AN: Greetings everyone. Time for the 25thchapter in this series. When I began writing this series I was expecting something like 20 chapters but guess I underestimated the length. Anyway I will keep writing until it is finished. But for now I'll answer some questions/reviews in the comments.

I also have been getting some private messages about if I'm going to write another abandoned Naruto fic after this one. I was actually planning on doing one after I finish this fic. It will more than likely feature a dark Naruto instead of grey. His powers will be more evil and supernatural and not forgive his family. If you have any recommendations I would love to hear them, but I already have the main theme of it figured out.

LordGhostStriker: Yami is currently a pseudo bijuu in Shio's mind. She is not restricted to the seal due to not being sealed by the Shinigami.

Swordmanwielder: Menma's mission to capture the sanbi occurred at the same time as this mission. This chapter will feature both teams.

Apprentice-kun/Rain-Chan: I am not sure how my story reminds you of that story, but I have read that fanfiction and liked the plot of it. I hope you continue reading and enjoy my story J.

Yagaaaa: Chap 24 is prob the only chapter that will not feature Menma in some way. Canon naruto jumped POV's more than any other story I've read so I tried to do the same thing in my story.

Guest: Yes, Shio has Yami. Yes, Sasuke has his power of vengeance. But let us not forget that Menma can now currently use super strength, has great medical abilities, has power over spiders and can go into spider senjutsu, use acid ninjutsu, and great has taijutsu abilities. I feel as if I make his powers even more op, they will make them seem cheap and completely op.

Anyway let's get to the story.

Chapter 25

The Dawn Hunt

(Konoha – Minato's office)

Team 7 and 9 stood in Minato's office awaiting orders. Kakashi had finally recovered and was now led his team consisting of Shio, Mito, and Yamato. Team seven was the same as ever as they looked at the Hokage for instruction.

Minato set down eight bingo book entrees, all showing S-ranked rogue ninja. He looked up and explained "From the information given to us by Yamato from Orochimaru's base we have been able to identify all the members of the Akatsuki. The Akatsuki is now comprised of Hidan the Immortal, Kakazu of the five hearts, Dediara the explosive expert, Kisame the Monster of the Mist, Itachi the clan slayer, Tobi the phantom joker, Konan the Angel of Rain, and the Amekage Pein."

Everyone looked at the separate bingo book entries that Orochimaru had created and read the bios and information on each person and grimaced slightly. Each person on the list was extremely skilled.

Minato waited for each person to finish reading the information before speaking "I am combining both your teams as a hunt down and kill team for the Akatsuki."

Kakashi frowned "How will we track the members of the Akatsuki, these ninjas may have different specialties but any S class rogue nin knows how to hide a trail."

Minato smirked "We will use this." He held up a ring that Yamato had taken from Orochimaru's hideout "This ring is imbued with the chakra of each member of the Akatsuki. I can tell there was a summoning seal on the ring to retrieve it in case it was lost, but Orochimaru seemed to have disabled this feature. With this Menma will be able to track each member of the Akatsuki with your spider technique you told me in your report."

Menma nodded, he took the ring and closed his eyes as he looked through the eyes of hundreds of spiders, following the chakra signatures that were inside the ring.

(Forest path in the land of fire)

Menma could see two cloaked men walking down a path in the direction of the fire temple, Kakazu and Hidan.

(Land of Stone cave)

Through the rain Menma could see the two Akatsuki members resting inside a cave.

(Land of Rain)

Menma could see Tobi discussing something with an orange haired man with purple eyes and a blue haired woman. So these were Pein and Konan.

He could not find Zetsu so he assumed the plant man was underground as described in Orochimaru's journals.

(Minato's office)

Menma opened his eyes and spoke "The closest Akatsuki members are Hidan and Kakuzu, they are currently headed to the fire temple."

Minato nodded and spoke to the group "You both are no longer team 7 and team 9, from now on you will be team Dawn Hunter. I am assigning this team its first mission. You are to go to the fire temple and kill Hidan and Kakuzu. In addition, you are to retrieve their rings and seal them within this scroll, it carries an anti-seal barrier on it to prevent the leader of the Akatsuki from retrieving it."

