"Pein?"

The ginger in question glanced up from his place at the table to look at Konan. The blue-haired woman was standing in the doorway, nervously wringing her hands despite the calm look on her face. "What is it?" he asked. "And you don't have to stand so far away. I'm not quite frustrated enough to bite you. Yet."

Konan relaxed slightly at the statement and approached her boyfriend, standing by his side and peering down at the myriad of papers surrounding him. "What are you working on?"

"Our legal options," Pein admitted. "Even if we can get Deidara's parents to drop the kidnapping charges, we still have to deal with evading arrest, assisting a known thief if they find out about Rostov (although we'd probably be looking at attempted murder if he ever showed his face again), breaking into and then out of a Jashinist camp in the middle of a riot, breaking and entering since we don't technically have permission to be here, and criminal mischief because let's be honest, there's no way we could ever avoid that. This is, of course, excluding whatever charges they want to bring up based on what they found at our house, because I'm assuming that's the first place they searched when Deidara went missing." Pein sighed and shook his head. "Let's hope Deidara hid his explosives. Kami only knows what they'll have to say about the stuff in Zetsu and Hidan's rooms…"

"There's not going to be an easy way out of this, is there?" Konan asked, placing a comforting hand on Pein's shoulder.

The Akatsuki leader shook his head and cupped his own hand over hers. Konan noted that the man's frown lines had grown deeper over the past few days; to think, this vacation was supposed to be about relaxing and bonding. "No. At the moment, we have two options. First, we could call Deidara's parents again and tell them we're heading back to Konoha. We then return, attempt to explain to the police what actually happened, and post bail until our court date."

"What's the second option?"

"We call Deidara's parents and try to explain the situation once more, without promising to come back. If they accept our explanation, we go back home and follow the first plan. If they don't, we head to Sunagakure and meet with Zetsu's lawyers to discuss our legal options."

"But that involves back-tracking almost all the way to Konoha!" Konan exclaimed. "The risk of getting caught…"

"I know, but they understand all this legal jargon far better than I do," Pein explained in an attempt to calm his girlfriend. "If we went to them, we might be able to find a better solution than simply calling and running all the time."

"Kisame wouldn't go for it," Konan cautioned. "He's convinced that Itachi's trying to make his way here. We'd never be able to get him to take off again without Itachi in tow."

"I realize that," Pein muttered, withdrawing his hands to rub circles into his temples. "But as our leader, I need to think of what's best for Akatsuki as a whole. I don't want to abandon Itachi a second time, but if we stay here much longer, eventually we'll be found and thrown in a jail cell, and Itachi will be lost to us anyway." The leader sighed miserably. "This is so wrong, Konan. Most kids our age are worried about test scores and what car to drive. I'm trying to keep all of us out of jail for a crime we didn't commit, while at the same time trying to hide all the crimes we have committed."

Konan wrapped her arms around the ginger's shoulders from behind and squeezed him tightly. "You've gotten us out of worse than this. Remember the Oto? How we lost half our group, but you still rallied the troops and got us all back together?"

"How could I forget? That's what caused this mess."

Konan ignored her boyfriend's pessimism and kissed his cheek. "Regardless of that, it was still a nightmare of a situation. But through it all, every one of us kept looking to you for guidance. You know why?"

"Because everyone in this poor excuse for an organization, except Itachi and possibly Sasori, are incredibly incompetent?"

"Because you are our leader," Konan proudly stated, "and we've learned to trust your judgment. Even if we give you a hard time now and again, all of us know you're the one who can get us out of a tough spot and keep us safe. We trust you, because you've proven to be trustworthy in that field. You won't let us down; I know it."

Pein turned his head ever so slightly to kiss his girlfriend on the lips. The leader still wasn't sure if he could get the Akatsuki out of this mess; but, with a pep talk like that, he was certainly going to try.

