Chapter Twenty-Four: Welcome Home

Rule Number Twenty-Five: Inter dimensional travel is forbidden. It has dastardly consequences when you bring the Akatsuki to our world.

Hannah

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to my point of view. This next stage in the story begins with Dessie, Kate, and I lying in the middle of my kitchen floor.

I woke up, after what seemed like an eternity of sleep, and found my face pressed against the oh-so familiar black and white tile that my mother had insisted in putting in. Slowly, drowsily, I sat up and looked around the kitchen. It was…different from how I remembered it. A thick layer of dust lay on the counter tops and the cabinets were empty. However, undoubtedly, this was my house.

"I have the strangest dream…"

I turned around to see Kate sitting up sleepily on the floor. She rubbed her eyes and said, "I dreamt that we were being chased by gigantic pink bunnies and then suddenly the Akatsuki swooped out of the sky and carried us off into the sunset…Then they turned into birds and tried to eat my organs and the Hidan-Hawk kept cawing about Jahsin-sama…"

"Kate…" I said slowly.

"Yeah?"

"We're home…"

She blinked and looked around. "Hey… This is your house, Hannah…"

I nodded slowly. "Yeah…This is my house… What are we doing in my house? And in the kitchen on all things…"

Kate shrugged and silence stretched between the two of us. I looked around the kitchen nervously, unsure what to do. There was no sign of my parents or my little sister.

"What the hell!"

"Dessie's up…" I murmured, not even having to look.

"Oh my Warg!" cried Dessie excitedly. "We're home! We're home!" Suddenly her face fell and she looked almost disappointed. "We're home…"

"The glowing blue orb brought us home…" said Kate softly. "We didn't even get to say good-bye…"

"Y–"

"!"

We turned around. And saw a strange woman standing in the doorway of the kitchen, screaming her head off. She was slightly over weight with pinned up blond hair and brown eyes. She was gawping at us as if she had seen a ghost.

"What's wrong, Sally!" cried someone and a balding man appeared in the doorway behind her and another man with a moustache after him.

"Walter! Walter!" screamed Sally over and over again. "Look!"

Walter turned to see where she was pointing and caught sight of Dessie, Kate, and me. He stares disbelievingly and then turned to the mustached man behind him. "Jim! I thought you said they had disappeared!"

"Th-th-they had…" gasped Jim. "Hannah O'Reilly… Katharine Collins… Desdemona Lee… They disappeared four months ago and haven't been seen since… That's why the O'Reilly's are selling this house…"

I took me about three seconds to recover from my shock.

"Hannah?" I asked. "Who is this Hannah? I'm…Josephine...Smith… I thought this was my friend's house, but apparently I was wrong… Um…We'll be going now…" I edged towards the door.

"What do you mean 'sell this house'!" screamed Dessie. "The O'Reilly's would never sell this house! And we aren't g–"

I clamped a hand over her mouth and grinned awkwardly at the three people. "This is my cousin… Shu…Shawnee… She's a little…coo-coo…" I rolled my eyes. "We'll be going…now."

And with that statement, I led my friends out of the house, much to shock of the three adults. They didn't even have the sense to stop us. I dragged Dessie and Kate all the way down the street until we reached the corner, where we stood under the street-sign and discussed what the hell was going on.

"You're parents moved!" cried Dessie. "They moved from the house that they built so proudly with their own two hands! They picked up everything and just moved! What is this! Has the world gone to the dogs while we were away!" Dessie considered this for a moment. "I guess our existence is more crucial to the survival of the human race than I thought…"

I ignored her and turned to Kate. "What do you think?"

Kate hesitated. "I think we should do something other than just stand here… What if someone recognizes you?"

I nodded. "That is true. We are, apparently, on the missing persons list."

"Let's go to my house," said Dessie.

"Walk?" Kate asked, horrified. "It's so far!"

Dessie snorted. "We can catch a cab, moron."

"B-but," stammered Kate nervously. "We don't have any money… We bet it all with Kakuzu, remember? And lost it… Not that it was any good for him…"

Dessie rolled her eyes and thumped Kate on the back. "I'll have money at home, stupid. It's fine."

So, the three of us made our way out to the main road while Dessie called the taxi company (our cell phones work again – yay!). After fifteen minutes later, a taxi turned to corner and we piled in. The three of us sat, squished in the back, staring out the windows avidly.

