A/N: Sorry about the slow update, I'm getting more and more busy so they me be slowing down even more. I'll try to keep up a good clip though.

Chapter 38: Research.

They first came to a small town that served as a rest stop for travelers. Transformation Jutsu's kept their identities secret while they moved in pairs to different hotels to further hide their tracks. Kakashi with Jiraiya and Sai with Yamato.

Kakashi was meditating silently, though his focus was continuously interrupted by the giggles and urgings of Jiraiya. "Jiraiya-sama, is there any particular reason you chose this hotel and this room?" Jiraiya ignored him and continued to make his minor sounds of enjoyment while staring at something in his binoculars. "It wouldn't be because of the all women's hotel next door would it?"

Jiraiya was immediately in Kakashi's face, "How dare you accuse me of such underhanded tactics at perversion." Kakashi stared at him disappointedly. "What? It's true. Were "research" my only goal I would have simply transformed into a women and stayed in the women's hotel, especially the baths." Jiraiya's face turned red and he started to drool slightly.

Kakashi sighed, knowing that his sensei's sensei was being perfectly honest with that admission. "Then what other motives do you have?"

Jiraiya shook out of his daydream. "Talking with you of course." His face went serious. "How were you planning on tracking down any member of akatsuki?"

Kakashi also became more serious. "Well, first, you have studied them and tracked them for years haven't you? Don't you know anything about where they might be going now?"

Jiraiya grabbed his chin to think. "After they managed to take down the jinchuuriki of Kumogakure I lost any lead as to where they would strike next. The other tailed beasts were either unsealed or done so in a secretive manner, further more I was never able to find out exactly how many demons they already possessed, the only three I was sure of were the one tailed shukaku of the sand, the two tailed demon cat, and of course, the nine tailed demon fox. Speaking of which, Naruto's presence and training took priority in many situations, inhibiting my ability to track down information. What about you? You are the master tracker, can't you find them from even the smallest traces of their presence?"

"Yes. But, we have no idea where they've been recently either. In the most recent attacks, both of their members were successfully killed. While this is a good thing, it also means we have nothing to track back to any base of operations." Kakashi frowned beneath his mask and strained his mind to come up with a solution.

Jiraiya hummed again. Then his eyes went wide and he snapped his fingers. "Those last two, didn't they make a detour to attack a man who wasn't ajinchuuriki?"

Kakashi tilted his head up, and looked back at Jiraiya. "Yes, a man named Chiriku, and a former guard ninja of fire. They were collecting a bounty on his head. From what we learned at the bounty station Kakuzu was notorious for bringing in large bounty heads, and though he was joined in combat by Hidan, it seemed Hidan had none of the lust for the money that filled Kakuzu."

"Right." Jiraiya reached into his pack and pulled out a book. It was a bingo book, the listing for the various bounty rewards that had been put out by the countries. "Here he is, right next to Asuma Sarutobi. My question is, if Hidan did not appear to be enjoying the bounty hunting, why did he assist Kakuszu?"

Kakashi considered this. "Of course. They were ordered to take in the bounties. Which means…"

"That even if Kakuzu is out of the picture…"

"The organization will still need the bounty money."

Jiraiya nodded. "Now we just need to start tracking large bounty turn ins."

Yamato stood by the window staring out at the street and glancing back in periodically to check up on Sai. At one point he fully turned and addressed his traveling companion. "I was actually a little surprised to hear that you accepted this mission." Sai did not reply. "Why did you decide to come? I thought your mission was to assassinate Sasuke?"

Sai raised his head from the picture he had been drawing. "You know already that I abandoned that mission. And this one, I took for the same reasons."

Yamato nodded. "Naruto. He is an amazing young man. Well we leave early tomorrow, lets get rested up."

The four gathered on the outskirts of the town and dispelled their transformations. They were now wearing a specially designed generic ninja uniform, meant to hide their village of origin. Kakashi was the first to speak. "We believe at least one unit of akatsuki agents will be taking over Kakuzu's work with collecting bounties. Under that assumption, we are going to track down bounty offices and collect any information about the collectors on high bounties. Here are your destinations and here is the meeting place for midnight to night." He handed each of them a map and held the last for himself. "We move to a new territory tomorrow so be there on time to get rest. MOVE!"

The four spread out.

They found no traces of activity on that day. The next day they rose early and began heading southeast, through the more remote and lawless areas of the land of fire.

They came upon their first clue when a bounty station manager said this to Yamato. "Tough guys turning in high bounties? Well for that you need to be in place with some high bounties. Say now that I think about it I heard that I could scratch this guy out of the bingo book, and look at him, he was worth 50 million ryo. Somebody took him out right in the land of water, right under his own government's nose."

