-Meanwhile-

-Ten Kilometers Above The Grand Line-

Percival pulled at his whiskers as he considered the opponent that had slithered out of a shadowed corner of the dark and disused cabin. He was annoyed. Oh, not because he was in any danger from this foe, even though the snake that was currently uncoiling itself in front of him was wider around than he was tall. No, he was annoyed because the snake was so smug about his current prey's predicament that Percival couldn't help but cringe in sympathetic embarrassment. In his life, he had stared death in the face many times, but nothing made him more uncomfortable than being threatened by an amateur.

His opponent tasted the air with its tongue. If it had been smarter it might have wondered why the mouse it had found seemed irritated, at best. Alas, evolution hadn't given the snake that good sense. Hungry for a snack, it lunged, and Percival leapt over the strike, slamming his tiny mouse feet into the serpent's skull. There was a crack, then a thump, and then he dragged the snake's body away before dumping it unceremoniously out of a nearby gun-port. The corpse fell away unnoticed into the soft white clouds below the ship.

Percival shook his head. Hell of a place he'd ended up in. Stuck way up high in a bunch of clouds that were too dumb to know how to act properly, hiding in a ship filled with dangerous criminals. He'd been dodging traps that had been set in completely empty rooms for no apparent reason other than paranoia. To make matters worse, someone had filled the ship with snakes. None of the snakes he'd met were a threat, of course, but ever since he'd eaten the Vermin Vermin Fruit, Model Mouse, he'd felt a strong dislike for the scaly things. That was the third one he'd had to dispose of. Hopefully, someone wasn't keeping too close a count of these things.

If only his portable Den-Den-Mushi weren't completely out of range of the nearest repeater he could have reported in, but instead he was on his own. He would have to be very careful. Someone on this ship wanted the text of the Poneglyph, and discovering the identity of this unknown party trumped any other orders he had been given. Having a known criminal who could read the things was bad enough, but having an unknown group with the same capabilities… No, it wouldn't do.

Skittering quietly through the deeper parts of the ship, he dodged traps and snakes alike until he heard quick fragments of voices in argument as the two enemy agents he had followed reunited with their compatriots. He needed to get closer to hear that conversation. Most Zoan-type fruit-users relied mostly upon their 'hybrid' forms, a beast-state that merged the best qualities of human and animal, granting incredible physical abilities. He, however, found his fully transformed animal-form to be most useful of all. People used the phrase "quiet as a mouse," but a normal mouse had nothing on him.

Sensing another snake slithering about in the unused room ahead, Percival moved up the walls. Using his abnormal strength to grip with his claws, he slid in between the gaps and seams of the planks themselves until he was crawling invisibly along the ceiling. Nothing at all sensed him as he slipped through the doorway.

He moved into a tight hallway, hearing an odd noise becoming audible over the murmur of voices and gentle groaning of the ship. It was a sharp, almost electrical sound, and it was repeating itself every few seconds. Percival turned his wide, round ears back and forth, tilting them up and down, and determined it was coming from a nearby cabin. Curious, he crawled across the ceiling and slipped in through a crack above the door.

Inside, the room was well-lit by the light of numerous ghostly bluish-white flames that flickered without a candle, lantern, or bulb. The lights seemed to be stuck to the walls, burning without spreading or consuming the wood. They provided uniform lighting to an operating table that was being busily worked over by a deathly-pale man with long, black hair that fell past his shoulders.

There was something very wrong with this man. Never before upon seeing a person had Percival been filled with more revulsion. That was before he even got a good look at what was on the table itself.

A yellow-haired man, stripped bare from the waist up, was set upon the table, his body propped up awkwardly by a circular golden apparatus that jutted from his back. The man was dead. Or, he should have been. He definitely should be dead. His chest was opened up, his rib cage pried apart by a wicked-looking wooden tool until his heart was exposed. The strange shocking noise he had been hearing was the man's heart convulsing every couple of seconds as an electrical pulse that seemed to come from nowhere at all forced the organ to continue beating. Wires and tubes led from the man's head and body to strange devices surrounded by stranger lettering and mystic circles.

The repulsive, pale man stood above his prisoner, muttering, examining, and tracing invisible lines down the other's body.

Percival left the room, disgusted. This wasn't his mission, no matter how unsavory it seemed. He moved back down the hall, checking room after room.

