Imposter? Artist, Useless, Bob and...
I wrote that so I could copy-paste it to chapter name. lol.
So, I wrote most of this about half a week or more back and then wrote a 6k chapter for a Naruto and Percy Jackson two-shot before Genshin Impact took away my attention in a not so good way. Man, I hate that game. Not saying it is bad, just that I don't like it.
So, I think the chapter has major holes because I wrote most of it 5 or 6 days ago and continued today and had little clue on how I was supposed to continue. I am posting it regardless by adding a few hundred words even if it has errors. I hate reading it again. I am posting it because I told myself I would post by Friday or Sunday in the worst-case scenario. It is Sunday now in some parts of the world so meh. I have to sleep so I'll have to skip most of the Author Note.
That makes me Sad…
Really wanted a long author note…
(Akatsuki Meeting/Ichibi Sealing)
"I saw Tobi vent." This statement was met with many groans.
"We should vote Tobi out."
"Itachi," groaned the purple with black, concentric circles-eyed man, "we have talked about this before. We only vote to kick someone off at the end of the meeting, alright?"
The man just stayed stubbornly silent, refusing to answer the man that was clearly the other imposter in the organisation.
So, he stayed silent and completely still until the extraction finished.
'He would be amazingly good with toad senjutsu. He has got standing still to an art form. Unless he died and we didn't notice,' thought Black Zetsu.
Maybe he should check his chakra signature just to be su—
"It is nearing the ending of the meeting. We should vote Tobi out, now."
Never mind, then. He was still alive and perfectly healthy—err relatively healthy. Not even Black Zetsu wanted to know what was up with his mind.
Thankfully, though, they had had this happen many times before and, thus, had a way out without… "voting" an Akatsuki member out.
No one wanted to know what Itachi did to those that were "voted" out.
"It is time to vote," stated Pain, suffering clear in his tone at having to do this.
After glaring at every Akatsuki member besides Itachi to remind them of the plan—especially Hidan, and as a reminder to Sasori and Deidara if they didn't do their part of the plan—he began:
"I…"—Itachi clearly leaning forward in anticipation for who he would vote for as Pain slowly raised his hand to point at someone—"I vote for Bob!" He pointed to some person near Sasori that couldn't be seen by most due to them being covered in shadows.
"Sasori!" his voice thundered down on them all like the voice of a god. "Bring them forward. The rest of us without a Rinnegan can't see them from here."
"Alright, Leader." He dragged the body with his puppet. The things he had to do because of Itachi's various mental instabilities.
Didn't Konoha have an entire therapist clan for this or something? You'd think they would have kept him saner…
(Right Outside the Ichibi Extraction Cave)
"Achoo!" sneezed Kakashi.
That was not a good kind of sneeze. He'd lived long enough to categorise them, from sneezes caused by people talking about him to worse things like this one.
Some therapist must have been close by… He'd have to keep his guard up, then.
Technically speaking, they were about to have an altercation with the Akatsuki, he should have already been on guard but that seemed like way too much effort.
(Back Inside the Cave)
Itachi just stared at the bound and gagged civilian on the ground with the name "Bob" written on him in capital letters. There was someone else behind Bob with the name "Vagene" written on her but he ignored her.
Was this supposed to be a joke?
The rest of the Akatsuki watched him with bated breaths.
"Is this supposed to be a joke? Did you really think this would fool me?" He glared at them.
"Meetings can't have more than 10 people, just like there can't be more than 3 imposters."
Nobody noticed Black Zetsu just noting it all down in a book called: The Facts and Rules of the Life of Itachi Uchiha.
'So, a meeting cannot have more than 10 members and there can't be more than 3 imposters. Interesting,' it thought while jotting it all down.
Thankfully, it had given Nagato a copy of the book so he should be able to respond without setting Itachi off.
"Ah… yes, a meeting cannot have more than 10 people in it but this isn't an ordinary meeting."
"It's not?"
"Yesss," Pain slowly said, as if talking to a little kid. "This is a modded meeting."
"Modded meeting?"
"Yes, that's right. You remember modded meetings, right, Itachi?"