-n-

Kankuro was having a great week. He'd made several huge sales, fixed the AC unit that had been broken for the past few days, and had gotten to see a number of pretty girls. Quite frankly, that was all the man needed to be content with his lot in life. Things appeared to be looking up for the mechanic.

And then, they came.

Kankuro and Gaara had been cleaning out the back office, making sure the files were properly separated from the dead rats, when a low rumble was heard in the distance. Thinking it was a military jet (they had a habit of testing new equipment out in the desert not too far from the brothers' shop), the duo continued their filing. However, much to their surprise, the rumbling didn't fade, but actually grew louder and louder. When the ground started shaking a few minutes later, Kankuro knew something was amiss and grabbed his binoculars, venturing out on the porch to see what the hubbub was about. Gaara, for his part, remained in the office to secure anything that might be toppled over if the shaking grew worse.

Kankuro bit his lip as he searched the horizon for the source of this disturbance. "Now what could be-sweet saint Thaddeus!" Kankuro stumbled backwards into the shop, flipped the sign from 'Open' to 'Closed', and locked every lock and deadbolt on the door. "Gaara, batten down the hatches, hide the cash, an' say your prayers, it's terrible!"

"The IRS?" his younger brother guessed.

"What? Hell no! It's…it's…"

"Yeah?"

"Fangirls." The redhead's eyes widened. "And they ain't normal fangirls, they've got that weird upside-down triangle thingy on all their cars! I think those are Jehosaphats or something!"

"I'll wrap up the good silverware," Gaara promised before disappearing into the back room again.

"Great, I'll lock up the keys so they can't steal the cars-oh."

"Oh?"

"Sweet maple syrup on pancakes, we've got a problem…"

"What?" Gaara demanded, growing increasingly annoyed at having to pry answers out of his brother every few minutes.

"That kid that came through the other day, and those two girls with him! They left towards Maytown, and that's right on the fangirls warpath, or I'm a spring chicken!"

"Kankuro, it ain't none of our business."

"It ain't none of our business," Kankuro repeated in a deadpan. "It ain't none of our business?! Did you forget what those monsters did to your poor sister?!" Gaara took off his bandana and bowed his head respectfully at the mention of his unfortunate sibling. "Do you want what happened to her to happen to those poor girls, huh? And what do ya think they do with guys, huh? I ain't never heard of no gent getting captured by the likes of them and making it out ok."

"So what should we do?"

Kankuro walked across the room and stopped in front of his gun rack to remove a pair of well-used shotguns from the wall. "Fire up the truck and load up 20 pounds of rock salt. We're moving out."

-n-

Kankuro and Gaara, unfortunately, were not the only ones to have trouble with the fangirls. Several miles down the road, a large herd of fangirls had broken off from the main group and was blocking the road, having stopped briefly to make camp and get some much needed rest. Their reputation preceded them, giving the fangirls confidence that no one would dare tell them to move until the fangirls themselves were good and ready to go. Little did they know that the nearby leader of the Shakespeare Revival Movement laughed in the face of fear. Although at the moment, Anna was far from laughing…

"All right, what's the holdup this time?" the sandy blonde demanded, straightening her glasses while attempting to smooth the wrinkles in her nightgown. It was 7:30 in the morning, and Anna had a strict "look, 90% of us aren't morning people, so don't get up before 8:30 unless you have a damn good reason or want to make waffles for the whole troupe" rule, which no one wanted to break, either for fear of upsetting their leader or a simple desire for more sleep. This rule had been broken by a nervous Haku, who informed the woman that Prudence had stopped the bus and couldn't go any further without help from their leader.

"That," Prudence replied, pointing out the front window of the bus, "is the problem."

Anna blinked the sleep from her eyes and looked out to where Prudence was pointing, eager to find and settle this disturbance as quickly as possible so she could go back to sleep. It didn't take long to find the root of the problem. "Fangirls," she hissed.

