Ch. 19: Evil Plans

"Yes, Hokage-sama," we chorused, leaping into the trees after the enemy nin. The aerodynamically questionable clay bird remained close to the canopy, eventually landing on a great oak bordering a meadow.

They were waiting for us, clearly setting up a trap. Naruto raced straight into the trap and yelled, "Who are you guys?"

The masked ninja giggled and spoke in an obviously fake little boy's voice. "That's Sasori, he's the scary one. And that's Deidara, he's Sasori's junior partner—"

"That's only because we haven't paired up any of the new kids," the blond grumbled.

"—And Tobi is Tobi."

Sakura's split personality, who was also an expendable Naruto clone, leapt into the meadow with a roll of her eyes. "So nice to meet you. But what Naruto means is WHAT IS WITH YOU GUYS STEALING ALL THE JINCHURIKI?!"

"Our name is Akatsuki," Sasori said, "and we are—"

Kakashi emerged from a tree next to the three ninja, sending Tobi stumbling off the branch, arms cartwheeling. The lumpy pot sailed in the air, and Deidara caught it. "Careful, yeah."

Kakashi ignored the objective of our mission to say, "I'm pretty sure I know this one. Their organization seeks to hypnotize the world using the moon as a mirror."

Tobi, who had been lying on his back on the grass, vaulted up. "Ooh, has Kakashi-chan met Itachi-sempai? He tells the best stories."

"He'll believe anything you tell him," Deidara said, the pot bobbing as he shrugged. "Unless it's true. Then he freaks out."

"Itachi is not well," Sasori agreed with a frown. "Of course, that is not unexpected, since Akatsuki began as a support group."

That made absolutely no sense. I challenged his blatant lies with a "Hn?"

"But we're more like political dissidents now, yeah," Deidara added.

"The bingo book says that we're terrorists, and Tobi doesn't think books are allowed to lie," Tobi chirped up at the tree.

Sasori said, "We are comprised of missing nin from all of the ninja villages. We understand the flaws of the ninja system, and we seek change."

"Why do you need jinchuriki for that, though?" Sakura asked.

The hunchbacked Akatsuki laid a hand against the tree, tapping his fingers thoughtfully. "To create a jinchuriki, a violent demon must be shoved into a child who is too young to consent."

"That sort of thing could affect the kid for their whole life, yeah."

Sasori's face seemed emotionless, but his fingers splintered the bark beneath them. What a waste of chakra. "I've replaced all the parts, so I'm clean now."

The clay bird shifted uneasily under Deidara. "Yeah, you're fine…Plus, the villages abuse their jinchuriki a lot."

I had a really hard time picturing Konoha doing that. We had all sorts of weird bloodline clans who lived in harmony. The only person who I'd even seen get kicked out of a store was Naruto, and that's because he constantly destroys people's property with his stupid pranks.

"Also, we wish to amass their power," Sasori said.

"So you can take over the world!" Naruto exclaimed.

Sasori cocked his head ninety degrees, which was very unsettling. "No. That seems like far too much responsibility."

"So you can…destroy the world?" Hinata guessed.

Tobi tore at his hair, spinning around. "The world is Tobi's home. Where will he live if it gets destroyed?"

"I-I'm sorry," she said. "It was a stupid idea. I didn't mean to upset you."

"If all goes well, we will not unleash the jinchurikis' full power." Sasori explained. "We will simply use the threat of them to control the villages. We do not wish to abolish the entire system—"

"I do," Deidara said.

"—Most of us do not wish to abolish the entire system, just to enforce a few rules of war. For example, there will be no more child soldiers. To fight, you need to be a responsible adult."

Deidara added, "We're thinking twelve."

"You monster," Kakashi spat.

Deidara cried, "Which part of that offended you?"

Kakashi's fists trembled, his right hand sparking with electricity. "I was a child soldier."

"Y'know, that doesn't actually answer the—"

To avoid Kakashi's attack, Deidara sharply steered into the sky, still clutching the pot. Kakashi raced after him, growling.

Kakashi acted on his emotions far too often, which was one of many reasons that he had never been a good ninja. Still, I could understand his fury. These Akatsuki were madmen. They had to be stopped.

Sasori jumped into the meadow, a monstrous wooden tail emerging from beneath his cloak. He withdrew a scroll from his hump. Sakura and her split personality tried to race past him, one on each side. Sasori's tail jabbed into the earth in front of the black-and-white Sakura while a poof of white smoke sent the real one skidding to a halt.

A cloaked puppet with yellow eyes loomed over her. His wooden mouth fell open into a moderately cheerful expression. Then, a dark cloud drifted out.

"That's some really stinky breath," Naruto said.

"Idiot," I said. "It's some sort of metal sand."

This was usually the part where an enemy ninja would helpfully explain their technique. Sasori simply pulled out another scroll, unleashing two more puppets. The "female" puppet pressed her carved lips to the "male" puppet's wooden cheek, then turned towards our group.

As Naruto summoned a few clones to fight them and the Sakuras dodged the raining spikes forming out of their opponent's metallic sand, Hinata and I raced towards Sasori and Tobi.

Sasori spit needles at us as he pulled out one last scroll.

As Hinata frantically flung her creepy little puppet at Sasori's slightly less creepy puppet, which resembled a wide-eyed Sand genin, Inner Sakura said, "Oh, come on. How many puppets could you possibly have?"

Sasori released a torrent of needles through his left hand, and I avoided them with a backflip. He said, "Two hundred and ninety-eight."

That struck me as excessive and wasteful.

"They say"—Naruto dodged a spiked whip—"that if you make one thousand puppets…"

He then failed to dodge the spike whip.

A second clone continued, "…you get a wish."

"Naruto," Sakura growled. "That's origami cranes."

"Oh," Naruto said. "Well that must be kind of embarrassing to find out after making like three hundred puppets. The crane thing sounds a lot easier."

Sasori said, "It is the finest form of art, art that lasts forever."

Explosions rocked the forest a mile ahead of us, where Kakashi and Deidara must have been fighting. Tobi had disappeared. Either he was slinking through the shadows surrounding our battle, preparing to strike, or he had gone to help protect the pot. To complete the mission, Kakashi would need our backup.

"You're better than I thought," I said. "I guess I need to unleash my Sharingan."

Sasori gazed into my eyes with mild interest, but I couldn't see the battle from his point of view. I imagined myself racing forwards and jumping onto his back with a raised kunai. Still, he watched my actual self. Why wasn't it working?

I ran at him, throwing kunai at Sasori's half-covered face. He hunched forward like a turtle. His tail batted me into the ground. Tall grass and white flowers were torn from the ground as I skidded toward the trees.

The hulking Akatsuki advanced, his tail rearing up to hit me.

"Um, excuse me?" Hinata said. "I don't mean to interrupt, but I was wondering…"

Hinata didn't successfully interrupt anything. Sasori's tail stabbed at me as he politely responded, "Yes?"

She briefly glanced at the missing nin as her tiny puppet clashed kunai with Sasori's puppet. "I've never actually met another puppet master before."

I rolled away from the tail's strike. It reared again as Sasori turned to Hinata. "That would explain several oddities about your fighting style."

"Um, maybe this might be inappropriate, since we're fighting"—Hinata bit her lip, smiling timidly—"but I don't suppose you could give me some advice?"

Sasori, despite directing five attacking puppets, kept his eyes on Hinata. "For example?"

Sakura charged the tallest puppet with her sword drawn. The metallic sand began to vibrate, pulling the sword upwards and yanking her with it. She landed hard on the ground. "Thanks a lot for catching me, Inner."

The black-and-white kunoichi rolled her eyes, leaking killer intent. "What, and pop myself? You need me."

Hinata somersaulted backwards to avoid an attack by Sasori's boyish puppet. She said, "Well, it doesn't really seem like you're wiggling your fingers much. Or moving your hands. And I'm not even sure how you're controlling puppets who are so heavy with only one chakra string each."

Hinata used both hands to direct the arms, legs, and occasionally mouth of her puppet.

"Yeah, that sure is cool," she squeaked as she flapped its jaw.

Sasori's laughter rumbled out of his mouth, although his body appeared perfectly still under his cloak. "A ninja puppeteer is nothing like a civilian entertainer. By extending my chakra into the puppet, the puppet becomes a part of my body. Wiggling your fingers every time you want it to move is like nodding your head every time you blink. Unnecessary."

"That makes so much more sense!" she cried, then turned bright red when she noticed everyone's eyes on her. To be fair, I would be uncomfortable if that many puppets were watching me, too.

I began forming hand seals, eyes still locked on Sasori, when he fired a rocket at me from his left arm. At the same moment, a blade emerged from the boy puppet, stabbing a hole through the beady eye of Hinata's own puppet. The creepy doll retaliated by chomping down on its opponent's arm.

