A/N oh yay, intersquad romance. Gotta love that breed, just makes everyone feel all warm inside...except for a few people. Btw, when Natsumi punched Torazame in the arm, she nearly broke it. Just goes to show how unrivaled her raw strength really is considering Killer B is her Godfather, A was her mentor and she learned to use the Third Raikage's Hell Stab. Yikes. Note to self, don't piss her off.

Chapter 20 - Rest and Recovery

"So Toneri, do you have any medical supplies stored here?"

He looked at Nagato after he asked the question and thought for a moment before nodding, "Yes I believe so."

"Good." said Nagato before using Kamui to teleport Chomei and Matatabi out of its pocket dimension.

They were finally awake and it seemed that they had recovered from most of their injuries thanks to the two being Bijuu, but still they required a little more treatment and rest considering the beating they received at the hands of the being that destroyed Uzushiogakure.

"You two okay?" he asked after helping them up from the soft dirt of the floating island Toneri's castle rested on.

"Yeah...just a little sore is all." said Matatabi as he and Toneri walked them into the castle and to a spare set of rooms where they could recover fully without any hindrance.

They had finally adjusted to the darkness of the Moon's interior and developed a sense of range within it, but being away from Earth made them tense and restless, well most of them for that matter. They wanted to know more then anything what was happening and they all felt helpless being cooped up inside a huge floating hunk of rock up in space instead of on the ground doing something.

"And you said the Otsutsuki Clan utilized a legion of puppets that protected the Energy Vessel?" asked Nagato, referring to a discussion they had earlier, after closing the door to Chomei's room with Toneri.

"Yes, why?"

"There's another friend of mine who's a human puppet, and if I can get one of your puppets I can repair his body and reinsert his soul into it." explained Nagato as he pulled out Genkaku's Soul Chamber from the pouch around his waist.

"I can do that for you actually. I've gotten quite good at repairing puppets since there's nothing else to do up here." said Toneri with a grin and an extended hand, Nagato nodding as he gave him Genkaku's Soul Chamber and then teleported Genkaku's mangled puppet body out of Kamui's Dimension.

"Good luck." he said with a wave as Toneri grabbed Genkaku's body and walked off just as Torazame decided to walk out of his room in just his pants and sandals.

"Whew, that nap felt good, I feel like a new man that just survived the almost apocalypse."

"Not funny." said Natsumi with a scowl as she emerged from Nagato's room, Torazame grinning sheepishly at her as he ran a hand through his messy navy blue hair.

"Looks like someone isn't a morning person." he said before he stretched and yawned, his stomach growling immediately afterwards. "Where can I get some grub around here?"

"Kitchen!" yelled out Maroi from down the hall and up a staircase, Torazame instantly sprinting off when he smelled the scent of bacon.

Ryūzetsu was most likely with Maroi, so the only person that was left to wake up was Sarada and Naoshi. Nagato approached Naoshi's room and rapped his knuckles on the door, the sound echoing through his room and bringing forth no response. He reached for the door knob and found it to be unlocked, and when he and Natsumi walked inside they found it empty.

"Where the hell could he have gone?" asked Natsumi while Nagato approached the only window in the room and frowned.

"I think I know where." he said when he spotted a soft light bobbing up and down and by its chakra he guessed it was Naoshi, and thanks to the sight adjustment they had he could barely make out someone else in his arms.

While Natsumi went to go have breakfast, Nagato walked out of the castle gates at the same time that Naoshi landed on the floating island and walked up to him, seeing that it was Sarada, sound asleep, in his arms and he himself looked extremely exhausted.

"What'd she do this time?" asked Nagato as Naoshi looked down at her and sighed.

"Found her on one of the empty islands trying out the new techniques she gained with her Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. Thought I might just help her out, y'know?" he said at first before he formed a devil hand and rubbed his right eye while a yawn escaped his lips. "But she just wouldn't stop until she collapsed from exhaustion. I can't believe how large her chakra reserve is."

"Yeah...well, it runs in the family. She gets it from Kakashi." said Nagato as he held his arms out and allowed Naoshi to place Sarada into his care.

"Thanks for taking care of her. I'm going to go sleep. Heavily." said Naoshi as he yawned again and sauntered off towards the castle gate.

"But I heard they made bacon."

"Then it'll be after I snatch some bacon away from them." muttered Naoshi with a slight grin before he disappeared inside the castle, Nagato chuckling to himself before he remembered Sarada still in his arms and looked down at her tranquil features.

He walked her carefully to her room, being sure not to disturb her for fear of waking her up, and approached the bed to set her down gently onto the soft mattress. He pulled open the sheets and like a child when its mother put it to bed he placed her within their embrace and pulled them back over without disturbing her. He smiled when she saw her grip the edge of the bed sheets and pull them in tight.