"Yup. Haku's counted at least 90, but he's estimating their numbers go as high as 150. And considering they just got the bonfire going, we could be looking at a good 6 hour delay, maybe even more."

Anna's eyes darted to the boy responsible for the estimations. "You seem pretty good at studying the enemy, kid. What'd you say you did for a living before we took you in?"

"Kidnapping and taking someone in are two entirely different things," Haku responded in a somewhat edgy tone, being simultaneously offended at Anna's choice of words and worried that the woman would want to find out about his past (and given her torture methods, even a veteran agent like Haku would break after a while).

Much to the boy's relief, Anna was too tired to press him for further details when there was such a large problem before them. "Ok, here's what's going to happen. Haku, you're going to draw a map of the enemy to scale. Prudence, you're going to make me a strong cup of coffee. I'm going to get dressed." Orders given, the woman stumbled to the doorway, swore when her shoulder collided with the doorframe, and disappeared in the direction of the wardrobe.

"Is she always like that this early?" Haku inquired, looking around to see where he could find some paper and a pen to make a layout of the enemies' camp.

"Nope," was Prudence's answer as she gave him a pencil and page from her atlas. "You're still new, so she's trying to be polite around you. Don't worry, it'll fade after a while."

Roughly ten minutes later Prudence had made a pot of coffee that smelled like a roadside diner and had the color and consistency of tar, Haku was all but finished with his map, and Anna entered the room, dressed in the green uniform of a military general, complete with a helmet that was sporting two stars. She sniffed the air and smiled at her confused underlings. "I love the smell of Prudence's coffee in the morning. Smells like…victory."

"Erm…"

"I'm a thespian, kid. Misquoting old movies is what I do best." The woman took a sip of coffee, shuddered, and went on. "Now do you have a map for me, or I am going to have to throw you to the fangirls as a sacrifice?"

"Here it is." Haku all but threw the neatly drawn map into Anna's arms; he'd had a few run-ins with regular girls during his grocery runs, and had no desire to see what hardcore fangirls would do with him.

"Hmm… so basically, there's no way to drive around these girls, they're too settled in to dodge our bus if we tried to drive through, and negotiation with these monsters is obviously out of the question." Anna stopped her summary there and sipped at her coffee, turning over several ideas in her mind as she tried to settle on the best method to get her troupe out of this mess. "Prudence, tell Lennon to load the cannons."

"The what?!" Haku demanded.

Prudence gave the leader a concerned look. "You sure about that, boss? We haven't used those things in forever. I can't even remember the last time they were cleaned.

"Why do you people have cannons?!"

"I know, Prudence, but they're our best bet right now. While Lennon's setting them up, I'll get the ammo from my bunk. No offense, but I don't trust any of you with our munitions."

"You have ammunition?!"

"Oh come on, Anna, that fiasco in Reno-"

"Is the reason we're down to one bus right now. Go get Lennon." Orders given, Anna took a final gulp of coffee and set her mug on the dashboard. "Haku, be a dear and take care of this, would you?"

"All right," Haku answered in a distant voice, still trying to process what was going on around him. Anna and Prudence, being in much better shape, soon exited the room to prepare an assault on the fangirls. It took Haku a few more moments to pull himself together, before he finally gathered up the coffee pot and mug. "I'm beginning to think Zabuza's methods of handling problems were less unorthodox than I originally assumed," the boy murmured, gliding gracefully across the floor to open a window and dump the coffee out of the pot. When it came to Anna's mug, however, Haku's curiosity got the better of him, and he took a cautious sip to see what exactly went into the java that kept the SRM leader going.

The next minute he was leaning out the window, retching as the mug and coffee pot lay forgotten at his feet.

-n-

It took a surprisingly short amount of time to set up the cannons, although this was partially due to the fact that Lennon had drafted Rostov to help set up the weapons on top of the bus. They'd just finished when Anna approached, two large gray cylinders tucked under each of her arms. "About time," she grumbled, loading the first cannon with one of the canisters.