Upon seeing the very uncertain look on his shadowed face, he quickly decided to try strategy number two.
It was time to peer pressure the guy.
"You all remember the mods, right?" The Rinnegan-enhanced glare this was given with made sure to let everyone know that it wasn't a question but a statement.
"As clear as the instructions on how to make a crane via origami."
"As clear as I remember Lord Jashin's orders."
"Definitely. Remember it more clearly than I remember how much money I have."
"You kidding me? How could I forget? I think about it more often than I feed Samehada."
"I remember it better than the steps needed to make a puppet from a human."
"I remember how much I bombed that time, un!"
Black Zetsu didn't contribute. Giving Nagato that book was contribution enough in its mind. It also didn't let the White Zetsu counterpart of it speak.
Pain could almost feel a tear come out of his eyes from the sheer dedication he got in those responses. This… this was the teamwork and dedication that he dreamed of for his organisation.
And it seemed to be working as Itachi seemed to slowly lose the suspicious, uncertain look on his face.
And then he started raving at them to not follow Pain's example and to vote for Tobi.
As they all quickly ignored Itachi's 'advice' on who to vote for, they all quickly voted for… "Bob".
While the voting was going on, "Bob" seemingly woke up and was kicking against his restraints and screaming all kinds of muffled things into his gag.
'Yes,' Pain thought, 'this man shall indeed know pain.
Now, why did that thought make him feel pity for the man?
"I will come to retrieve him," said the deathly and angered voice of one Itachi Uchiha before he disappeared—most likely on his way to retrieve this… "Bob".
Oh, so that's why he felt pity for the man.
Itachi was probably angry they didn't vote for the person he wanted them to vote for.
"So," Kisame interrupted the silence, "now that he's gone, I have to ask. Does anyone actually know who this 'Tobi' is?"
(A Few Minutes After Kisame and the Rest Leave)
"Well, I don't know about all that, but now that the slow as hell extraction is over, I am going to find someplace to rest before the Leaf ninja from outside or Itachi get here. My posture while extracting was terrible. Gonna look for something to rest my back on."
Sasori ignored his partner.
"Hmmm. Yes! This feels great for my back! Ahhhh. I can just feel the muscles loosening."
Sasori was rather glad that him becoming a puppet had shed him of most of those human troubles; sadly, it didn't give him an immunity to the annoyance his partner invoked in him. Did he have to describe everything he did, out loud?
Deciding to take a brief look at what his 'partner' had found that was such good back support, he found himself doing a quick glance back when he realized the annoyance was sitting on the corpse of the former Jinchūriki of the Ichibi.
He felt the urge to lecture him on the morality of that before remembering what he did to those he believed worthy enough to be turned into a puppet. This fact along with his remembrance of the fact that they were the ones to kill the Jinchūriki was enough to shut his mouth before he could utter so much as a word.
And that's when the entrance to the cave blew up.
And then his partner betrayed him by going for the Jinchūriki when it was HIS turn to go after one. It was so unfair!
(Naruto vs Deidara)
"Art… is an explosion!"
BOOM!
"Yessss! Witness my art!"
"Pffft." his opponent chuckled.
"You dare laugh at my art!? How dare you make a mockery of it!"
"Bitch, please, I was making bigger explosions when I was a genin!'
It was now the artist's time to offer a rebuttal that was bound to make the other party mad.
"You are still a genin!"
It went silent for a while.
"Ayo, listen, dude, I'll take that back, alright. Please don't go berserk on me.
"tooOOO LAAAATTEEE!"
It was a show of just how much Deidara was used to being blown away intensely—normally by explosions gone wrong too close to him, but a haymaker to the stomach by a Jinchūriki getting into a Tailed Beast Cloak was similar enough—that he seemed fairly calm while being sent flipping every which way while making a pretty good displacement for a dude who hadn't coughed up blood from a punch.
That may have just been his durability speaking there.
What did Deidara have to say, or rather think about this?
'14, 15, 16, 17.' He was counting his flips in a very calm manner.