"Goofball." he said under his breath before he slowly walked back to the door, opened it, and closed it behind him without making a single noise.

When the door closed with a slight click, Sarada smiled softly and took in a deep breath before truly falling into a deep sleep that no one could wake her from.

"Bacon time." thought Nagato as he took off sprinting for the kitchen and arrived just when Naoshi was taking his leave.

Torazame, still shirtless, was sitting at a table with a plate of eggs, toast and bacon with Maroi while Natsumi was off in another corner of the large dining room with Ryūzetsu talking about some matter he didn't care to join in on. Torazame noticed him enter and motioned him over to the table while holding up a plate of food like bait.

"Hey Boss! Welcome to the party! So where's Sarada and our gracious host?" he asked as he sat down at the table and fixed his plate.

"Sarada exhausted herself training till she dropped last night so she's in her room resting and Toneri is off fixing up Genkaku. I gave him his Soul Chamber and all he has to do is repair his body and he'll be back good as new." he said with a grin as he took a bite of the bacon and savored its amazing flavor.

"This is the best food ever. Of all time."

"Huh, oh well." said Torazame with a shrug.

"What are we going to do now? Most of the entire population of the planet is pretty much against us." asked Maroi after swallowing a mouthful of eggs, Nagato setting his fork down and pondering on the question before Natsumi and Ryūzetsu decided to join them and sit down at the table.

"Let me think about it. Besides, we should wait until everyone is feeling better. So for today, let's just all try to relax and get used to our new temporary home." he said as he set his elbows on the table and glanced around at them one by one.

"Alright. I can agree to that." said Torazame with a shrug as he excused himself from the table and scratched his scalp again. "I'm going to go explore a little. Maroi, wanna join?"

"Sure, why not?" he said as he got up from his chair and placed his plate in the kitchen sink along with Torazame and exited the dining room.

"Guess I better go check up on Naoshi. He'll probably be asleep by now anyways…" said Ryūzetsu before she too left the room, leaving only Natsumi and Nagato alone in the kitchen.

They looked at one another for a few seconds before Nagato glanced out the window and leaned back in his chair. He rested his neck against the headrest and wondered what this place looked like with the artificial sun that once floated in the center of the Moon before Natsumi coughed a little and he looked back at her.

"So...what do you want to do today?" she asked with a slight blush, Nagato grinning a little before he motioned with his thumb out the window and into the darkness that surrounded them.

"I think we should go find that village Toneri said his clan lived in. Would be pretty cool if you ask me." he said, Natsumi rolling her eyes before they stood up and walked out of the kitchen.

They left the castle a few minutes later and after their personal Gudōdama lit up, they leaped away from the castle and island hopped to the one the Otsutsuki Clan village had been constructed upon. When they arrived it was, just like Toneri had said, a ghost town. The buildings were in shambles and some of the cobblestones used for the streets were either overgrown with moss or had been overturned.

Natsumi whistled in awe of how large some the buildings were and guessed that the Otsutsuki Clan had been big in numbers, and she couldn't imagine that one thousand years later only one was still alive.

"Even though this place is completely empty and nothing bad or anything is here with us, it still gives me the chills." said Nagato with a shiver before turning down another street and proceeding on towards a three story building.

"Oh, is Nagato Uzumaki scared of the dark?" asked Natsumi with a snicker, Nagato frowning a little before he punched her in the arm lightly for her to not tease him.

"That is not funny."

"Fine, fine. Baby." said Natsumi before Nagato pushed her aside and she stumbled back while laughing out loud at his flustered state.

"Why are you so afraid of the dark anyways?" she asked after regaining her balance, Nagato crossing his arms and growling a little.

"It was when I was with Genkaku at Kusagakure after everyone had been evacuated. It was freakishly silent there and to make it worse we were fighting with enemy shinobi using guerilla warfare. And it didn't help that the sky was constantly dark since the shinobi from Amegakure with us were producing an endless amount of rain above us." he said as his shoulders relaxed and his arms loosened up a little. "Imagine being in an empty city where you could be attacked from anywhere at any point in time, and that you could barely see five feet in front of you."

"That does sound a little scary."

He nodded when she finally understood and they kept on walking towards the three story building, Natsumi skipping a step every so often while she held her hands behind her back and looked around at what they could see within the radius of their Gudōdama's light, marvelling at the architecture.

"What are you scared of?"

Natsumi glanced at him after the question and raised an eyebrow, Nagato's grin telling her that there was no way she could get out of this and just shrugged while he expectedly waited her response.

"Not a lot of things. The biggest one I guess is if I let my friends down."

"You're not afraid of dying?" asked Nagato.

