a/n: hey, I'm back. It took me awhile to be able to write this down because I didn't have a lot of idea. I spent my time researching the Akatsuki and I used wikipedia as my main source. The next chapter will be uploaded around early next week and hopefully finish this fanfiction before June comes. I'm sorry for a not very immediate update. I hope you guys will still enjoy this. P.S. regular disclaimer applies.

Alone for a while I've been searching through the dark
For traces of the love you left inside my lonely heart
To weave by picking up the pieces that remain
Our paths they did cross, though I cannot say just why
We met, we laughed, we held on fast, and then we said goodbye
And who'll hear the echoes of stories never told?
Let them ring out loud till they unfold
In my dearest memories, I see you reaching out to me
Though you're gone, I still believe that you can call out my name
And so it goes, on and on
Melodies of life--love's lost refrain

Chapter Six: Akatsuki; Daybreak

A ninja is said to kill anyone that prevents him from accomplishing his mission. Even if that mission can destroy a race, a shinobi has to finish the mission. Even if it means to destroy lives, a ninja has to, at all costs, carry out the mission. But, for what purpose? A village earns money from successful missions. So, killing is merely for personal gain? Then, why is a ninja honored that much for being selfish? Every single ninja is a ninja in because they have something to gain. None of them is righteous.

There is no one righteous; not even one. There is no one who understands nor recognizes that Somebody might be watching them. All have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does goodness, none. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their limbs are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. They fear none before their eyes.

I am a ninja therefore I am not righteous. The wars are of no good. They only bring two things, bloodshed and sadness. Then, how come, many country wage wars against each other if each know that it brings no good. What is the reason? Is it the same reason for not sparing the one I cherished most? And how come, they may kill, but I may not? Doesn't the same principle apply?

And I was to be punished for slaughtering. But, no…I am a genius that comes once in a decade. I cannot be captured. And I have no intention, either. I still had a lot of things to do in life. I had to finish my technique. It was one day, a few months after Hakucho's death. They came banging at my door. So, they did not knock. They forced their way in. I was dissecting a dead ninja that time. Hokage-sensei was the one to apprehend me. And that worked to my advantage.

"I have finally been discovered." I said the moment they entered and had enough time to look around my lab. "How disappointing."

"Orochimaru, what is the meaning of this?" Sensei asked in shock.

I gave a half-smile. "I set up a lot of booby traps. It seems they were useless. I was surprised but I see why. You are the hokage, after all.

An Anbu then butted in. "People have been missing lately in the village; genins, chounin, and even Anbu members. Also, we have received information that you were acting weird recently."

Another Anbu shocked with what he has seen asked, "Orochimaru-sama, why are you doing this?"

I replied, "I guess lying won't help. I have already been caught red-handed. I am developing a technique…"

"Is that why you killed your fellow ninja?" the Anbu member asked.

Sarutobi-sensei talked. I guess trying to avoid my answering that question. "A forbidden technique, ne? What are you trying to gain?"

"Everything." I replied. "I want to master all techniques and understand the truth of this world."

I paused and smirked. I never really told my real intention. Because if I did tell them the truth, they would not understand why I am did that. I just told them for personal gain. After all, ninjas are self-seeking. "The one who mixed blue and yellow for the first time called the new color green. I want to do something similar to that. If blue represents charka and yellow represents seals, then green represents technique. There are tens of thousands of techniques in this world as there are many different colors. But to master all existing techniques and understand the truth, that requires a lot of time. The person who spends that amount of time and understands everything is worthy of being called the ultimate being. For me, the body's life span is too short. It is too transient. Even if I were hokage, everything would end after I die."

"Orochimaru, is the technique that you are researching here-"

"Yes, you probably have the right idea; the technique dealing with eternal youth and immortality."

I smiled and kill the two Anbus but I spared my teacher.

"Are you going to kill me?" I asked him knowing that he could not do it. He summoned his creature. He was prepared to attack.

I walked out the door whispering to him, "But you can't do that, Sarutobi-sensei…Ja-na"

As I ran away from him, I heard his monkey saying, "Killing him Sarutobi. Now is your only chance."

Yes, the monkey was right. If sensei could not kill me then, he couldn't kill me at all.

I ran through the streets of Konoha with a lot of shinobis after me. I was already a criminal. I had to run away. I had to leave the village. The only things that I had brought with me were a few kunais, shurikens, scrolls, and the pair of earrings. These blue earrings were the same ones I bought for Hakucho a few years back. It was one of my three mementos of her. These I still wear; I always do.

I ran in the forest outskirts of Konoha. I hopped from tree to tree, eventually losing the ninjas except one. A man of white hair stood in the middle of a clearing. There was a blood like trail on his eyes. He was the man I called my best friend. Yet, there he was, my enemy; Jiraiya.

"Don't go, Orochimaru." He said.

"You can't stop me. I already made up my mind."

He took out a kunai. "If I can't talk you into staying, I guess I have to force you."

He charged. I evaded. We fought. Surprisingly, we did not fight because he was my enemy and I was his enemy, but we fought because of the same reason we had been fighting ever since we met and I salute to him for that. I lost to him. But he lost me. I disappeared from Konoha and hid in the forests. I traveled from village to village while improving my technique.

It was a chilly autumn night. I remember it clearly. The stars glowed dimly while my fire blazed faintly. I looked up the night sky thinking of Hakucho again. I played in my memory my moments with her. Then, I heard footsteps approaching me. I stood up ready for an attack. I grabbed a kunai. A dim silhouette glided towards me. My eyes could not identify it at first and pretty soon the silhouette became a man.

He was a tall man with eyes purple as amethyst. He wore a straw hat that makes his facial features hard to see; only revealing his extraordinary eyes. His entire figure was envelope by a black coat with red cloud-like figures. Who was this man? I asked myself. Is he going to kill me? I stood in front of him, not letting my guard down. He sat opposite me, across the fire. Though I did not see it, I think he smiled. He signaled me to sit down.

"Nothing's perfect. The world isn't perfect, but it's there for us just trying the best it can. And that's what makes it so damned beautiful." He said and diverted his attention to the stars.

"Who are you?" my voice trembled.

"I am just like you, Orochimaru." He replied. "They took away what we value most."

I asked again, this time in a calmer voice. "Who are you?"

He smiled again. "Have you ever heard of Akatsuki?"

I nodded and smirked. "A couple of class S criminals, right?"

"That is what they want the world to see." He took of the hat he was wearing and revealed dark amber neck length hair. "They are just patching up the holes from which their stench comes from. Believe me, all villages are like this."

"What are you getting at?"

"Orochimaru," he stood up and put back his straw hat on. "You are a wise man with a miserable fate. I can help you. Follow me if you are interested."

I poured water on the bonfire and I immediately followed the stranger.

"When we create water, earth, air, and the like from jutsus we use, we do not actually create. We transform them with our charka. And we control using charka. Wind techniques come from air around us; water from water vapor, and the like. Matter cannot be created nor destroyed. I guess your sensei forgot to tell you that."

I recall my early days in the academy about chemical reaction. I recall that every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I remember that in order to make a technique you had to use two things; energy (charka) that is activated using seals and the physical objects. Water is needed to perform water jutsus and the like. As for fire, there are three things needed to create fire, heat, fuel and oxygen. Fuel and oxygen can easily be obtained from the surroundings. Heat is energy. And like matter energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only be transformed. And charka provides that needed energy. You lose energy and lose matter.

"In order to gain something," he continued explaining, "You must lose something. That is the rule of the world."

"If so," I questioned him. "What did I gain when I lost the one I loved?"

"Did you not gain the secret to eternal life?" He answered. "I gain power when I lost all I hoped and cherished for. Same goes for the other members."

Yes, Itachi, Diedara, Sasori, Kisame, Zetsu, Gilgamesh, Camula, and Yura. They lost all they had believed in, all they had hoped for but they got something in return. It is the world's law of equivalent exchange. To be able to gain something, one must compensate something for it.

"What is your goal?" I asked.

"To regain everything that what we have lost." He replied. "To lose everything we have gained in order to gain everything we have lost, that is my goal. And we want your help."

"What will I gain? After all, 'equivalent exchange'." I spoke with his language.

"Everything."

I smiled. I liked his idea. He reached into his coat.

"I will give you something, to show that you are one of us."

