"What's up, yeah?" Deidara questioned, the first to move towards her. Skylar remained in place—a bundle of nerves. What was she supposed to say to them? She was so utterly lost at the moment that she just wanted to poof out of existence and never face the reality of what was happening. But she couldn't do that, so instead she told her mind to literally shut up, and for once she was calm.

The couch indented next to her, and from her peripheral vision she could see Deidara looking at her in concern.

A suddenly feeling of déjà vu hit her, and Skylar realized that…she felt like she was at a funeral. That a beloved person, (or persons, in this case) was leaving, and it was sad…but the memory would still carry on. The Akatsuki were going to be taken from her and goddamn it fucking sucked so bad…but it's not like all the times they'd shared would just disappear. Even if she stopped seeing them and they didn't have time to play around with her anymore it's not like what had gone on between them would just vanish…right?

Suddenly Skylar felt a hand wrap around her shoulder, and as a thumb started to caress her skin she finally broke out of her trance. The skinship had, of course, come from Deidara who now seemed a little relieved since she was responding.

"Sorry," she finally said, cracking a smile for the first time since she'd arrived. She rubbed her hands together awkwardly, seeming apologetic.

"You overheard, didn't you?"

The wise question came from none other than Itachi, and not willing to fret as she had been any longer she turned to face the Uchiha, smiling bitter-sweetly.

"I did."

"Skylar—," Kisame started, clearly feeling bad for her, but Skylar interrupted him.

"I'm fine," she said with a sigh, flashing them all a small smile. "And I know that you'll probably think I'm lying, but I'm not. I'm…I'm alright."

For a minute the males remained silent, not sure what to say, before Itachi broke the silence.

"Ok," he said, nodding his head and meeting her eyes. While his lips didn't move his eyes smiled, and she felt reassured. "What would you like to do now?"

"Cook," she said, and the males looked a little surprised.

"Cook?" Sasori repeated, and Skylar nodded.

"If you have time to stay for a meal, I mean!" she quickly added in. "I know you guys need to get back to finishing your missions up, but I'm not sure when a chance like this will come around again so I just thought—"

"Man it's been a while since you've cooked anything for us," Kisame interrupted, a hand already placed on his stomach in anticipation.

"Of course we have time for your food, yeah!" Deidara said, patting her back friendlily with the hand that had been holding onto her up until now. Happy, Skylar turned her attention to Sasori and Itachi, and after the two didn't seem to disagree with their partners statements she quickly got up and slid into the kitchen. The four naturally followed after her, watching as she raided their fridge and cabinets for supplies before she got to work.

Soon enough, five plates of food were dispersed around the dining table and a pleasurable silence overcame the room. Skylar watched their reactions carefully, trying to hide her smile when she saw their noticeable happiness. However, just as their meal was coming to a close someone entered from the opposite end of the room.

Skylar couldn't even look at Pein, a little perturbed and frightened by his appearance, and the Akatsuki leader didn't pay them much mind either. He simply passed through the living room and headed towards the base's exit.

He would let them enjoy each other's company for now. He wouldn't take that from them in the very least—because soon enough…he had a feeling that wouldn't be seeing each other anymore.

A week had passed since then, and Itachi found himself sitting on a large rock just outside the border of the sand country. It was hot, of course, but the Uchiha paid less mind to the heat and focused more on the information he had just received from Pein.

'Konan, Tobi and I are returning to Rain. My men there have notified me that a group of rogue shinobi have started to cause problems."

Rogue shinobi? Pein had never had any problems with people like that in his village up until now…and to be honest—to Itachi, at least—something didn't seem right. He didn't want to call it a trap—because Pein wasn't foolish enough to be trapped by any sort of trap anyway…but then maybe it was a lure? Either way, something didn't seem right to him.

"I say we finish our mission and head back to base," Kisame spoke, interrupting his thoughts. He adjusted his giant sword on his shoulder, a frown lining his mouth. Itachi raised an eyebrow.