And then Naruto jumped towards him, anticipating an easy attack on the out of control, flipping dude, in his slowly going-feral mind.
BOOM.
Turned out not to be such a wise choice when it turned out that Deidara was letting out pre-made, proximity bombs every second flip into the air.
The bombs heavily threw Naruto down, just in time for Deidara to also reach the ground, putting them both in an equal setting.
Or not.
Deidara's eyes widened as a red, chakra-shaped arm came out of the ground and took hold of him, the contact with the highly corrosive chakra not doing too well for his skincare routine.
And then it slammed him through a tree but didn't let go. Then it slammed him through another, and another, and another.
'Is he fighting me or does he hate trees and is using me as a weapon to fight them!? Also, what happened to trees weakening them!?'
For Deidara, too, had slacked off in history class in Iwagakure.
Luckily for Deidara, his pre-made clay bombs were still slipping out of his pockets every time he was slammed through a tree. One such bomb managed to make it to the feet of the feral attacker.
"Katsu!"
And Naruto almost reenacted the time he 'reached' space. The bomb blowing him high, very high up, but the chakra cloak protected him from anything beyond the physical force of the blast.
Putting his hands into his clay bags, he quickly set his mouths to start chewing more bombs for him. It wouldn't be long before he ran out of the pre-made ones.
ROAR!
That sounded close. This was weird because, at the speed he had been sent flying, he shouldn't have been able to even stop going up by now, much less having almost reached ground level.
Looking up, Deidara responded with shock. "Holy clay bombs… is he expelling chakra quickly in an upwards direction to propel himself downwards!?"
Morbidly laughing at the fight that was milliseconds away from continuing, he could only wonder how pissed the Tsuchikage would have been if he found out someone—a kid at that!—found a way to replicate flying.
The amount of chakra it wasted, though… Figures a Jinchūriki would be so wasteful.
And then the Toad Summoner landed on him.
"Katsu!"
Correction: he landed on a clay bomb clone of Deidara.
The speed at which Naruto was thrown upwards would have made any bird green with envy as he flew, no, rocketed upwards.
And then, Deidara—from where he was hiding—noticed everything turn red.
No, it wasn't blood.
Arguably, this was worse.
The number of Tailed Beast Version One cloaked Narutos in the sky had multiplied enough to literally block out the sun, hence the red light everywhere being emitted from their cloaks.
How the hell could one hide from this!?
Hands shaking, he didn't know what to do. He could try to go underground but with how the Jinchūriki managed to send his chakra-shaped arm at him through the ground earlier, how would he fair against… hundreds? Thousands? Hundred-thousands? Of such arms?
He couldn't outrun them, either, anywhere he would manage to run to would still be covered by a sky of them descending.
Suddenly, everything went from red to blue. Great, now what?
Looking up, each clone seemed to be making some sort of blue sphere—why it was blue and not red when he was using the Kyūbi's chakra, he had no clue—while stabilising them with their tails and that's why everything was being hit with blue light.
What happened next would be the biggest failure Deidara would see in his life.
The Rasengans started getting bigger to form Odama Rasengans.
There was just one teensy weensy problem with this.
There wasn't enough space in the sky for all the clones when they were all at the same height, what made them think there was space for an equal number of Odama Rasengans?
It only took the first two touching each other to form a chain reaction of explosions.
In the eyes of many, this would seem terrible.
In the eyes of Deidara?
'I have never seen such beautiful art.' Deidara was crying from the beauty of it.
If he were to die right now, he'd die happy from seeing such art.
And then the smoking form of one Naruto Uzumaki—the last one that was left in the sky—absolutely demolished the ground he crash-landed into 2 feet in front of Deidara.
And, thus, the artist was faced with the hardest choice he had ever been given in his life: to take or not to take the life of the greatest artist he had ever known or heard of?
Well, wasn't this absolutely great?
Before, when the Jinchūriki was just a simple Jinchūriki, this wouldn't have been a problem.
This wasn't the life of a Jinchūriki that he would be taking here if he took him for the extraction process, this would be the life of one of the greatest artists that may ever exist. Was he truly ready to be the one to halt art and keep it in the dark ages for what may as well be centuries!?