"Not at all. Even if there was no guarantee of my survival, I wouldn't be scared." she said as her gaze lowered and she crossed her arms. "But the idea of letting someone I care about down, of failing when it really matters most...it's terrifying."

"I know how you feel." replied Nagato when they reached the building and after sending the Gudōdama inside to illuminate its interior decided to walk inside.

It was just like rest of the village, overgrown and ruined with several overturned pieces of furniture littering the entire floor. If there had been any paint on the walls it was long gone after years of neglect and whoever had lived here must've never gotten away, since there were two piles of clothes cluttered up against a wall.

"Poor souls."

"Let's head up to the roof." said Natsumi as she went for the stairs, Nagato following behind her almost absent mindedly.

Back at Toneri's castle, said Otsutsuki had just finished working inside his workshop and stepped back to reach for the final piece of the puzzle. He grasped Genkaku's Soul Chamber and planted it into the hole crafted in the center of his body, watching in awe as a blue chakra like essence leaked out from the metal cylinder and coursed throughout the human puppet, Genkaku's eyes opening wide after a few seconds.

"Where am I?" he asked plainly before he cocked his head to the right and stood up suddenly when he saw Toneri watching him.

"You're on the Moon. And you were brought here by Nagato and his friends." said Toneri as Genkaku lifted himself up and off the table, looking around at the workshop and various puppet parts before checking himself over.

"What did you do to me?" he asked when he felt some foreign objects present in his body.

"I fixed you up after Nagato gave me your body plus I gathered some parts from the puppets my clan utilized and put some of them into your body." explained Toneri as Genkaku extended one of his main arms and noticed that it was hollowed out to a certain point.

He felt a switch located in his palm and used his chakra to flip it, and instantly a spear-tipped, bladed whip slid out and bunched up in a small pile at his feet, the end becoming super heated once he ran his chakra through the special metal. He retracted it and discovered the same new weapon was stored in his other main hand. He checked himself over for any new contraptions and narrowed his eyes before he felt several clicks emerge from his back and from underneath his cloak slithered out a scorpion tail exactly like the one his Hirashi puppet used, albeit smaller in size.

"Excellent…" he said in satisfaction as he held a hand out to Toneri and shook hands with him, the puppet master now on good terms with the alien. '"Let's see how everyone else is doing, and while we're on our way, please explain to me what's happened while I was gone."

Back at the Otsutsuki Clan village, Natsumi and Nagato had finally made it to the top of the three story building and with their Gudōdama hovering close by, their tranquil cyan glow illuminating their faces and bodies to one another, they walked to the edge and looked out over the entire village.

"Even if some parts are obscured by the dark, this place is still pretty massive." she said in awe, Nagato walking up beside her and nodding in agreement while he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I can't even begin to imagine how many people lived here."

They stood there in silence, Nagato spotting two dots bobbing up and down in the distance and guessing that it was Torazame and Maroi still exploring the Moon's interior, he watched them for a few more seconds before the feeling of Natsumi resting the side of her head up on his shoulder drew him away and back to her

"You know...being here with nothing else better to do then to explore...it makes you feel like the world really didn't just get taken over by some being of pure evil and such."

"Yeah, I guess…" said Nagato, Natsumi glancing at him and quickly apologizing for bringing the topic up.

"But still, it feels nice, right?" she asked.

"Yes, it does." said Nagato before Natsumi lifted her head off his shoulder, their two minds working as one, and under the soft glow of the Gudōdama floating right beside them their lips met once again.

It was a deep, passionate kiss, just like the first they shared at Natsumi's house high above the Valley of Clouds and Lightning. Nagato put a hand on her side and she wrapped both of hers around his neck, the warmth against the chill of the Moon's interior as sensual as it was sexy. And then she shoved him. He hell, landed on the hard stone of the building, He gasped a little at the sudden push, and for a moment he wondered what she intended by it, and then she climbed on top of him, her knees straddling his hips and her body writhing against his.

Light and strong, delicate and fierce, her breasts raking his chest, those clavicles like the wing bones of birds, and god the taste of her. His mind went blank.

She broke the kiss, pushing away a playful couple of inches. A quirked up smile and a fall of silver and gold hair. "You do realize that I know more then you think I do."

"How so?" asked Nagato with a grin.

Natsumi rolled her eyes before she reached down into his left pocket and grasped the object inside, Nagato's cheeks blushing as she pulled it out and held it in front of his face.

"Mhmm, yeah." she said with her smile again while Nagato moved his hands down to her midriff and kept them there.

"So, what now?" he asked while Natsumi leaned up and after pushing back some of the hair strands that had fallen over her face she tucked her fingertips under the edge of her shirt and started to pull up slowly, so as to toy with him of course.