"Back to base? Are you worried about Skylar?"

"First off, this is the last mission we have to complete before we start going after the bijuu, so we should go back to base and rest up anyway. And secondly…," Kisame sighed, running a hand through his pointy hair. "I don't know, man…I just fell like something's not right…"

At that, Itachi couldn't disagree, and in a mutual silence they continued on their way.

They couldn't quite pinpoint the reason they were feeling like this, but clearly something was going on…

The next day, Deidara and Sasori found themselves on the way back to the Akatsuki base, feeling oddly on edge as well. The area around the base had a different atmosphere and they became weary as they entered the space, Deidara's clay bird soaring silently through the air as the two ninja atop trained their eyes on the forest below.

They were about 2 km's south of the base when all of the sudden they spotted something—a pack of shinobi scouting the forest floor below. Their chakra signatures were hidden and by posture alone Deidara and Sasori could tell that they were trying to remain undetected.

Eyes narrowed, the two shared a look and Deidara slowly flew his bird near the ground. As they neared the pack a flap of the bird's wings caught the attention of one of the make ninja, and he whipped his head around, staring at the two Akatsuki members with wide eyes and his Sound headband in plain sight for all to see.

Immediately Deidara and Sasori felt something snap to life within them, and before they could even begin to logically think about why the Sound ninja were in this area of all places, they'd lunged. Immediately the Sound ninja scattered the two Akatsuki gave chase, not taking a minute to breathe until the entire group was motionless on the forest floor.

Panting, the two then returned to each other's sides and while Deidara caught his breath Sasori cursed, looking at the destruction they'd just mindlessly caused. Dammit! They really should've left one alive for questioning, but there was nothing they could do about that at this point. For now all they could do was leave the area without a trace.

"C'mon brat," Sasori commanded gruffly, not happy about what had just happened. "We need to clean this up."

With a curt nod, Deidara followed directions and the two cleaned up the area in silence, still wondering why the hell the Sound ninja were still continuing to bother them. Hadn't the Akatsuki slaughtered enough of them yet? Why the hell did they keep sneaking around their business?

Well…they had a suspicion as to why…but they really hoped that Skylar wasn't the right answer…

He knew that his men wondered why—why had he taken an interest in a girl who he hadn't even seen in person before? Why bother going after her so much when his men kept getting slaughtered? Well, men were replaceable firstly, and second to that, it's not like a girl with no chakra came along every day. And even more than that—a girl with no chakra signature that the Akatsuki protected so fervently as to murder his men in cold blood twice.

The thought alone made a playful smirk come to his lips.

Yes, maybe it was a little foolish of him to toy around with something for such a long time, but he liked to play, and playing with anything that pushed the Akatsuki's buttons made it that much better. Ha! The thought alone that they'd managed to fall for the girl made him laugh. How could they have done something so idiotic, those fools?! But if they hadn't fallen for her than why had they been protecting her so much? It really was the only logical choice.

"Orochimaru-sama, the scouts you sent the other day were found dead. What should we do now?"

Quietly chuckling, the snake sannin slowly pushed himself from his seat, an amused interest quipping in his eyes.

"Ah, so I was right," his raspy voice lamented to no one in particular. "Even after kicking me out those fools still use the same bases—how charming."

The sound shinobi who had entered the room remained silent, awaiting orders.

"Hmm," Orochimaru smirked again, turning to look at the shinobi through the corner of his eye. "Gather up another team. This time I'll be coming along as well."

"Sir?"

"You heard me—and make sure that a sensory type comes along. We'll need someone who can sense the presence of whose in the base—chakra or not."

"Hai!"

With that, the man hurriedly scrambled from his chambers, rushing to gather another group of shinobi that would live up to Orochimaru's expectations. After his departure, Orochimaru returned to his throne, unable to wipe the expectant smirk from his face.