Eventually, the indistinct voices grew louder. He was getting close. Passing through a sleeping cabin that hadn't housed anyone in some time, he found himself inside a storeroom filled with crates and barrels. The voices were right above him, and there was faint light sneaking through cracks and tiny holes in the ceiling. Poking his head through, he could see the room above him. He listened.

In the well-lit room above, Tobi sat at what served as the official Akatsuki dining room table eating a late lunch while reading the newspaper that Deidara had recovered. Several of the Akatsuki members had gathered when Tobi had called for a meeting. The meal was fish-broth noodle soup made by Kisame, who had slowly emerged as the best cook and fisherman in the group.

Slowly, Tobi remembered that the others were staring at him. That's right! He'd been so engrossed by what he was reading that he'd forgotten he'd been in the middle of a conversation! Deidara and Hidan had just returned from the ground below, but what exactly had they been talking about…?

"So, Hidan," said Tobi around a bite of noodles, "Remind me again why you jumped all the way down off the clouds?"

A wordless scream of rage filled the room. Tobi didn't react to this outburst except to stuff another bite of his meal into his mouth. He watched, unmasked, with an innocently curious expression that showed the warped and twisted flesh of the left side of his face and the two Rinnegan in his eyes.

"SCREW YOU, YOU UNGRATEFUL ASS!" shouted Hidan, "You throw me off a cloud and tell me to go after that goddamn stone and you don't even remember it?! Do you even know what I had to go through down there? What the hell did I do to you, huh?! Tell me!"

Tobi looked shocked, surprise and indignation filling his overly-expressive face. "Oh! You helped with the Stone Tablet? Geez, all you had to say was that you wanted to help Deidara, you don't have to bite my head off."

Hidan's death grip on the table in front of him tore a thick chunk of oak from the surface. With another roar, he chucked the weighty piece of debris straight at Akatsuki's leader. It got to within a few inches of Tobi's face before his Rinnegan flared with power. The projectile stopped in mid-air, vibrated for a moment, then shot back at Hidan at three times the speed he had thrown it. Struck square in the chest, Hidan shot out of the room like a rocket, crashing onto the deck and skipping over the side of the bulwarks out into the liquid cloud below.

Tobi looked around the room in confusion. His child-like eyes met those of Deidara, Kisame, and Danzou who were watching with something like impatience. All of the other members of Akatsuki were quite aware of Tobi's overwhelming power, but Hidan seemed to need a reminder from time-to-time.

"Wha- Why was he so angry?" Tobi asked, "He broke the dining room table!"

"Don't waste any time on that foul-mouthed brute," growled Danzou, "Did you find what we need or not?"

"Yeah," agreed Deidara, "I need one hell of a shower to get this crap outta my hair, but I'm not leaving until you tell me whether my trip down there was worth a damn."

"You'll have to tell me what happened to you both," chuckled Kisame. "It sounds like the natives were quite spirited."

"No. I really don't have to tell you anything," Deidara responded, then pointed at Tobi, "And you, stop eating for one damn second and answer the question, un!"

Tobi, already having forgotten about the earlier altercation, slurped down the last of the soup and considered the question carefully. "Kinda?" he said.

"I will not settle for a 'maybe,' Tobi," said Danzou. "We still have much to learn about the Divine Tree if we're going to fulfill our objective."

Tobi looked sheepish for a moment. "Well, I mean, it wasn't exactly related…"

Deidara closed his eyes and rested his head in both palms.

"...but I wouldn't say it wasn't interesting. It was talking about some ancient superweapon called Poseidon that supposedly has the power to sink entire islands and control the forces of the sea itself."

The room was silent for a moment. Danzou rubbed his scarred chin thoughtfully, then asked, "And you now know where this is located? That weapon would be an interesting backup plan if we can't get what we came for…"

"Yeah, it's supposedly located below the Red Line mountain range. It had directions for where it is and everything. And look!" he cried, pointing to his newspaper with glee, "According to this, that's right where we're heading!"

"Interesting," mused Danzou, "Would this 'Poseidon' be some kind of machine, or ancient jutsu, then?"

"Well, it's really pretty vague, but I kind of got the feeling the superweapon might be, like, an Advanced Bloodline or something. Something that's passed down through some kind of 'mermaid.'"

More silence. Carefully, Kisame spoke up next. "A… Mer-Maid? What is that supposed to be?"

Deidara laughed, perking up right away. "Oh, that's great! Our resident freaky fish-guy doesn't know what a mermaid is?" When Kisame shook his head, Deidara continued. "It's a legend about a beautiful woman who's got the lower-half of a fish. You know, your perfect dream-girl!"

Kisame frowned, his beady fish-eyes drilling a hole into the blond Akatsuki demolitions expert. Bemusedly, he stretched his imagination to dream up what such a woman might look like. Eventually, his scowl deepened. "That sounds disgusting."

"Hey, well there's no accounting for taste, but you might have to learn to settle, man. Lower your standards a bit. You're not exactly a looker yourself, you know." Deidara laughed raucously. "Unless you're looking for the other way around, un? Fish head and lady body!"

"Mmm… Neither of those things sound particularly appealing."

Tobi piped up, "I'm cheering for you, Sharky! One day you'll find someone! I know it!"

Danzou grit his teeth at this frivolous banter, but someone else beat him to the punch. A gruff, rumbling voice emitted from one of the speaking tubes nearby. "The repairs to the ship are completed," said Sasori, speaking from the helm, "The navigation device has set, and we appear to be over our target. We are ready to depart, so I suggest we stop wasting our time here. Don't make me wait."

Now, Danzou added his opinion. "I've already talked to some of the inhabitants of this Sky Island, and they are willing to help us return to the surface safely as well as finance our expedition out of gratitude for our actions. I agree that there's nothing left for us up here."

"Umm… Yes. Yes, that sounds like a good idea," said Tobi. "Well, I mean, if we're all ready. Kakuzu is bringing along a whole bunch of gold from the air-ship… I think he's upset about losing those hearts to that lightning guy. When he's done I'm ready to leave! It was a fun adventure, but no one up here knows about any more of those Stone Tablets, so we're done! Err, this concludes Sky Island Mission Meeting number seven! Good job, everyone!"

The few members scattered, leaving Tobi alone. Well, not exactly alone. There was someone else here that he wanted to talk to. The rest of Akatsuki were wonderful friends, but they were a tough group to open up to and sometimes he just needed to vent a bit. Standing up, Tobi paused for a moment, then melted into the wood of the deck, startling a very concerned mouse who had been on the ceiling of the room below. As he passed through the deck, moving into the wood like it was a part of himself, Tobi's hand slid down and snatched the tiny rodent before dropping to the floor. The mouse struggled briefly, startled by the sudden movement, before Tobi spoke.

"Hey, hey, hey, hold on, little guy! I'm not gonna hurt you! I'm a friend! I just want to talk, okay?"

Slowly, the mouse stopped struggling. One of the lesser-known benefits of the Rinnegan was the ability to speak to and understand all manner of animals. The mouse gave him an odd glance, then said, "Squeak."

"Err, huh?"

"...Squeak."

Tobi was baffled. "Wow, that's really funny! I can talk to all sorts of animals, but for some reason it just sounds like you're saying 'Squeak.' Like you're just a guy pretending to make funny mouse noises! I've never heard that before. Are you alright, little guy?"

The mouse stared back at him, still trapped in his hand. A moment passed, then it spoke in a high-pitched voice that he could actually understand. "Erm… that's… That's my name... Squeak."

"Well, hello there, Squeak! I'm Tobi! Sorry for surprising you like that, but I could use a chance to talk with someone, and the snakes aren't very good conversationalists." Tobi walked over and gently placed the mouse down on top of a nearby crate that smelled like weapon oil. Then, Tobi leaned over conspiratorially and whispered, "Besides, Orochimaru watches all the snakes around here and I think they tell him everything they hear."

"Huh… is that so?" said Squeak carefully. "I didn't know that. I kicked a few of their asses when they tried to mess with me. I hope he won't be angry with me for it."

Tobi laughed, his amusement displayed clearly on his face. "Wow! You're kind of a badass, aren't you, Squeak? That's okay, I'll cover for you."

"Thanks a lot, pal," said Squeak, clearly warming up to him right away, "That's a big help. I hate snakes, ya know? So... you said you wanted to talk about something?"