And it was with a sudden realisation that, no, he couldn't do that.
"Halt! Give back Naruto, Akatsuki Scum! Or the clone, anyways..." That last part was muttered so Deidara didn't hear it.
Well, that was unnecessarily hurtful. He was an artist, a missing-nin, an S-Ranked in, but scum? That sorta hurt his feelings.
More hurtful than when Itachi accused him of having sabotaged lights.
It wasn't him! Why would he mess with lights!? It was clearly Kisame or his sword, those water freaks could mess any electrical thing up.
Well, now that the Konoha ninja was here, he'd have a harder time doing this.
Unless…
Yes, he decided, his idea was foolproof.
"Aha! You have caught me, Konoh—Kakashi of the Sharingan, when I am almost out of chakra, damn you!" he yelled dramatically, originally wanting to call him by his village before remembering his reputation.
Kakashi just blinked in response and covered up his Sharingan. 'So it's going to be one of those days… Man, his acting is terrible.'
"You forced me to do this! I shall tak—"
"Listen, I am actually on Naruto's team and have to go through stuff like this very often, so I don't suppose you could cut with the chit chat so I could go back to my book?"
Giving an annoyed look at being disrupted, he yelled, "Katsu!"
His body blew up—seemingly.
Kakashi just dully stared on, the most he did to protect ANYTHING was to put his book behind him so the explosion would have to go through him first to get to it.
And then it was over. Him and Naruto were both fine.
Looking at the still smoking Naruto, he revised that statement.
Him and Naruto were mostly fine.
What was most important was that his book was fine.
Besides, this Naruto was probably a clone, anyways.
Looking around, he realized that whatever explosion Deidara used, it created an explosion that went outwards from his direction but the explosion only began after a certain radius, so the blast wasn't a blast at first, that was him making a dome of chakra where everything would be fine inside it and everything outside it would blow up.
In short, Deidara faked trying to kill them?
Shrugging, Kakashi decided not to think about it too much, it was always best not to use one's brain when it came to Naruto-related matters.
And then he saw a bloody arm on the ground.
Deidara faked trying to kill them but also died in the process, leaving only his arm?
Now, Kakashi could have figured out almost everything about this situation if he decided to think over it. Unfortunately, this was a Naruto-related incident, and, as such, he had sworn to not use his brain for fear of an aneurysm or a headache.
Looking at the arm, he realized that he would have to take it back to Konoha where they could get some intel from it—maybe even if the man had a bloodline.
That sounded like way too much work. Luckily, he had recently found the best technique for these kinds of things.
"Mangekyō Sharingan!" He really didn't have to say it out loud. It just sounded cool, though.
And now, to erase the arm via Space-Time ninjutsu and act like he needed to use the Mangekyō when the Hokage had to check him later on after his report—which would, of course, be all about a battle of epic proportions where he fought Naruto's cloaked form and the Akatsuki member, of course.
He really needed a pay-raise to get the signed version of every Icha Icha and the rumoured unreleased version that someone claimed to have gotten their hands on.
Now to wait 50 minutes for the eye to finally start using the Space-Time technique. He had performance issues with the eye. He swore it never usually happened, though. If the ladies found out about his performance issues… or worse, the therapist, it would be over for him.
Also, where was Gaara's body? Wasn't Naruto chasing after it?
(Deidara)
"FUUUCCCKKKK! Why did I think blowing my arm off wouldn't hurt!?"
That was right, he had decided that if he ran and left the Jinch—artist behind, he'd be killed by Pain.
Or Itachi.
Pain was the better alternative there, though. He did NOT wanna know what Itachi did to "imposters". Considering he didn't take one of the organisation's objectives when he could, he would most likely actually be classified as one.
If he fought on and actually succeeded in bringing the artist with him, the artist would be killed, which could NOT be allowed to happen.
So, he went for a midpoint. He just faked chakra exhaustion to make the Konoha ninja think he was low on chakra and couldn't fight, and with the help of his excellent acting skills, he pretended like he was going to blow himself up.