"I think you know." she said as with both hands grasping the edge of her shirt pulled up he black fabric and allowed her breasts, firm, the nipples pink, and around DD size he guessed, to be freed from their confinement.

"Oh hell yes"

While they were lost in their own desires Torazame and Maroi finally returned to the castle to Genkaku waiting patiently with Toneri, the two greeting the puppet master with two handshakes.

"It's nice to see you back on your feet again Genkaku." said Torazame with smirk, Genkaku chuckling slightly while he scanned the surrounding darkness with his eyes and senses for any sign of Nagato or Natsumi.

"If you're looking for Nagato and Natsumi, I think I saw their Gudōdama over at the Otsutsuki Clan village. They'll be back later I believe. That village is gigantic and would most likely take several hours to explore." said Maroi with a thumb pointing out into the shadows, Genkaku nodding before he turned and briskly walked back into the castle to check on Matatabi and Chomei, the others following him in.

Two hours passed and finally as a day, give or take, neared its end Nagato and Natsumi returned to the castle and met up with everyone in the grand hall to talk about what they should do next. Matatabi, Chomei, Genkaku and Naoshi were gathered at one corner, being original Akatsuki members, Ryūzetsu standing with Maroi and Toneri at another, then Torazame and Sarada near the entrance.

"So...what do we do now Nagato?" asked Sarada first for the entire group, Nagato glancing around at them all while thinking of their next course of action.

"First thing's first, we do what my father told me to do, and that's recruit other shinobi to help us kill the thing that destroyed Uzushiogakure. Second...the Akatsuki is still recovering, so we'll be taking their spots."

"What do you mean by that?" questioned Genkaku dryly before Nagato fixated his gaze on him.

"Us four, Me, Natsumi, Torazame and Sarada, will recruit down on Earth while you guys stay up here and continue to recuperate. You've been through enough as is, and it's time that we did something to help."

"Yeah, you guys have already done so much for us. We're simply returning the favor." said Natsumi out of gratitude, Genkaku bowing his head out of respect for her words.

"So as of right now, we are the Neo Akatsuki, and our first order of business is that tomorrow we're going to be back to Earth and find more members and, when we're ready, take the fight to the enemy and make them pay for ever rearing their ugly head around." continued Nagato, Torazame's grin growing wider while Naoshi crossed his arms and chuckled.

"Hear hear to that. And I'm guessing Toneri will be the one to transport you back to Earth?" questioned Genkaku, the alien stepping forward and nodding.

"Yes. The Gudōdama i've given to Nagato will be deactivated when it leaves the Moon and my reach, but all he has to do is re-insert chakra into it and I will be able to lock onto his location and open a portal for him and anyone else with him to walk through."

"Good."

"I still have one more question though." asked Maroi, all eyes turning to him. "What if you guys get trapped down there, or worse?"

Nagato blinked a few times and frowned, the severity of the situation dawning on him. Maroi was right. What if they got trapped on a planet that was 90% against them and Toneri couldn't bring them back? Everywhere they would go they could be hunted down, meaning anyone they meet would be in the line of fire.

"It's a risk we'll have to take. We're the planet's only hope. My father put his trust into us to finish what he started. I have to avenge his death."

"I'm going to rip that thing to shreds for killing my father." snarled Sarada as her anger flared and her Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan formed as a result.

The Akatsuki members only watched as one by one, the members of the newly created Neo Akatsuki stood side by side, willing to give the ultimate sacrifice, themselves, to defeat the evil that has ensnared the entire globe in shadow.
"Alright then. It's official. As stand in leader of the Akatsuki in the absence of the leader and his second in command, I hereby approve the formation of the Neo Akatsuki." said Genkaku as he crossed his arms, Nagato grinning before Matatabi walked up to them and with her chakra managed to manifest four separate cloaks, similar in design to the original Akatsuki cloaks, but different in various other ways.

They were still colored jet black, but instead of several red clouds dotting them, there was one present on its back, with a red outline and a black interior, and along the hemline there was a stream of red fire. Nagato smirked as she handed him his cloak along with the rest, the four slipping them on over their clothes and buttoning up until the large cuffs hid their lower jaws, the exception being Torazame who left his unbuttoned near the waist and spread the two sides apart to expose his shark mouth tattoo.

"And Nagato, I have a person in mind who would fit right in with a crew like us." he said with a smirk as he flipped a cigarette into his mouth and lit it with a small flame.

"Who?"

"He's an old buddy of mine, Genbu Kurogame was his name. He's a Swordsman like I am, but he got one of the new swords we created to replace the ones we lost and left the village ages ago to train. And if what Toneri is right and that there still is chakra in the same spot that Kirigakure used to be at...I know exactly where he is." replied Torazame as he puffed out some smoke.

"Where?" asked Natsumi.

"Well at Kirigakure, of course."