Yamato looked down at the photo, despite it having a large X through it. The name had been crossed out but it was fairly obvious who it was from two clues. The picture depicted him wielding a massive sword which was shaped like an enormous meet cleaver. The other clue was the picture right next to him. Kisame Hoshigaki. Yamato left and reported what he had heard. It didn't take long for them to decide to go straight to the land of water.

Once they arrived they began their pattern again, searching for clues as to what had turned in a bounty on one of the seven shinobi swordsman. The bounty managers were much more hostile in this country, forcing them to move in pairs to avoid potential danger. Then they hit another clue. This time Kakashi and Sai were clued in.

"That bounty was a little hot if you know what I mean. Hard to pay off from right here, and getting the body out of the country was a bitch. Imagine what kind of deep shit We'd be in if the Mizukage found out we were smuggling out the corpse of one of his precious few remaining shinobi swordmen. That's three renegade, and 1 murdered. That little organization isn't having to much luck eh? Hahahahaha." The balding fat man laughed horribly to himself, even wiping away a tear.

"Right, but who was it who turned in the bounty?" Kakashi said trough his mask.

The fat man stopped his laughter. "I heard you the first time, but ya gotta understand there is a certain amount of customer confidentiality in this particular business. I can't tell ya that, so yur outa luck."

Sai stepped forward and gripped the man's collar. "Tell us. Or we'll kill you and carry your carcass to another bounty station where they might be a little more loose lipped."

A sound of footsteps and weapons drew their attention to the new company which had entered the dark and dank room. Sai dropped the fat man and turned to the others. He pulled out his parchment and drew a long line on it. Several ink lions leapt from the paper and assaulted the would-be assaulters. Within moments they were all on the ground either badly beaten, badly slashed, or some combination of the two. Sai turned back to the fat man and tilted his head slightly.

The fat man was sweating and wide eyed. "Alright! They didn't give me names but one of them was a big guy with beady eyes and the other was medium sized and spoke with a deep voice. Their faces were concealed. I don't know anything more then that I swear!"

Kakashi nodded. "Right, that's all we'll need."

Once they were outside Sai spoke. "We know who the targets are, but how will we find them?"

Kakashi started walking. "It won't be too difficult, one of two things will happen. We will find someone who has seen them and be led to their location, or they will find out that people have been looking for them and will naturally come to us. Our separation into pairs and similar wardrobe should throw off descriptions, they will believe they are only facing two opponents, and when they come we will have a numerical advantage."

Sai nodded. Kakashi looked at the young man. "That was impressive intimidation technique back there, was that part of your training in root?"

Sai nodded again. Kakashi concluded there was no more interest in conversation, so he dropped it.

The four of them sat in Yamato's summoned hotel. It was Jiraiya who spoke. "So, it is Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki we must face. What a conincidence."

The other three nodded. Next to speak was Kakashi. "When it happens we will need some kind of a plan. I will be needed to counter Itachi's sharingan with my own. Samehada can tear through chakra fields, so techniques that don't rely on chakra channeling are best. Sai, Yamato, can you handle him?"

They both nodded. Yamato spoke up. "Then its you and Jiraiya against Itachi. Are we sure we can do this? Itachi beat you once before didn't he? And Kisame will be… tough."

"We don't have a choice, akatsuki needs to be taken down." Jiraiya effectively ended the conversation, and each of the ninja went to bed.

"Well Itachi? What are we going to do about it? One of them may even have a bounty, that is our goal isn't it?"

Itachi barely opened his eyes. "Our mission was quite specific, obtain the bounties on each of the seven shinobi swordsmen, one at a time. This can only complicate things. We should take out our pursuers. Immediately."

Kisame smiled, showing off his large filed teeth. "Right. Maybe it will be some people who can actually put up a fight."

Itachi mused aloud. "Two strangers in black clothing, faces hidden by masks. One taller then the other. Something doesn't match up."

Kisame squinted. "Eh?"

"Some of our contacts described one of them as having only one eye, or at least keeping one covered. Other contacs make no mention of such a distinctive feature. It is likely we are being hunted by four, not two. And if one of them has an eye covered, it would likely be…"

"Heh, Kakashi Hatake. Then you suspect the leaf of attempting to hunt down and destroy our little organization?"

"It is possible, but irrelevant. There will be no need to report this to leader, we will simply kill them and continue to collect bounties."

"Right."

"YOU FOUGHT HIM!!"

"Sasuke. I thought I was clear that there were to be no interruptions to this report. If you cannot listen, I will ask you to leave." Tsunade stared at Sasuke with eyes that rivaled even his in cold threatening power. Sasuke slowly sat back down, allowing the four to continue the report.

A/N: If you were paying attention to the little quips that came up during the chunin exams, you'll have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen.