I AM NOT DEAD, NOR HAVE I ABANDONED THIS STORY!!!!

You have no idea how happy I am to be back writing again, thinking it symbolises something. My gad-damn-I-hate-it-so-much-project has finally ended, and I am finally free to do what I want. Oh well, here is a quick review of why it took me over 3 months to update.

1, After New Year, my brother and his girlfriend broke up quite suddenly. They were rather close, and lived together, but suddenly she started to question herself if she truly loved him and left. Easy to say, we all became sad because we all liked her, and still do, but yet... I was kind of disorganised through this period of time, between being sad and trying to make sure my brother did not commit suicide. I am pretty sure he could do, but what can your little sister do when her big brother suddenly starts crying when she hugs him?

2 , as I was trying to get through the sadness as well... I was having a hard time writing this, so to not give up writing I did something completely different and started to write Lemons on adultfanfiction. Yes, I normally say I don't write M-rated stories, but I was really confused. I am not giving out the links, even though I had 78 reviews for each story telling me it was really good, no... unless you start to bomb me with reviews about it, I see no reason to turn you into another Jiraya person, though YAOI version.

And thirdly, the god-damn-I-hate-it-so-much-projects had to be finished on March 2, which meant I spent the remaining time working on that. More like, going to school, go home, work until 9pm every single day until I dropped, then go to back, get up again and so on... like a robot. God, I hated it sooooooooooooo much!!!It also had to result to a cold, precisely afterwards, which lasted a few days.

With this said... (and with a deep sigh) I am back... really busy, but nevertheless, back.

Here is the loooooong awaited Chapter 36. And I promise you, you will probably have to wait many months before the next looong drag, if there will ever be any!

Shitza

Ps: Thanks for the huge amount of reviews and support I received through this period, I managed to reach over 200 reviews, and I am so happy for it! Thank you!!! It's 4 less then Spirit Lives, which I usually see as my second best story. It's surpassed that! 46 000hits, 12 C2s, almost 60 favourites, and 100 alerts!!!

PPs: I think I made a mistake in earlier chapters by saying Kirikage, it's Mizukage... hehe... sorry

PPPs: Hurray for Kishimoto and his awesome manga!!! Though, actually, if it goes as it goes, I will feel sorry for him, chapter 344... Unusually for me, really.

Chapter 36

The Monsters of Akatsuki,

The Second Last Key Stolen.

It seemed as if time stopped for a short moment as the shinobi looked at each other, with eyes reflected by fire. It was easy to think they were born of the Will of Fire, they were burning leaves that stood in their full bloom. Two ANBU members, masked with a Bug and Bat looking masks, one Chuunin, who was on Jounin level in many skills and had a mind that surpassed many of his comrades. One Jounin, who thankfully had decided not to take any more travels to other's minds for the rest of the evening and a complete stranger to everything they had learnt, who was deceived, grown to become a warrior without emotions, but within his training he had encountered and fallen close to his heart. Opposite them were members of an organisation born to protect the village, but madness and other intentions had caused this to be one of Konoha's many misunderstandings.

"Koumori-san." Shikamaru said, not to reveal the identity of his friends. "Keep a close eye on them, I don't want anything more unseen happen." he instructed.

The Bat masked man made a few seals, behind the mask the Byakugan awoke, making sure to see what normal eyes didn't see.

His comrade, Kikai, drew a short katana from his back. It was short, but it was designed for people with a lot of physical strength, and though Shino didn't look like it, he was one of the stronger people in close combat, if he needed to. The person that outranked him in strength were Sakura, Chouji and before he was injured from his shinobi life, Lee. Sakura though wasn't a natural in hard trained, since she blended her chakra into her punches, but everyone knew it was not a good thing these days to anger her. Her temperament was as bad as the Hokage herself, in other words short.

The members of Ne, seven still standing, armed themselves with Ninja Shoge, which were special ninja tools used for middle range fighting. The Shoga was literally a chain, which in one hand had a knife and hook, the other a metal ring. It was a tool mainly used for pursuing and assassination, with a lot of uses, many not that friendly.

Shikamaru smirked. Some people truly knew how to be troublesome.

Ne attacked first, their mission was clear. To kill the traitor and vanquish all the evidence. The problems were that the longer they waited the harder the mission seemed. Sai seemed to have friends he didn't know he had.

Sai was shocked as well. He looked particularly at Shikamaru, whom he recognised as the person he once had been told to remove-from-the-way. Now, much later, he almost felt ashamed of himself, knowing what he had been close upon doing. It didn't help either, that Shikamaru was Ino's old teammate, though she had her own team to worry about, it still nagged him.

"Attack!" one of the Ne members yelled. The seven attackers tossed their knifed ends towards their mission, though they had no idea of the defenders whom they were. Their attacks were blocked by kunai, and in Neji and Shino's case, katana. The two ANBU hurried to pursue the attackers, and they soon found out why these young men had become ANBU in their first tryouts. Three of the members of Ne moved to attack, to be thrown back by a spinning wall, the Kaiten. It was a signature move perhaps, but many Hyuuga had joined with ANBU before, so it wasn't as if Neji would betray himself. Shino held another back, keeping his Katana by his opponent's neck.

'They're incredible' Ino thought as Neji blocked another opponent, leaving one left. By now, the three who had been tossed back had wobbingly been getting up, taking after Shino, who kept his opponents at distance as well.

Sai had gone to face against one of the women he knew had a great influence over Danzou, seeing they thought the same sick things. The woman, who was one of the higher officers, defended his attack with the same amount of strength making them equal in experience. Sai perhaps was one of Danzou's strongest, but officers weren't officers for a reason. Though they equalled in experience their styles were complete different and the next attack was trickier. The woman defended the blow as well, but twisted her body to land a punch, which he managed to block with his other hand. Sai smirked, dropping his body to the ground to kick her of balance. He switched their position in the fall to hit the kunai into her shoulder. However, she was as cheaty as well flinging a shuriken into his leg.

They both made a distance to the other. Sai growled, putting himself between Ino and the woman. The Ne-woman surely didn't look pleased with this.

"What's wrong with you?!" the woman shrieked, clutching her bleeding right shoulder with her left hand. Her fingers were buried into her skin, probably making things worse, but she was shaking from anger.

"With me?" Sai asked back, hate glaring in his eyes now that he could fight back again, having received help from the village.

"With you!" the woman continued. "Have you completely forgotten everything? Don't you remember a thing, of all the glory we all can get. Once Danzou has driven his purpose through the Council all the members will be taken to power... don't you want that as well?"

Sai stared at her, looked down and shook his head. "And here I believed members of Root were supposed to feel nothing, have no feelings but all I see in you is greed."

"Like you are the one to talk, with all that emotions you have displayed during your life. Oh Hino, Oh Hino, I am so sorry!!! Who's Hino, your boyfriend?"

Sai felt the pit of anger boil within him. "Hino was my friend, my best friend, don't you dare say anything like that. What do you know about friendship, Danzou surely doesn't tell you anything about it, I would be surprised if he ever heard of the word. I know him, like he betrayed Hino, he will betray you."

The fighting had stopped, everyone was watching the conversation taking place.

"LIAR!" the woman shrieked. "You damn fucking liar, Danzou will never betray me! He will make me one of his right hand, he will raise this village back to glory and derive all the other countries from their strength. Don't you dare talk as if you know him."

"I know him, all right." Sai said in a lowered voice.

"He's no better than Akatsuki. Except he doesn't work in the same scale. Why does all evil guys seem to want to take over the world?" Shino said. Before they had appeared, Tsunade had given them the information about this.

"Besides, your master was turned down by the Council, the Clans and the Hokage. So no matter, you will never receive law-bidding power over this village, unless you really tend to kill everyone within." Neji said.

"And with no people, technically any village would be able to stomp you. You've been living inside a fake dream." Shikamaru added, sounding bored.

"LIAR!" the woman shrieked firing her weapon at them. But it never hit its target. The woman's tool fell useless to the ground, she was not moving. She had stopped her own attack.

Sai looked behind him to see Ino standing again, holding her fingers together in position of her jutsu.

"Nice, Ino." Shikamaru commented to the Special Jounin. Ino smiled, holding her fingers together to not loose the effect of the Jutsu.

"Guess we have no choice then. We have what we needed to know, these know practically nothing about Ne that we already don't know of." Neji said.

Shikamaru nodded, as the two members of the ANBU moved forward. A sickening amount of slashes could be heard as the two teens combined their abilities to kill each one of the Root. Sai had hurried over to Ino, holding her close. The young man couldn't help but to feel tears trickling down his cheeks. Ino smiled, hugging him back. There was something warm around the hug they shared.

"Thank you." Sai whispered to her, but whether this was for helping out or for the hug she couldn't say.

From the bushes, two small heads suddenly appeared, and ran over to hug their saviours. Both received a light scowl for not staying where it was safe (with Tsunade) but then again... from which Clan were they? Yes, Uchiha and you could rarely tell an Uchiha what to do.

It was time to act...

The Hidden Mist had summoned some of their best water-users to raise a crystallised shield around the ruined village, a shield that would secure the rest of the village and their shinobi from the foreseen attempts. The people was safe, but many had been injured and would not be moveable for hours. Words came that the twin swordsmen had been seriously wounded from fighting and minutes later killed. The Hidden Mist was in an uproar as nothing seemed to be able to stop Kakuzu's progress.

But as the two Mist Shinobi had taken care of fighting for them, Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto had planned their next steps. The three friends were standing outside the hospital, feeling refreshed, like after a shower, and energetic, so much like the power of youth as Gai would have said. However, if it was youth or just the spirit around them, who knew as they made their way back to the battle.

The split about three hundred metres away from the battle, where Kakuzu and Hidan were waiting. As they sneaked ahead, Sakura prepared a few kunai with exploding tags she attached to them. In range she threw them one after one, aiming at... Hidan.

The gray haired Akatsuki dodged all attacks. Sakura was standing looking angry in front of him. Hidan smirked before heading back towards the islands, leaving Kiri behind. Sakura looked shocked at first, it was clear where he showed his interests. Not in her, he was going to collect the Shell... damn it!

It became a cat and rat chase. Hidan reached the water in an impressive speed, and was skating across the surface as if it was ice. Sakura was not born in water, but she had the best Chakra Control, probably in the whole village by now, and was close by his heels. Hidan saw this, growled and made a few seals to create a wall of water between. Sakura didn't have tim to dodge the impact, and soon found herself trapped in it.

'Damn!' she thought before taking out an exploding tag. Concentrating her chakra into it it exploded, sending her back as well. But this was better than being drowned, however Hidan had gained a lot of distance between them. The pink haired Jounin could feel the anger boil in her, as she set after him. Water gushed from their steps, in something probably few shinobi ever had done by battling on top of water in such level. Sakura's determination simply refused to let her give up the chase, thus Hidan was left with two choices. To fight or to somehow distract her even more. The gray haired man decided on the latter, since he was almost out of time. He had gotten some answers over the last two days, and they would now get their hands on what they came here for. The tip of his three bladed scythe started to glow. Sakura noticed barely in time as the sky darkened. By the nearest island you could see the small pebbles shaking as lightning split the water, crashing down. The pink haired medic screamed in agony as the lightning ripped through her body. Water cascaded around her as Hidan smirked, having disposed of another pest, another sacrifice for his God. He watched as the exhausted shinobi slowly started to sink to the bottom of the Ocean, such a fitting end for a frilly girl.

Sasuke resurfaced crawling up on land. She had completely underestimated him from the start, not thinking about that he had the upperhand in the water. He was lightning and water based, a scary combination when you thought that water could carry lightning through it.

Hidan smirked throwing his scythe at her. Sakura dodged it, feeling strands of her hair being cut of in the process. The scythe instead hit a rock which was behind her. It cracked open to her surprise and Hidan's happiness, contained the Shell.

Sakura made a move to snatch it before him, but his creepy pale hand caught it before her, smacking her hand away. Literally it smacked her away as well. Sakura opened her eyes to see two tails sticking from his back. Sakura lowered her head, not wanting to see the satisfaction in his eyes when he killed her. But...

Above they could hear the sounds of wings flapping and they looked up to see the blond Deidara sitting on top of one of his creations, the bird made of his clay that could carry more than one to a location. Hidan looked up with a disgusted face as the blond Akatsuki member descended and dropped one of his creations at Sakura's feet. The pink haired kunoichi shrieked as she was tossed back to lose consciousness hitting her head one a rock.

"What did you do that for?" Hidan asked his comrade as Deidara flew down to pick him up.

"New orders." Deidara said. The gray haired Jashin freak looked at his comrade menacingly before obeying the commands.