Each member of the newly formed team saluted "Hai!"

(Village Gates)

Team Dawn stood in front of the gates and discussed strategy. Menma stepped forward and spoke "From the reports from Orochimaru, Hidan is a cultist who somehow gained immortality from a false god."

Anko nodded "And Kakazu of the Five hearts is an almost immortal man who uses a Kinjutsu to steal hearts and increase his lifespan. If Orochimaru's reports are to be trusted then he can use each heart to fight along-side him."

Mito frowned "Hidan should not be a problem since he wont know we know that he is immortal so he will most likely let us attack him some to demonstrate his immortality. The reports claimed that he is very arrogant so we can use that to our advantage and take him out early."

Menma nodded "Yes, just because he cannot be killed does not mean that poison and seals will not work on him. If we cut off a body part seal it into a scroll so it cannot be re-attached."

Kakashi stepped forward "Alright let us head out, we need to hurry to prevent them from attacking the Fire Temple, which appears to be their target."

Everyone nodded and disappeared into the forest, moving quickly to the place where Menma sensed the two Akatsuki members.

(Land of Fire – Road to the Fire Temple)

Hidan and Kakuzu were walking through the land of fire. They were taking their time since they had already turned in their assigned jinchurriki, the two tails. They were headed to the fire temple to gain information on the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki and collect bounties to fund the Akatsuki.

They were in an argument about not wasting time and the merits of spending hours of the day praying to a possible fake god when Kunai with explosive tags rained down upon the two Akatsuki members.

Both rogue nin were easily able to dodge the explosives by jumping in different directions, which allowed team dawn to split the two members up before they could group back up.

(Mito, Yamato, Anko and Menma vs Hidan)

Hidan glared at the three heathens who had interrupted his passionate discussion about Jashin. He rested his large scythe on his shoulder and spoke arrogantly "Who are you heathens to stand in the way of lord Jashin's greatest weapon!"

Mito dashed forward and forced Hidan to block with his scythe before saying "We are the heathens who will be taking your head."

Menma took out of a seal on his wrist a large crossbow. He had altered its design after the years and made it so the arrows were pure venom and shot as fast as he pumped chakra into it. He allowed Mito to take the close combat and jumped in the trees to attack Hidan from above while spinning chakra threads around the woods to prevent anyone from leaving or entering the area. He also occasionally shot some webs at Hidan to distract him.

Yamato was also doing his best to distract the Jashinist with his wood style. Either by binding the raging anti-priest or protecting his allies.

Mito was using her signature style and was dashing around Hidan and leaping away from any retaliating strike. Despite Hidan's wild style with his scythe he was still experienced enough to block most of her strikes. However Mito had the advantage of using a sword sword against a scythe. A scythe was not designed for close combat but rather to keep opponent away from you while dealing superficial wounds, which was the key to Hidan's style of combat. However Mito relies heavily on evasive maneuvers and dodging in combination with her sword play, creating a perfect counter for the immortal Jashin worshiper.

It was unsurprising that eventually Hidan slipped up and allowed Anko to sneak up behind him and cut off his head with her wrist blades.

Hidan's head lay on the ground still screaming profanities at the Konoha ninjas "Damn you heathens! Lord Jashin will bathe in all your blood! The world will burn before him! And I will be right at his side murdering you motherfu-" His rant was cut short when Mito and Anko sealed the head and the body within separate scrolls.

Menma jumped down and sealed the Akatsuki ring in the special scroll prepared beforehand and looked at his teammates "Let's go and help the other group."

They nodded and jumped into the trees.

(Shio, Kakashi, Yakumo, Lee vs Kakazu)

Kakazu narrowed his eyes at his four opponents. He had figured out early that they were trying to separate them but that idiot Hidan had fallen for it so easily. What he was trying to figure out was how they found them so easily. They had stayed off the radar for the past few days after they had managed to capture the two tails. Either this group was obscenely lucky, or they had a method to track them down. He had to win this fight and inform his superior of this. He decided to go serious from the get go.

The masked rogue nin's back pulsed and four beasts made out of wires erupted from his back. Each beast had a different colored mask to signify its element.