"Scary devil woman, what is we doing with these things?" Rostov inquired, trying to stand as far away from the cannons as he could while remaining on the roof.

"We're about to engage in assertive non-verbal communications with a hostile force," Anna answered as she packed a cylinder into the other cannon.

"Oh. I was thinking you were going to be shooting those scary girly girls!"

"Oh Rostov. To be so young and naïve." Shaking her head at the foreigner's ignorance, Anna stepped behind her armaments and aimed toward the center of the road. They had a limited number of volleys, and she'd rather they cleared a path in one shot from each cannon instead of two. "Go get me that Haku kid. Something tells me he's worked with weapons before, and we can't waste a shot." Eager to be away from their eccentric leader while she was aiming a large weapon, the two men scurried off, Rostov returning shortly thereafter with Haku in tow. "Rostov, go tell Prudence to fire up the engine. We need to be ready to go ASAP."

"But Anna," Haku began, watching as Rostov exited the roof, "Prudence already-"

"I know. But I need you to level with me, kid." Turning away from Haku again, Anna kneeled down and began making minute adjustments to the cannon's trajectory. "You're not a normal kid, Haku. And that's coming from someone that works with these clowns all day."

"Well, I was at the JRCH-"

"Don't bullshit me, kid. You've got calluses and scars on your hands from knives, and your clothing smelled like gunpowder when we brought you in. To top it off, you've been manipulating every one of my underlings to look somewhere else when they ask about you. Oh, and there's that cell phone I found hidden in your bunk. But how about I just cut to the chase and tell you I figured out that you're Haku Yuki, the sidekick of Zabuza Momochi, two of the more famous hired hands in the field right now." Adjustments complete, the woman stood and turned to look at the visibly shaken Haku. "Don't worry, no one else knows about this yet. Well, maybe Maria, but no one listens to her anyway."

"Why are you telling me this?" Haku inquired, voice deceptively calm and quiet. "If you're the only one who knows, what's to stop me from taking you out?"

"Because if you try anything with me, you're going down and not getting up," Anna sharply retorted. "I wasn't always a thespian, you know. Before I joined the SRM, I had a different line of work. I was the top bodyguard for the Ikari family. Went by the name Ankle-breaker Amelia. Maybe you've heard of me?"

Oh, Haku had heard of her all right. Many years ago, when he was still too little to help Zabuza on his missions, the boy would sneak out of bed at night and stand just outside the living room, listening to the man talk with his partners about the hired hands in other syndicates. This was back when Zabuza worked under a mafia boss, bringing in money that was stained with blood before it ever reached their hands. One of the most frequently mentioned names that came up was a cold, cruel wisp of a bodyguard called Ankle-breaker Amelia, named because anyone who crossed the Ikari family had a habit of turning up with a few bones, typically the ankles, broken quite badly. But she'd vanished off the face of the earth years ago…

"Don't worry, I'm not going to break anything on you. Yet. See, after a while of being a hired hand, I realized I hated it," Anna went on. "The smell of blood, the sound of breaking bones, all of it. I even started hating the groceries I bought with my paycheck. So one day, I left it all behind. Changed my name, switched out my contacts for glasses, and burned my house to the ground. I vowed never to go back to that life, and never to do someone else's dirty work again. Ever since then, I've been running this theatre group. It's my life."

"Um…"

"You're probably even more confused now, aren't you?" Haku nodded. "Haku, I'm telling you this for two reasons. One; I don't know what you're doing out here, and frankly I don't want to know, so I'll leave you be as long as you don't drag my troupe down with you."

"And the other reason?"

Anna walked up to Haku and placed a hand on his shoulder in a manner so gentle it seemed impossible for her. "Because not everyone can handle being a career murderer, Haku. So if the day comes when you realize you can't shoot a gun or run a person through with your knife…we'll always have an open bunk for you. We all have our own horror stories, kid. Mine's the worst, sure, but not by much."