I opened my palm. He handed me a ring. And carved on that ring was the kanji, sora, kū, sky, void. He told me to wear it on my left little finger because the other members also wore a different ring on a different finger. He showed me his. It was placed on his right thumb. The word zero was carved on it.

"Only when you remove that ring from your finger will you be not considered one of us."

I became part of Akatsuki that moment on. Akatsuki was silent when I came because they were planning for something in the future. I was assigned a partner but he never became a friend, not even close. But we shared our sadness together. He is Sasori of the Red Sand.

He is from the Hidden Village of the Sand. He is an excellent puppeteer with a dry sense of humor. He often hides himself in one of his puppets and spends his time making them. He has over a thousand collections of puppets and a chance to watch him make a few. And he says that his masterpiece is the third Kazekage. He told me that it was mostly the kazekage's fault for being in this predicament. He narrated to me how his parents and loved ones died in front of him. The Kazekage framed him for the massacre.

I remembered that rumor circulating in Konohagakure a few years back. I heard that an excellent puppeteer killed his family and turned them into puppets. Of course, that is what the Hidden Sand Village said. But, according to Sasori, it was a different story. The kazekage, surprisingly was a master puppeteer. And because of his jealousy with Sasori's gift, he was afraid that the boy would out shine him and thought of ruining the boy's name. The kage killed his family. Sasori could not do anything. He lost himself and killed the Sandaime.

"And the only thing I could do, was at least try to revive what he has killed into puppets."

Just then, an idea hit me. What if I create a human? Not a puppet but a real human. I will make a human. Though I have tried bringing Hakucho back to life many times I never thought of making a human body from scratch. I always took corpses and tried bringing them to life. But, I always failed. Whenever I had attached the soul to the corpse, no matter how freshly killed the body is, it would sooner or later disintegrate and the soul would leave the body. But, a fresh corpse, one that is not inhabited by a former soul, it could be the answer.

And I, Orochimaru, have found out the average human composition. Here it is.

Oxygen, 43 kg; Carbon, 16 kg; Hydrogen, 7 kg; Nitrogen, 1.8 kg; calcium1.0 kg; phosphorus, 780 g; potassium, 140 g; sulfur,140 g; sodium,100 g; chlorine,95 g;

magnesium,19 g; iron, 4.2 g; fluorine,2.6 g; zinc,2.3 g; silicon,1.0 g; rubidium,0.68 g; strontium,0.32 g; bromine,0.26 g; lead,0.12 g; copper,72 mg; aluminum,60 mg; cadmium,50 mg; cerium,40mg; barium,22 mg; iodine,20 mg; tin, 20 mg; titanium,20 mg; boron,18 mg; nickel,15 mg; selenium,15 mg; chromium, 14 mg; manganese, 12 mg; arsenic, 7 mg; lithium, 7 mg; cesium, 6 mg; mercury, 6 mg; germanium, 5 mg; molybdenum, 5 mg; cobalt, 3 mg; antimony, 2 mg; silver, 2 mg; niobium, 1.5 mg; zirconium, 1 mg; lanthanium, 0.8 mg; gallium, 0.7 mg; tellurium, 0.7 mg; yttrium, 0.6 mg; bismuth, 0.5 mg; thallium, 0.5 mg; indium, 0.4 mg; gold, 0.2 mg; scandium, 0.2 mg; tantalum, 0.2 mg; vanadium, 0.11 mg; thorium,0.1 mg; uranium,0.1 mg; samarium, 50 µg; beryllium, 36 µg; and tungsten,20 µg.

And finally, after gathering all this, I believe I was about to see her again. The night is dark and cold. And sometimes, the stars don not come out and rain falls. I have been in the darkness too long. Finally soon, I will hear a rooster crow awakening my slumber through that rainy night. Then, the sun will shine. And it will remove all the shadows of darkness and it will cast all my fears away. I can feel it. Day break is coming soon. Akatsuki is near.

a/n: Hey, that was thesixth chapter. I forgot to tell you guys that another reason for not updating is I was so engrossed watching another anime and I spend my time looking into nothingness thinking of that anime. If you watched it, you might be familiar with it. The idea and of this chapter was mostly based on that anime. And I found that useful. Please do review and tell me your comments.