Shio drew her sword and the wind around her increased in intensity and she dashed forward along with Lee who had decided to engage the beasts while Yakumo and Kakashi dealt with Kakuzu.

(Shio, Lee vs Masked Beasts)

The beasts turned to the approaching ninja and opened their mouths and each launched highly destructive beams of their respective elements.

Lee appeared before the attacks and ran through four handseals before calling out "Might style! Stance of the turtle!" around his body a green shield made out of hexagrams completely negated the attack from the fire and water beams. This style of combat was a defensive Might family tradition that was taught by the turtle clan. He had only recently learned the chakra based moves since he had the Sanbi sealed inside of him.

Shio swung her sword in a wide arc and a wall of wind intercepted the gust of wind and the beam of lightning from the other two masks. She dashed forward after the attack and jumped high in the air and slashed repeatedly, sending waves of razor sharp wind cuts at the two masked beasts. The wind based beasts managed to negate some of the cuts directed at him but the lightning beast was quickly sliced into pieces.

Lee appeared behind her back and she glanced and saw that the fire mask was smashed to pieces and that Lee had what appeared to be boxing gloves made out of glowing green hexagon squares. Now it was just the water and wind beasts left. She nodded slightly to Lee and jumped into the air, letting the air propel her upwards. Lee punched forward where she once was and launched the boxing glove at the wind beast, knocking it back a ways and then turned around and punched the feet of Shio, launching her forward at extreme speeds.

Shio spun around in midair, wind gathering around her and she spun like a top through the lightning beast. She righted herself and landed gracefully on the ground. Behind her the lightning mask seemed to be perfectly fine until the entire beast shifted and slid in half.

Lee did not even look at the direction Shio went in and jumped into the air and formed a fist "Might style! Strength of the Tortoise!" He formed a giant green hexagonal fist and launched it at the wind beast. The beast on the ground retaliated with a large gust of wind and the two attacks clashed until Lee twisted mid-air and unleashed another giant green fist against the defense. The wind wall was breached and the mask was completely obliterated by the two combined attacks.

Both Lee and Yakumo nodded and then ran to assist Kakashi and Yakumo.

(Yakumo, Kakashi vs Kakuzu's main body)

Kakuzu frowned as he was separated from his wire beasts. His opponents did not even look surprised that he had used this technique. Something was definitely wrong here. He also knew he was at a disadvantage against Kakashi of the Sharingan. His main heart was an earth style heart which was countered by Kakashi's lightning style. He also recognized Ibiki Morino's apprentice from the Bingo Books. The girl was supposed to be very sadistic with her illusions so he had to be careful. He heard the chirping of birds and refocused on the battle and had to dodge Kakashi's famous Chidori. The rogue-nin turned his fist to stone and tried to retaliate against the Jonin but his fist passed through the Jonin. His eyes widened and quickly fluctuated his chakra, just in time to intercept another Chidori that would have entered his heart. However he suffered a harsh cut on his side and several burns from deflecting the lightning jab. He grunted "You will pay for that."

Kakashi jumped back and spoke "I doubt that highly." The jonin revealed his Sharingan eye and went through several handsigns before speaking loudly "Chidori Senbon!" The jonin swung his hand and needles made of lightning flew out in the hundreds at Kakuzu.

The man in question grunted and sank underground to avoid the needles and was about to prepare a counterattack when he suddenly felt very claustrophobic. He had stopped being claustrophobic when he was just a kid learning about earth style ninjutsu. So this had to be an illusion. He dispelled the genjutsu and went through several handsigns and shot spears of each all around the clearing. He could not sense any chakra signatures so he figured it was safe to rise. He slowly emerged from the ground and observed around him and frowned when he could not find his opponents. However he gasped when a lightning fist suddenly protruded from his chest. The area shifted and Yakumo appeared balancing on one of the spikes and Kakashi appeared behind him. Despite his impending death he had to be impressed. One of the hardest genjutsu to cast was hiding your chakra presence. He only wished he could warn the Akatsuki that they had some method to track them down before the darkness enveloped him.

Kakashi sighed and removed his fist from the rogue nin's chest before looking at the rest of his team who had just arrived. He saw the scrolls in the other team's hands and nodded "mission accomplished."