"…I'll think about it," Haku agreed.

"Good. But for now, help me aim these cannons."

"But I thought you said-"

"Don't worry kid, this won't kill them." Here Anna grinned. "In fact, it'll be pretty damn hilarious if everything goes according to plan." Not sure if he could or even should trust someone who'd just confessed to being a reformed criminal, Haku nevertheless helped the woman aim their weapons, and after both confirmed their shots to be on target, Anna lit the fuses and covered her ears.

BOOM

BOOM

There was a very small explosion, and then the road was obscured by a large grey cloud. Fangirls began to scream, stumbling away from the smoke and…sneezing?

Sure enough, all the fangirls in the immediate area were doubled over, eyes closed as they sneezed again and again with no signs of stopping anytime soon. "Um…Anna?"

"Like it? It's sneezing powder, left over from the smash hit, Napoleon Blown-apart." Grinning, Anna fell to her knees and thumped the roof of the bus twice, signaling Prudence it was time to go. The SRM's driver began creeping forward, both to avoid hitting any of the sneezing females and to keep the cannons from flying off the bus's roof. "Haku, grab that cannon and hold it steady. We'll stop in a mile or so and take them down then."

"Ok." Haku did as instructed, doing his best to brace the large weapon with his body. As the bus drove onward, he cast a glance towards Anna, who was grinning widely from their most recent success. Was that really all it took to leave a life of crime behind? A new name, some glasses, and a promise to never go back to your old life? But she'd been all alone, and he still had Zabuza. He'd never had to kill anyone yet though, aside from a yappy dog that almost gave away their position on a job; what happened if Zabuza ordered him to take another's life, and he couldn't handle it?

Haku wished the bus would hurry up and pull over. He needed to get back to his bunk and do a lot of thinking, alone.

-meanwhile, back with the fangirls—

"ACHOO! ACHOO! Jashin-damnit, Hakushi, where are youCHOOO!"

"Over here Amai!" Hakushi responded before breaking out into another sneezing fit. Hakushi had failed to get Hidan's autograph before the infamous Jashinist had flown the coop, much to his disappointment. When he found out a number of the camp's fangirls had decided to take off and find Hidan, it seemed to be the perfect opportunity to get his long sought autograph. Amaifuyu, realizing that her boyfriend probably wouldn't last twenty minutes on the outside world without her, had chosen to tag along as well. The duo had been helping the fangirls set up their camp, when all of a sudden they were attacked by a psychedelic bus and reduced to a pile of sneezy, mucus-spewing zealots. Not exactly the greatest thing that could happen to a person, in all honesty.

Eventually Amaifuyu was able to grope her way over to Hakushi and offer him a tissue as they waited for the sneezing to subside. "What the hell happened?" she gasped between sneezes.

"I dunno-ACHOO! But damn if they didn't ACHOO catch us ACHOO off-guard." The blue-haired male finally seemed to regain some semblance of control over himself, and stood up to check on the reminder of the group. It appeared that most of the girls were starting to compose themselves, but numerous sneezes still filled the air. "All right, is anyone else as pissed as I am right now?" the Jashinist growled.

The response was a loud screech in the affirmative, followed by more sneezing.

"Hakushi, what the hell are you doing?" Amaifuyu demanded, having stood up as well by this point.

"Look, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not gonna let a bunch of jackasses screw with us like that and think they can get away with it!" More screeches, and a few cheers mixed in as well. "I say we let the others catch Hidan for us, while we chase those hippy bastards down and make them pay for this!" By now the cheers were deafening.

"Geez, this is going to be messy," Amaifuyu muttered to herself. But since rabid fangirls tend not to listen to the voice of reason, the group's new plan remained unaltered, and soon the fangirls were packing up, ready to give chase to the SRM and show them the true meaning of hell on earth.