"Puppeteering is also much easier if the raw materials that created your puppet already have a chakra network," Sasori said.

"So…I guess, that's why chakra puppets are made of living things like wood and not rocks or something like that?" Hinata asked as a thousand hands emerged from the arm of one of Sasori's puppets, imprisoning Sakura.

"Yes," Sasori said. "Although I prefer corpses."

"Corpses?" Naruto yelped, attempting to block a sword with his bare hands. The clone exploded into smoke. A new clone avenged him by chucking an explosive tag at the female puppet.

Sakura gasped. "So that means…"

Sasori said, "You are currently fighting the third Kazekage, my childhood best friend, and my parents."

While I had once been a lonely orphan boy, desperate to bring my parents back in any way possible, I couldn't sympathize with Sasori at all. This was just disturbing.

Hinata said, "Oh! Th-that's sort of sweet. It's like they're watching over you."

"Do the corpses have to be fresh?" she asked through her puppet.

Sasori tilted his head thoughtfully. "Ideally, they don't begin as corpses. The creation process naturally results in death, however."

From the way Hinata's smile dimmed, I'm going to assume she found that less heartwarming.

It was about then that I set Sasori on fire. He crumpled, which was just embarrassing. It's not like a little fireball to the face is instantly fatal, and being on fire had never stopped me from winning anything.

With a gusty sigh, a pale man with light red hair emerged from the puppet's hunchback. His joints were hinged. He smirked. "It's been a while since I've had to use this form."

Several large knives sprouted from his back, which struck me as incredibly unfair.

He then spat fire at me, which—under the circumstances—seemed perfectly fair. I leapt away.

The Narutos had destroyed the whip-wielding puppet and were successfully ganging up on the swordswoman. Hinata had used her clan techniques to disable one of her enemy's arms. Sakura's split personality snarled and charged towards her huge opponent. It's a pity that puppets can't feel killer intent because wow.

"I don't need Zabuza's sword. I'll just smash your face in!"

"Inner, wait!" Sakura said grabbing the…arms…of her prison. "You're going to—"

Inner Sakura slammed her fist into the puppet's chest, both caving it in and dispelling herself.

"—do that. Moron."

The puppet's mouth hung open and a voice drifted from it. "I'm not a moron, Outer. I'm just trading up. This body seems a lot sturdier."

"There is one very important skill that every puppet master must learn," Sasori said as the metal sand solidified into spikes pointed in his direction. "Exorcisms."

He sprinted towards the possessed puppet, rapidly cycling through hand seals and slamming his palms against its back. It crumpled to the ground. The metal spikes also plummeted. One slammed into and through my arm, which never would have happened if my dojutsu actually helped with seeing.

Sakura collapsed. She left handprint's on her prison's arms, revealing the fine powder coating them.

Sasori continued his lecture. "Puppets are prone to hauntings."

"That seems overly superstitious," I said, craning my neck to watch at him as I tried to unwedge the spike from my bone. I was beginning to feel unusually light-headed considering how little blood I'd lost.

"I am an example," Sasori replied. "Most puppet masters perform annual cleansings, as a precautionary measure. Of course, a particularly well-rooted possession requires—"

The clay bird swooped overhead.

"Yo, Sasori, time to go," Deidara said, still holding the pot.

Sasori glanced up at him. "I see you've lost Tobi."

Deidara said, "Eh, Tobi lost himself. Not my buddy, not my problem."

Sasori withdrew his puppets and jumped from the oak tree to the bird. When the Narutos and Hinata advanced, he said, "You may want to attend to your poisoned teammates."

"And the unconscious one I left behind, yeah," Deidara said. "Head injuries can really mess a person up."

Based on his erratic behavior, I suspected that it was far too late to save Kakashi from concussion-induced brain damage. But joking about that would be in poor taste.

As Sasori tucked scrolls into the scorched puppet he'd been wearing earlier, he called to Hinata. "You are a very badly trained puppeteer."

She opened her mouth to apologize, but he continued. "It is important, however, to follow your heart."

As the clay bird ascended, Sasori threw a scroll at Hinata. "Perhaps this will help."

When the Akatsuki flew away, ending Hinata's treasonous actions, she sent a team of Narutos to get medical assistance and rifled through her own pack for anything that might help. She pulled out a syringe, handing it to Naruto. He watched it with a puzzled expression, "Why don't we just cut out all the poisoned blood?"

Hinata gasped. "B-because that might kill them!"

"I was fi…"—Naruto's eyes dilated—"Woah, that clone's been busy."