Chapter Twenty-one

...

Kisame slowly began to regain consciousness and felt a cold metal blade pressed against his throat. He opened his eyes to see Kankuro looming over him although the Sand-nin wasn't paying him any attention; his purple-painted face was turned to look at something else. Whatever it was, he didn't seem very pleased judging by his outraged expression. Kisame followed the direction of his gaze, and that was when he saw Tobi making-out passionately with Mei Terumi.

He bolted upright, ignoring the knife that bit deeply into his jugular.

"Dammit, he's awake." Kankuro cried out and stabbed the large man over and over; but all the wounds he inflicted healed up mere seconds after his kunai left the body.

Hearing the disturbance, Mei finally broke away from Tobi. He was left reeling, kissing her had felt amazing. It was so much better than the time he had smooched with a sleeping Deidara's hand-mouth, which was a very sloppy and icky experience.

"Kisame-san, you're awake!" he exclaimed joyfully after retrieving his mask. "Tobi was scared they were going to kill you."

He heard an angry growl emanate from the big man. Tobi gasped as his friend stared directly at him with a look of open hostility. In fact all of the Sand and Mist shinobi were glaring at him with intense hatred and jealousy, besides from the Mizukage. Frightened, he clung tightly to her.

"Why is everyone mad at Tobi? Has Tobi been a bad boy?" he asked.

"Oh no, you was very good." Mei told him.

"What is the meaning of this?" Kankuro demanded. "Is the Hidden Mist in league with the Akatsuki?"

"Of course not." Ao answered. "Mei-sama, you really shouldn't go around kissing missing-nin. It reflects badly on our village."

"Shut up Ao, I'll do whatever I like. I'm going to kill Kisame and then I'm bringing Tobi back home with me." Mei said.

"Tobi doesn't like that plan, Tobi is going to kidnap Mei-sama and bring her back to the Akatsuki base and then..."

"Forget it." Kisame snapped. "Just grab our original target."

"Alright." Tobi said sadly, releasing his hold of Mei. "Tobi will just kidnap Temari-san."

Temari retrieved her giant fan. "Kankuro, go and fetch Gaara." she ordered.

He nodded and ran off.

Kisame unravelled a sealing scroll and summoned Samehada from within. He sprinted after Kankuro and with a mighty swing smashed his puppet legs clean off. The young jounin fell to the ground and Kisame raised Samehada high above him, ready to drive down onto the helpless puppeteer.

A slender hand wrapped around Kisame's sword arm. "Leave him be. I'm your opponent."

He turned around to face Mei, and she spat a large glob of lava in his face. He flailed Samehada around blindly, momentarily panicking. He didn't want Mei to see him with his face melted off!

"Kankuro!" Temari called out to her brother.

"I'm alright, but I'm pretty much useless." he replied despondently.

"Chojuro-kun, you'll have to go for help." Ao said.

The young bodyguard hesitated, not wanting to leave Mei to fight the Monster of the Hidden Mist without him, but an order from her quickly sent him scurrying away.

Temari used her fan to direct a powerful gust of wind at Tobi.

"Whoa!" Tobi was lifted into the air and blown away; he landed a fair distance away. "That was fun, do it again!" he shouted.

She used a wind jutsu to lift some sand and blow it around him. The abrading sandstorm obscured Tobi from view so Ao activated his stolen byakugan. Through the swirling mass of sand particles he could now see the bright chakra circulation system of Tobi, but then the missing-nin suddenly vanished.

Ao saw him appear behind them, thanks to his ability to see through the back of his head. He quickly took a kunai from his weapon pouch and spun around, thrusting his sharp blade into Tobi just as he reached out to touch Temari. He became intangible and fell through the startled kunoichi; his attempt to absorb her a failure.

Water and lava clashed as Kisame and Mei fought.

Kisame grinned at his opponent. "You always put up a good fight. I'm having fun, aren't you?"

"Oh yes. I always enjoyed beating you up, and now that you're a missing-nin I don't have to hold back." she replied.

"You won't win this time; I have Samehada with me now." he said confidently, but then his sword was suddenly yanked from his grip.

He turned around to see Kankuro reeling it in with some chakra strings. The puppet-master shot him a mocking grin.

"I'll have to hack off your arms as well." Kisame growled.

"Why are you always mutilating people? You're a sick bastard." Mei said.