This is why Tobi loved animals. So easy to talk to!

"Yeah! I mean, it's just the usual, I guess. You know how it is, leading a group of people with wildly different personalities, where each one of them has their own goals, and they're all pretty good at killing people."

Squeak slowly nodded his head and began pacing on top of the crate, his tiny claws making little ticking noises each step he took. "Surprisingly, I do know how it is, yes. You've gotta make sure all their goals coincide with yours."

"Exactly! But the problem is that we don't know even the slightest thing about the world out here, which makes it tough to know what to tell them."

"So you're from an out-of-contact island, huh...? What about lying to them? You know, promise them something they wouldn't get."

Tobi gasped, his mouth making a round 'o' shape. "Bringing them all out here on a lie would be wrong!"

Squeak stopped his pacing for a moment. "Err, right. And you wouldn't want to do that."

"Tobi's a good boy!"

"Yeah, yeah, of course," said Squeak. "But your plans seem so important. Whatever it is that you're reading on those stones of yours that you were talking about up there. That is you, right? The one who's reading them?"

Tobi waggled his eyebrows, pride filling his expression. "Well, that's a secret! You can't get me to talk about that! And don't ask me about what's in them either!"

"Well alright then, what DO you want to talk about?"

"Hmm… Sometimes it's just nice to sort of be able to speak to someone else, you know? Just get the thoughts out there and hear how they sound."

"By all means, go ahead."

The two of them talked. Tobi had a laundry list of general complaints, but Squeak seemed especially curious about things like where they had come from, as well as how ninja worked in general. Ten minutes later, Orochimaru peered through the door, spattered with blood, causing Squeak to bristle in surprise. Orochimaru just stared impassively at the two of them for a moment, man and mouse standing alone in the dusty room.

"Were you talking to that mouse just now?" he asked.

"No," said Tobi.

"Squeak!" said Squeak.

"Yeah, he's not 'that mouse,' geez! His name is Squeak!"

"...I see…" replied the ship's doctor. The fact that the mouse had just clearly said the word 'squeak' in a scratchy, high-pitched voice hardly even qualified as an unusual occurrence around Tobi at this point, so he decided to ignore it. "Well… the experiment was a partial success. We can preserve the Fruit's strength until it is needed, though I'm hoping for better results next time. However, I've noticed a few snakes missing."

"Oh, I'm sorry, that was me. They were bothering Mister Squeak here, so I had to remove them. I hope that's not a problem!" Tobi turned to the mouse on top of the crate and gave him a tremendously exaggerated wink. He was using the wrong eyeball, so it was still clearly visible to the man in the doorway.

Orochimaru shook his head and walked out the door.

After a moment, Squeak spoke again. "That was 'Orochimaru,' huh? What's his 'experiment' he was talking about?"

"Oh, it's so incredibly amazing. Orochimaru's really super smart, you know. See, when it comes to our grand plan, we've got a backup, just in case. 'Cause one of the things we're looking for? It takes a looooong time to get ready, and if it's not ready when we get there then we'll need to feed it so it gets ready right away! Sorry if this is kind of complicated. I'm trying to speak so a mouse can understand, but-"

"No need to worry. I'm a genius among my kind. Please continue."

"Okay! But really there's not much to it, and I'm already bored. Back to what we were talking about. Like, this problem I'm having with Danzou…"

They talked and talked. Eventually it was time for Akatsuki to set sail, and Tobi decided that Squeak should be set free to enjoy his life in the sky. It would be sad, but his new friend deserved to live someplace wonderful. He sent him off among the clouds with tears in his eyes.

Percival sprung back onto the ship when it was time to leave, of course. This time he kept to the depths of the ship, not wanting to be discovered again. He wasn't about to miss his only ride home. When they finally reached the ground he would sneak off and make some very important calls to some very important people.

Hours later, when the ship had landed safely on the ocean below and then made landfall at a nearby island, Percival slipped away. His exit did not go unnoticed. By sheer coincidence, the ship's security systems had been disabled during repairs and it had only been re-enabled once they were about to land back on the ocean below. When Percival left, a single invisible thread attached to the gun-port he had used to make his escape twinged an almost imperceptible amount. By his position at the helm, Sasori of the Red Sands opened his eyes.

There had been an intruder on-board.