This would be their final game. He would either attain her or she would die in the process—because while Orochimaru loved the idea of taking the unique girl to experiment on, if such didn't work out he would simply kill her. After all—he really loved the idea of seeing the Akatsuki's hearts torn to shreds.

Suddenly he found himself laughing again. Realizing that the Akatsuki had become attached to a weakling girl really was comical for him. They were such fools! Goddamn fools.

Sasori and Deidara had reported to the others what had happened after cleaning up their mess, and none of them seemed too surprised to hear the Orochimaru had yet again made an attempt at them. Ever since kicking him out the snake sannin had been periodically toying with them—his way of revenge, they supposed—but this was really becoming too much.

"Currently I have my hands tied in Ame, but I'll return to the other base as soon as I finish up," Pein had announced. Konan and Tobi, of course, would remain with him, which meant that the rest of the Akatsuki were on their own to protect the base (and Skylar) if they so chose to do so. And they did.

Deidara and Sasori were the first to return, setting up traps around the perimeter and making sure that Skylar hadn't appeared in the base while they'd been away. She hadn't—which gave them some reassurance that she was still safe in her world.

Two days later, Itachi and Kisame returned to base. Sasori and Deidara informed them that Skylar had yet to show up, and they hadn't sensed any other sound ninja so far. That was good—but the four did perimeter checks anyway, hoping that Orochimaru had finally given up on disrupting their peace.

Hidan and Kakuzu were expected to arrive tomorrow evening, and with 6 of them they expected to have no problem defending the base if Orochimaru chose to attack again. However, before the zombie brothers could return, another person showed up—the person that they wanted to show up the least.

"Hey," Skylar greeted casually as she walked into the living room, missing how the light mood of the room instantly shattered in a panic at her entrance.

"What are you doing here?" Sasori demanded, suddenly stomping towards her, and Skylar blinked in surprise, innocently holding up her hands since she had no idea why they suddenly seemed mad at her.

"What? Was I not supposed to come back after the last time? Was that last meal really meant to be our 'last meal'?"

Sasori made a noise of annoyance and grabbed her by the shoulders, his grip gentle yet stern at the same time.

"We encountered Sound again," he informed her, watching as dread filled her eyes, her mind finally wrapping around the situation. "They were close to this base and we took care of it…however, so far Orochimaru's target has been you—"

"And I pretty much fucked up by coming here?" she surmised, groaning in regret as she slunk out of his grasp, crouching to the floor and burying her head in her palms.

Why was this all happening again? She thought that after the last time Sound would've given up! Goddammit!

"So now what?" she finally spoke after a minute, pushing herself back into a standing position. She looked drained already and they'd only mentioned Sound. "Are you just gonna kill me and send me back?"

"Well—," Sasori started, but before he could finish Itachi interrupted him.

"It's too late for that," he said hurriedly, rushing towards them as his Sharingan spun to life. "One of my traps was just activated. They're—"

Suddenly the base shook, pieces of dust and debris raining onto their head, and Sasori protectively tucked Skylar into his grasp.

"How the fuck did they get here so fast, yeah?!" Deidara yelled in outrage, his temper flaring as he shoved his hands into the clay pouches at his hips. "Skylar just got here a minute ago!"

"If they have a sensory type with them they can easily pick up on Skylar's appearance—whether she has chakra or not," Itachi informed him, now beside Sasori and protectively guarding Skylar as well.

"Well, I'll go be the welcoming party," Kisame announced unhappily, a scowl on his face as he suddenly rushed down the hall towards the entrance of the base, Samehada poised in his grasp. Itachi, not willing to let his partner fight off the ranks outside alone, quickly shot Sasori a serious glance.

"The base is being damaged, be careful," was all he said before he was gone, racing after Kisame at inhuman speeds. At the seemingly meaningful comment, Sasori cursed loudly, punching his fist against the wall, and Deidara frowned at him.

"What, Danna?" he questioned, not understanding the meaning of Itachi's words. Skylar blinked in fear and confusion as well, turning her attention to the puppet master behind her as the base continued to shake dangerously.