"I won't do it anymore if you'll go on a date with me." he said hopefully.

"You won't do it again because I'm going to kill you!"

She blew a huge amount of lava into the air, right above Kisame. He managed to shield himself inside a water-prison before the molten rock dropped on top of him. She followed up by creating a water dragon and the massive beast smashed into him.

But no matter how much damage she inflicted on him, he always emerged unharmed with a sharp-toothed smile on his face. She began to grow impatient and wished Chojuro would return soon with reinforcements.

The young swordsman had left the park and had explained the situation to some Sand ninja he met.

"Will you please tell the Kazekage? I must return to protect Mei-sama." he finished.

They agreed and sped off towards the Sand HQ. Chojuro breathed a sigh of relief and began to return to the scene of battle. As he ran, his foot landed in a puddle that he was certain wasn't there earlier. A hand wrapped around his ankle and pulled him forcefully to the ground, he rolled onto his back and a man crawled on top of him. A row of pointed teeth greeted Chojuro and water dripped down onto his face from the man's sopping wet pale hair.

"Mangetsu-sempai? W-what do you want?" Chojuro questioned.

"I've come for Hiramekarei."

"M-my sword?"

Mangetsu placed his index finger on Chojuro's forehead, then fired a blast of water out of it with such tremendous force and speed that it blew Chojuro's brains out.

"No. It's my sword."

A gale howled around Tobi. Being continuously intangible drained too much of his chakra and so he decided to return to material form before he used up too much of it. The moment he did, he was assailed by the buffeting wind. Seeing this finally affecting his opponent, Ao started pelting him with shuriken. Adjusting for the high winds, he managed to connect with most of them.

Panicking, Tobi ran over to Mei and clung to her. "Those meanies are bullying Tobi, 2 against 1 isn't fair!"

Suddenly Kisame burst out from under the sand and swung his sword directly at him. He briefly turned himself intangible and Samehada passed through him and whacked Mei.

"Ooops. Tobi is sorry!" Tobi hugged Mei tightly as apology.

She yelped and forced him away with a wave of water, clutching at her side where Samehada had shaved a large chunk of her flesh off.

"Kisame-san, why do you keep attacking me?" Tobi wailed, mistaking the water jutsu for one of his.

"Shut up and stay out of my way." the shark-nin snarled.

"But…"

"DO AS I SAY!" Kisame roared. "And keep your hands off Mei-sama."

"Oh my, I just love it when jealous men fight over me." Mei said.

"I bet you do. You do like to toy with people's emotions." a man murmured into her ear.

Mei jumped with fright, and then looked behind her. "Mangy-chan!"

"Where did you get that sword?" Ao questioned the reanimated Hozuki.

"I snatched it from its previous owner." Mangetsu said with a sharp smile. He channelled his chakra into the double-handled sword and it grew massively in size, bursting from its bandages. Gripping one handle in each hand, he pulled them apart and the blade split into two.

He attacked Mei with his twin swords while Kisame came in swinging with Samehada.

"Mei-sama!" Ao called out, and rushed in to her defence.

Tobi took the opportunity to capture Temari. It was easy without Ao and his byakugan watching her back, he just teleported behind her and absorbed her.

His cat was suddenly hurled at him, clawing at him against his control.

"Pain-chan, let go!" Tobi struggled with his cat and managed to get it off him, flinging it away.

"What are you going to do with my sister?" Kankuro asked.

"We're going to exchange her for…"

"Don't blab about our mission." Kisame reprimanded, while locked in battle with Ao.

Kankuro sent Pain flying at its owner again but it managed to use a Shinra Tensei to disconnect all the chakra strings attached to its little body. It landed safely in Tobi's arms.

"Good kitty." Tobi petted it. "Keep an eye on Temari-san and make sure she doesn't destroy any of Tobi's toys." he sent the cat into his dimension.

Mei rode a wave of water away from Mangetsu and his slashing swords. "I don't want to fight you Mangy-chan. It always hurts my heart to melt a good-looking guy."

"I don't want to fight you either but I'm being compelled to by the guy who resurrected me." Mangetsu said. "I would never betray the Hidden Mist willingly."

Ao was agilely dodging the swings and thrusts of Kisame's great sword. He was the first to sense the arrival of the Kazekage along with many elite Sand-nin into the park. "Reinforcements are almost here!" he called out.

