Chapter 7
Pein would be sitting in his office drinking some coffee in his new mug before getting back to work. He was looking through reports the other members of the group had turned in to him over the last few days. Nothing out of the ordinary was reported which was good in the sense they were not in danger but bad in the sense that the gedo was missing and unable to be summoned. If they could not manually find it their plans could be ruined a thought that troubled him.
"Why don't you take a break for now Nagato." Konan's voice would ring out from behind him.
"I just did, I had a nice cup of coffee." he responded.
"I mean more of a break, you have barely left your desk for weeks its not good for you." she would explain a worried expression on her face.
Pein would let out a sigh and stand up, he knew she was right. Walking out of the room both he and Konan would notice smoke coming from the kitchen. Rushing in they would see Hidan frantically trying to put out flame over the stove top. He was throwing water on it which was not enough of watching it Pein grabbed corn starch and a pot lid first dousing the worst of the flames with the powdery substance before placing the lid on the remaining for it to burn out. There went dinner for the night, yet another issue to be solved for the group.
"Hidan clean up the mess and get the smoke out of here" Konan yelled at the addressed man.
The rest of the day would be filled with disasters like this for all the members who, because their leader had been busy looking at reports and not giving them missions, were all at base arguing. Kisame at Hidan for trying to cook his goldfish, and then not even being able to manage that and burning the poor fish to a crisp. Deidara at Tobi for being annoying all day long and pestering him to play board games. Sasori was yelling at Deidara fed up with the blonde's screaming at the other man. Kakuzu joined Kisame against Hidan due to the cost of the damages caused by Hidan trying to cook. It was an overall mess in the organization.
Itachi and Konan sat quietly watching the drama unfold until footsteps were heard outside. Konan got up to check and came back with a few pizzas the sight of which shut most the members up as they all came to grab a slice. Even Pein was finally enjoying the quiet as he ate his share of food.
"Leader-san" Itachi began, "You've been having us send you reports more than usual, is there a reason?"
"Just being cautious for the time, after that night we do not need anymore surprises is all. Pein answered calmly.
In actuality Pein had been told to refrain from telling the members aside from Konan about the Gedo Statue. It made searching for it harder and honestly Pein himself did not understand the reason to keep a key component of their plans missing a secret. Regardless he kept up the front he was told and simply had the members on the lookout for either strange chakra signatures or abnormally large ones, unfortunately him having to expressly explain to Hidan that he ment larger stores than Kisame had. Regardless, his answer seemed to be enough for Itachi, at least for now.
The rest of the night proved to be quiet and peaceful. The members now fed begin to file slowly to their respective rooms for the night. It was soon just Pein and Konan in the living room enjoying some quality time with each other. They haven't had the liberty of being with each other like this for a while and they both enjoyed it very much. That was until they heard a few loud bangs on the door followed by the sound of it opening. Pein got up moving cautiously towards the hallway to see who had entered and couldn't help but stand there stunned at the sight he saw.