"The base is being destroyed," Sasori explained hurriedly, an anger palm covering half of his scowling face. "Skylar can only be sent back in one of our bases—but if the base isn't in a stable condition or is destroyed we don't know what will happen if we try to kill her."

"Orochimaru, that bastard," Deidara cursed, finally comprehending the situation. "How the hell would he know about Skylar's condition though?"

"Maybe he's had eyes on the base for a while now, brat—I don't know," Sasori sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in agitation. Suddenly he looked down at the girl standing beside him very seriously, trying to make the right decision on what to do with her.

If he attempted to kill her with the base being destroyed then…

"Fuck!" he cursed, frustrated, and then without warning scooped Skylar into his arms.

"Danna!" Deidara called after him in shock as the puppet master bolted down the hall beside them, running further into the base. Soon enough, Skylar found herself being set down in meeting hall, and before she could even think about what was going on Sasori took her head into his hands.

"Listen to me," he said sternly, locking his eyes with hers. "I need you to stay here with Deidara. I'm going to go out and check the damage and help Itachi and Kisame."

"But—"

"I refuse to kill you," he interrupted her, shaking his head as he locked eyes with her once again. He could see confused tears brimming her bottom lashes, and on a sudden impulse he leaned down, gently pressing his lips to her forehead. He didn't wait to see her reaction, but simply turned and fled the room, his hands already reaching for the scrolls concealed inside his cloak.

"Be safe," was all he said, brushing past Deidara on his way out, and the blond artist looked a little surprised.

"He tells me not to get attached but look at him," the artist cursed under his breath as he hustled towards her. Skylar remained shocked, unsure if Sasori had really done what he'd done or not, but before she could think it over too much Deidara's palm was cupping the side of her face. His lips met hers for a few brief seconds—soft, fleeting—before he pulled back and turned away from her, falling into a defensive stance with Skylar safely tucked behind him.

"Don't think about it too much," he said after a minute, breaking Skylar out of her raging thoughts. "It's just because we're almost the same age…though…if you liked it then once we're past all this Orochimaru shit we can certainly do it again, hmm."

For the first time since her arrival that day Skylar found herself laughing. Even if the tears that had built up had fallen from her eyes, she laughed—and the sound gave them both hope. Even as the base shook around them once again they had hope that they would all live to see another day.

That's all they wanted…so please.

Please.

Let everything turn out alright…

Well...hello. It seems I've neglected this story for a month. Oops. Lol

It was a pretty busy month tho. I had my grad party, and then I went up north. Now it's August. Wow. I start college in a month holy shit.

Also...on a more important note I guess I should notify you guys that this is the second to last chapter...yep, the next chapter is the last. I would say more on why the next chapter is the last, but I figure I'll address that after, you know, it ends. So yeah, sorry if it seems abrupt since I haven't given any warning before, but...yeah.

Anyway, I hope you're all enjoying your summer! Honestly, I've been pretty unproductive all summer, but I'm still having fun. I just got my new laptop in the mail today, so I get to start messing around with that! The laptop I'm using right now I got for Christmas in 8th grade, and I'm going into college now, so...yeah. It's getting kind of old and really loud. It'll be on for like 30 minutes and will start to overheat. It's kind of annoying.

Also, if you don't know this already, I've become utterly obsessed with kpop, so that's also taken over my life a little. And on that note: Shinee just released their new song "Married to the Music"! I honestly love it a lot. It's got the kind of groove I really love, so I've been rocking out to it.

...and that's it? I have a pretty boring life lol.

Anyway, love you guys!

Please Review!

PS! If you guys want I can do a little Q&A in the final AN next chapter! So if you guys have any questions for me about the story or anything in general I'll try and answer them all! Just leave them in your review! :) And if you have questions on the final chapter too, I can go back in and answer those later after the chapter is posted, you'll just have to check back in for the answer :P