(Konoha)

Kakashi finished reading his report to Minato who nodded and smiled "Congratulation everyone. You have succeeded in bringing in the bounties for two S-class criminals. You will each get a portion of the bounty and be awarded S-class mission payment. Now, I want each of you to enjoy the rest of the week. However, I need Yamato, Anko and Kakashi to stay behind."

Everyone except Kakashi and Yamato left the room.

(Hokage's Office)

Minato frowned and took out the documents that Yamato had discovered from Sai. He looked at three of his most trusted jonin and spoke "I have been digging into the archives and asking around, it seems that Danzo is involving himself into pretty shady business. Human trafficking, selling information, and other such practices. I do not have enough evidence to convict him yet, but I am getting closer to having enough information to convict him."

Kakashi frowned "Danzo is notorious for covering his tracks extremely well. We will need an ironclad case to convict him."

Anko nodded in agreement "Yeah the guy's a bastard and reminds me of Orochimaru in way to many ways but he is smart as fuck. He will be able to get out of any crimes with only circumstantial evidence."

Minato nodded "Yes, and how about going against the direct order from a Hokage?"

Yamato frowned in confusion before widening his eyes in realization "You mean root!? I thought the Sandamine ordered it to disband after my incident?"

Minato sighed and took out a mask from his desk and placed it before the three jonin who gasped in surprise seeing the completely blank mask with the word NE branded on the forehead. Minato rested his head on his interlocked fingers and explained "This mask was found in a seal on Sai. The appropriate age to join NE was 10 years old, which is five years after NE was disbanded due to Sai's age of 16. I am asking you to look around the city for possible NE bases and report back to me on your findings. If we can find one base we will have enough proof to execute Danzo."

Each jonin nodded and left the room, knowing that Danzo's time in this world was coming to an end.

(Konoha Streets)

Shio walked down the market of Konoha buying some groceries when she noticed Menma up ahead and blushed a bit seeing him in casual attire. Menma now wore black pants and a red short sleeved turtleneck which went well with his long spiky black hair. She was about to approach him when her Yami spoke from her mind "Damn! Look at that ass. You really should go after that Shio, or I may take over and take it for you."

Shio spluttered at the voice in her head, gaining some looks from those around her and tried to compose herself and spoke in her mind "Y-yami! He is my brother I can't have a relationship with him!"

Yami scoffed "Please! You two barely knew each other until you were thirteen. He also has undergone so many transformations I would be very surprised if there was any Uzumaki or Namikaze genes left in his body! Seriously girl, if you don't go after him I'm taking over this body early to take a stake in him before anyone else does."

Shio blushed from head to toe thinking of her former brother like that. She could not help but feel that she had some feelings for him. Menma had grown incredibly handsome over the years and she looked up to him a lot. She could almost feel Yami's smug grin as she spoke "So even miss pure thinks he's handsome eh? Remember I embody your dark emotions which including Lust, so you can't hide anything from me."

Steam seemed to rise from her head as she ran away, ignoring everyone's questioning looks. She ran because she could not deny Yami that she had feelings for her brother. Inside her mind she could hear Yami laughing at her host's body situation. It was delicious irony to the dark side of Shio that the pure side of her would fall for her own brother who she ignored and forgot for thirteen years.

(With Menma)

Menma looked up and saw his former sister running away with a red face. He wondered if she was developing a fever, he hoped she wasn't because it would hamper her ability to fight against the Akatsuki. Menma did not know that inside his own seal Inari was silently laughing at Menma's denseness. The god could tell for a while that Shio was developing feelings for Menma. He had grown significantly bigger since the last time Menma appeared in his mindscape and now had five tails. He settled down still smirking, planning on ways to get the two together. They were perfect for each other after all.

AN: And that's a wrap for the 25thchapter. I hope everyone enjoyed the start to the romance between Shio and Menma. Btw, before anyone asks the Fire temple was not destroyed this time around and Asuma is still alive. Anyway if you have any questions or comments you are free to review. If you hate it with all of your being your free to comment on that too, I appreciate all feedback and it helps me grow as a writer.