Granted, he probably shouldn't have left his arm behind, he should have done that later… He did that so that when he got back, he could claim to have tried to fight and lost after extreme debilitating injuries—losing an arm counted, right?
Unfortunately, thinking wasn't his strong point exactly. He was supposed to do the explosion first and remove the arm later. He'll just have to hope that no one from Akatsuki ever discovers about his arm being retrieved by Kakashi as that would put holes in his story.
He'd have gone for Sasori but now that BOTH his hands were gone, he doubted he'd be able to help him.
Although, a deep part of his mind knew that wasn't the real reason why he wasn't helping Sasori. He was sure that even with no hands, he could easily take care of the granny and the Pink Washboard or whatever her name in the Bingo Book was—that was more Kakuzu's thing than his.
She did have a Bingo Book entry, right? Like, she looked like she'd go down in a second but she was on the team with the greatest artist in the world, for destruction's sake, she had to have had some of his greatness rub on her. The word "useless" came to his mind like it came from some divine intervention.
No, the true reason for why he didn't go there was—
(Akatsuki Previous Meeting Spot)
A body kept twitching on the floor, desperately trying to scream in pain and being unable to do even that.
It was not a good day to be Bob.
Vagene, on the other hand, was not being punished right now in such a brutal manner that she couldn't even scream.
In other words, she did scream into her gag.
It was not a good day to be Bob and Vagene.
One could argue the one that was having the best time in the cave was Sasori.
Sasori's Amaterasu-burned corpses, that is.
It was actually quite unclear which puppet he was inhibiting when he last died as all of them had melted and were still being burned.
Yes, Itachi was the imposter all along and he had everyone else fooled into thinking he was a crewmate. That was to be expected with his incredibly high IQ, of course.
He clearly had a very modest opinion of himself.
His arrival had actually saved the ones fighting Sasori. The Granny and… he didn't bother noticing the other one. Didn't seem important. Maybe there was a bit of pink? Nah.
He had arrived just when the fight started.
Safe to say, Sasori beat them instantly.
And then he beat Sasori instantly.
Then Sasori came back.
Must have been part of the mod Pain talked about. Unfortunately, his kill counter was 15 seconds so he had to wait that long to kill him again. Again. Then again. Yet AGAIN.
Then he killed all of them with Amaterasu at once when annoyed and decided to blame it on a glitch that the kill counter didn't work. Hell, maybe it was part of the mod.
He couldn't let Sasori tell anyone that he vented.
"Vented" being him trying to dig his way down and away before giving up and going the regular way.
Unfortunately, Sasori had seen that when he came back the first time.
It was a shame he would have to leave his comfy sitting furniture.
Looking down at the red-haired man that he was sitting on, whom he had snatched from some huge, flying, white bird, he felt regret that he would have to leave him behind. He was incredibly comfy to sit on. There was only so much he could take, after all, and dealing with Bob AND hiding all clues of him having taken down Sasori was gonna take a while.
Especially after mentally damaging Vagene enough that she wouldn't be able to tell anyone about him in the next meeting. He doubted he would have the strength to also carry the red-haired seat.
Looking at the 'seat' regretfully, he promised that he'd be back for it.
"Aug—ack!" The one beside the granny had groaned. He hit the person mid-groan to make sure they stayed down.
Itachi would leave the cave that day still not having noticed Sakura enough to even know her hair colour, attire colour, or gender.
He just felt like he'd become so much more useless if he learnt anything about that person.
Almost felt like someone from the heavens was warning him.
There were two absolute things that Itachi knew that day; He had to come back for the red-haired seat as soon as he could, when he could, as it was great for his posture, and that he should ignore the person beside the granny.
Also, why did he get the slight urge to tell them to go to the Tenchi bridge?
End Chapter.
Really sorry for how many errors this chapter probably has plothole-vise.
Very sad over short author note, even though I am sure you guys will be happy about it.
Also, yes, Itachi is permanently gonna be Among Us memes related in my fic or general meme related.
Also, I don't hate Sakura but I love the Sakura-hating memes, that's why I made so many jokes about her in this chapter.