Unaware that the second last key had been stolen, Sasuke and Naruto were making progress in their battle. Kakuzu was one of the top fighters, but neither he could best the combined forces of two Jounin connected by bonds he could not understand. Neither could he understand how they could communicate between each other, which they did. One gaze from Naruto told Sasuke where he should move, over the times since they had become a couple, and earlier than that, they had since long been good at reading each other. This travelled as far as back when they fought Zabusa, when Naruto and Sasuke managed to free Kakashi from Zabusa's water prison technique.

Kakuzu's Akatsuki cloak lay discarded on the ground, and surely enough his features were unreal. The man looked as if he had been patched up by different pieces of skin, sewn together with some strange black thread. From his mouth strands of this strange thread slashed in the air, so it was obvious he had done this to himself.

Sasuke formed seals with his hand, creating a mass of fireballs he shot at him. Kakuzu ducked them all, as well as ducked Naruto who had summoned a large shuriken he had intended to hit him with. The shuriken was instead broken into pieces by s single blow from one of the threads from the mouth.

"Not good enough!" Kakuzu said evilly, throwing pieces of the shuriken away. However, as his attention focused for a second on Naruto, Sasuke crept up with Chidori flashing in his hand. It became the distinct sound that warned the Akatsuki to move away as Sasuke rampaged.

Meanwhile, Naruto backed two steps, forming the seal for Kage Bunshin. Four clones appeared beside him, all smirking. Kakuzu saw this, feeling unusually uncovered for being him. And he felt worse seeing what the blond was planning.

"What in the world is that?" Sasuke whispered in awe as Naruto was forming the wind in his hand, to resemble a one and a half metre long shuriken, completely made of wind chakra.

The dark haired teen looked into Naruto's eyes. For a short moment the blond looked back, with some sort of mischievous gleam in his eyes. Sasuke stared at him, as he had a feeling he knew what Naruto meant, then glared because he did not like it.

'No way, there's got to be another way' the Uchiha thought as Naruto charged, with the help of his clones to whom were made a distraction, on Kakuzu, who barely dodged all attacks. Sasuke watched the fight, seeing how little choice he had. It was their best way to defeat that thing, unless they wanted to die.

"Like always, you get to say the last." Sasuke murmured as he moved into action. Though this method wasn't always easy to control, it was probably their ace in battle. Kakuzu surely looked surprised, as he had not predicted a bloodline attack, in this way. Though he knew never to stare an Uchiha in the eye, he didn't have time to close them before he found himself trapped in an unreal world, filled with misty images.

Naruto smirked, seeing his methods had worked. Smiling he made a few seals, before carefully aiming his coming attack, as his love stood a little too close to the enemy. "Uzumaki no Kamae: Kazeya!" he shouted. (Spiral Style: Windarrow)

Kakuzu didn't notice it, because he could not notice it coming as his mind was trapped elsewhere. The arrow of wind hit the Akatsuki in the middle, splinching him in two. The body was cut in half, revealing lots more black threads and something that looked as if it was pounding weakly, but it was probably nerves still reacting.

Sasuke sat down, dropping his Sharingan completely as he saw the mess before him. The Uchiha smirked as Naruto sat down beside him, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Let's go back!" the blond teen said softy, feeling the exhaustion drain him. His arms were burnt thanks to the previous wind shuriken jutsu he used, which also was an incomplete technique he struggled with.

"Yeah." Sasuke said, kissing back, however before either had the chance to move away, to their horror and utmost astonishment, the pieces of the Akatsuki seemed to mend back. The lifeless form stood once more, holding something that looked like a squashed red rotten fruit, until they understood what it was. It was his heart, but how was Kakuzu still standing without his heart?

"You killed one of my hearts, but I still have three more. But, what I lost I will regain, by taking your young ones."

TBC

I know, I know, I know, it was too short once more!!! And another cliffhanger... well, while I reply on the (lost count on how many) reviews and create the structure for the last few chapters, I hope you liked this chapter and hope not everyone gave up on me!!! As the Season Fall is back on updating so celebrate, I know I am... uhm, later today... when my room is tidier!

Best Wishes!

Shitza

Ps: For my two anonymous reviewers: I am glad you think I managed on the roles of the characters, though I have to say I am more then flattered someone was reading this for 12h straight, sounds like you wasted no breaks. I hope you did, you must have starved sitting there reading.