Title: Professional Differences
A/N: By writing this, I am assuming the leader of the Akatsuki is male. I may have assumed that in previous drabbles, but I don't really remember. Also, I'm probably messing up the timeline, because I'm not exactly sure when this happened. Lastly, I've kind of avoided writing much about the leader because we don't know his/her personality yet, but for this I said, "Screw it."
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The leader of the Akatsuki sat at his desk –a desk he had spent a good chunk of the group's finances on. It was a very nice desk. Hand-carved, imported, and large enough to hide a body under.
He wasn't actually doing any work since there was little deskwork to do within the Akatsuki, and the small amount that did come his way, he dealt with through the use of a simple word: delegate.
As it was, he was sitting at his desk doing a paint-by-number painting. The kind you find in the toy aisle at the local general store.
A light knock on the door sounded and he called for whoever was on the other side to come in. He wasn't too surprised to see Orochimaru come in, because he liked to request time off in order to conduct research –a lot. The sennin may have thought his immortality jutsus were important, and they probably were to him, but it annoyed the hell out of the other members who had to pick up his slack –except Sasori, because he was partnered with Orochimaru and had enough insane jutsus of his own to research.
"Pardon the interruption of your… uh," and here the legendary sennin who was normally smooth as silk with his words faltered, "… arts and crafts time, but about the recent campaign to capture the tailed beasts…"
The leader put down his paintbrush on a folded paper towel so as not to get his desk wet, where a few other brushes were, and then looked at Orochimaru. Good leadership dictated that you show that you are listening and interested, even when you aren't.
"Yes?"
"What are we going to do with them?"
"Well, see, I thought we could sort of capture the free ones, extract the ones from the jinchuuriki, and then sort of stuff them all into our own bodies."
What the thought processes were in the develpoment of that plan, Orochimaru did not care to guess.
"I see."
"Yeah, it's a pretty good plan."
"Why would we be doing this?"
The answer to that was simple enough.
"You were all complaining about being bored."
Orochimaru hesitated a second before replying. "So your response was to have us chase after powerful demons so we can 'stuff them into our own bodies'?"
"It seemed hard enough to keep everyone busy for awhile."
"Well, the thing is, I'm more about stuffing myself into other people's bodies, you know, so I can take over and live forever. Not really so much about stuffing things into me."
"I can see that, I mean, you are getting kind of old, so your frail and aged body might suffer under the strain, but I'm sure a demon would give you some spunk!"
There was no hesitation in Orochimaru's response, just narrowed eyes.
"I was wondering if I can turn in my resignation."
"No."
"Very well," and there was something that was too calm in his voice before he walked out the door.
The leader, if he had really given any thought to Orochimaru's acquiescence of his denial for resignation, may have realized that it was far too easy as far as Orochimaru was concerned. The man was insistent on getting what he wanted, and if one way didn't work, he would simply go another route –regardless of rules, obligations, and any sense of morality.
So the sudden absence of the sennin at the next group cocktail party shouldn't have been as surprising as it was. The rise of Sound a few months later with a rather familiar Otokaze shouldn't have either.
What really pissed the leader off, though, wasn't that Orochimaru had taken his ring, his issued (not given, members were supposed to return issued items after separation, thankyouverymuch) cloak, or Akatsuki secrets, but the fact that Orochimaru hadn't even said goodbye or at least invited them over for a housewarming party.
That was what really sparked the feud.
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A/N: Originally, this drabble was much stupider, and not in a good way.
No one seems to know exactly why Orochimaru left the Akatsuki –although it was implied that Itachi's growing power had something to do with it, and at one point, Orochimaru said something about Itachi refusing to help him in his plans against Konoha (it was hinted he wanted to occupy his body), so maybe Itachi hadn't taken the proposition well. For all we know, Orochimaru walked up to him and said, "Hey, you should give me your body and then I can run around learning a crapload of new jutsus and using Tsukiyomi on people for fun. Maybe use the Amaterasu thing you have going on."
To which Itachi would have replied, "Go to Hell." This would probably be followed by using a crapload of jutsus, Amaterasu, and Tsukiyomi on Orochimaru.
That may have been part of the reason why the Akatsuki and Orochimaru want each other dead. Sometimes I think my author notes have more crack in them than the drabbles.