"What should we do?" Tobi asked.

"Teleport me and Mangetsu-kun into Itachi-san's room." Kisame told him.

Tobi sucked them both into his dimension.

"Wait!" Mei appealed. "Return Temari to us and I'll let you come back to Kirigakure with me."

"Nope, Tobi has a better idea. Why don't you come back to the Akatsuki base instead? Then you can smooch me and Kisame-san and Deidara-sempai, he has mouths on his hands, and we're bringing Hidan-sama back soon." Tobi said, and then clasped his hands over his lower mask. "Oh no, Tobi wasn't supposed to blab about our mission. We're not bringing Hidan-sama back so you can't smooch him."

"How dare you say such things to the Mizukage!" Ao said indignantly. "She is not a whore."

"Hmmmm." Gaara had finally arrived and looked sceptically at the Mizukage, who was still completely naked. "What's going on here?"

"Don't let him get away!" Kankuro pointed at the masked ninja. "He's captured Temari with some strange jutsu; it looked like he absorbed her into himself."

Tobi was swiftly encased in sand but he teleported out of it and into Itachi's hotel room. Startled, Itachi dropped the book he was reading.

Tobi picked it up. "Ooh, Icha Icha Violence. Tobi hasn't finished reading this yet."

"Get out!" Itachi demanded.

"Itachi-san… why are you naked?"

"Get out!" Itachi repeated furiously.

A bunch of Sand ANBU burst through the window and door, followed by Baki - the turban-wearing Sand advisor.

"So it's true that those chuunin candidates were actually the Akatsuki in disguise." he said.

"Let's go!" Tobi grabbed Itachi and teleported away.

"Where are we?" a puzzled Itachi asked. They were no longer in the scorching hot Sunagakure but in a smaller village with a wonderfully cool climate.

"Tobi couldn't teleport to our new base; I was only there for a little bit and didn't have time to grow familiar with it." Tobi explained. "But I remember flying over here when Deidara-sempai took us. Tobi has visited this place before, it has a nice ice-cream parlour and Zetsu-san likes going in the hot-springs."

A crowd of women had gathered around them, pointing and giggling at Itachi.

"I need some clothes!" Itachi lunged at Tobi and grabbed his cloak, but the vexatious ninja slipped out of his grasp.

"Wait here. Tobi will find a clothes shop and buy you stuff." Tobi darted away.

The women ventured closer to the handsome Uchiha, bickering amongst themselves over who would marry him and have his babies.

Itachi backed away fearfully. He picked up a small branch from the tree-lined street and waved it around. "Stay back!" he warned.

They rushed towards him. Itachi swung his stick frantically, attempting to beat back the crazed mob but there were just too many of them. He was jostled from all sides by the infatuated women.

"HELP!" he called out desperately.

Tobi returned and fought his way through the crowd, he touched Itachi and teleported him to safety.

"Here you go Itachi-san." Tobi passed him some bright orange silk pyjamas.

Itachi hastily put them on. They were much too large for him; the sleeves dangled way past his wrists leaving only the tips of his fingers visible.

"Where is Kisame?" he asked.

A blue spiral emerged from the hole in Tobi's mask, eventually forming into the Akatsuki shark.

"Here he is!" Tobi announced. "Kisame-san, why were you fighting with Mangetsu-san in there?"

"We were just sparring. Put me back, I don't want to have to look at your stupid swirly face." Kisame scowled angrily at him.

Tobi hid behind his orange-clad relative. "But Tobi is not good at directions, do you remember which way is our base is from here?"

Kisame sighed. "Follow me. I think it'll take about two hours if we run."

"I can't run. These will fall down." Itachi said morosely, clutching at his oversized silk pyjama bottoms.

Kisame couldn't stop a smirk spreading across his face. "Why are you dressed like that?"

"Tobi brought me here when I was naked and I had to put these on because too many women wanted to have sex with me. I tried to beat them off with a stick but they wouldn't leave me alone."

"Why is it that every single woman in the world throws themselves at you Uchiha's? I'm never going to get a girlfriend now that I'm stuck with two of you. Even when you turn them down they still chase after you and completely ignore me."

Kisame stormed off towards their secret base while continuing his rant, with his Uchiha partners traipsing after him in silence.