"I missed this place!" cried Kate excitedly. "The bowling alley…and the old sushi bar… oh look! It's our old school!"

"Don't remind me," muttered Dessie. "So many bad memories there…"

"Just because you failed English," I said, rolling my eyes. "At least the American History teacher loved you."

"That's just because he thought loud people are opinionated and therefore very smart," Dessie explained. "And we all know I rule in the category of 'loud people'." She smiled, very satisfied with herself for that.

"At least you can admit it," I said, peering out the window.

And then my eyes fell on a very, very familiar sight. Along the side of the road a big, blond fur ball walked beside a blue shark-man.

"Stop the car!" I screamed.

The driver slammed on the brakes and we were all thrown forward violently. I grabbed the door handle of the car and threw it open, leaping outside and looking around frantically.

"What's up?" asked Kate nervously.

"Deidara! Kisame!" I hollered.

From the other side of the road the two Akatuski members turned to stare (thank Warg they hadn't been wearing their Akatsuki cloaks when we'd fallen into the blue ob). Kisame waved and smile, showing off all of his pointy white teeth.

"Hey, Hannah!" he called.

Deidara, on the other hand, had a very different reaction. "What the hell is this, bitch? Where am I? What did you do to us! Where is everyone? What the hell is that thing you just came out of!"

"Er…" I glanced around awkwardly. "Can we discuss this later…"

"Hell no, bitch!"

I gritted my teeth and uttered the one word that never came out of my mouth. "Please…"

Deidara looked like he was going to argue more, but Kisame picked up the blond fur ball and slung him over the shoulder. Carefully, Kisame dropped Deidara in the truck of the cab and got into the front seat. Then, the five of us and the driver continued on to Dessie's home. However, our drive was interrupted once when Deidara set a bomb off in the trunk. So, we squeezed him in the back between Dessie and me and carried on.

The arrival at Dessie's house was somewhat…over the top. After visiting it so often I had grown used to the drive up the long gravel front entrance to the massive red-brick mansion with marble pillars and extensive grounds. Deidara and Kisame, however, gawped.

"What the…" murmured Kisame. Then, he turned to Dessie. "You live here. Who's your daddy?"

Dessie glanced up at the mansion and back to the Akatsuki. "It's not my daddy. It's my uncle. My mother had an affair with Dad and since her husband didn't want to keep a child that wasn't his, I was raised by Uncle Theo and Aunt Bella and Ms. Wendy, the head maid. Aunt died when I was five and Uncle died when I was twelve and left the whole place to me…" She stared at the large oaken doors and said wistfully, "Ms. Wendy must be disappointed that I'm back. She probably enjoyed living there by herself."

"Good thing Kakuzu isn't here…" said Deidara. "He'd throw a fit."

"He probably will be here," I said. "If he travelled to the same dimension with us…"

The taxi came to a halt and we all filed out of the car, Dessie promising to get some money from the house. She ran ahead to knock on the door while the rest of us walked under the entrance way, staring at the pure vastness of the house.

"Dimension?" asked Kisame. "We're in a different dimension?"

I nodded. "Yep. And I think we brought the whole Akatsuki with us…"

Rule Number Twenty-Four: Inter dimensional travel is forbidden – nothing good can happen when the Akatsuki is in our world.

Dessie stood waiting in front of the entrance of the mansion. We crowded around her and stared. No one came. About five minutes had passed by before Deidara began to get impatient. But, before he could blow anything up, the door creaked open and the small, withered face of Mrs. Wendy appeared. She caught sight of Dessie and her blue eyes widened in horror.

"Hey, Witch," said Dessie with a grin. "Long time no see!"

Mrs. Wendy surveyed Dessie carefully. "I thought you were dead."

"Hoped I was dead," corrected Dessie. "I went into another dimension for four months and now I'm back. These dudes behind me are from the different dimension."

"Oh. I suppose you want your house back." Mrs. Wendy sounded positively disappointed.

"Yeah, sorry, Witch." Dessie shrugged. "Live a few more years and maybe you can have it back – or you can just poison my morning cup of coffee."

Mrs. Wendy scowled. "Don't give me any ideas."

"I need money for the taxi fare."

"Yeah, yeah." Mrs. Wendy closed the door and went to fetch some cash (there was plenty of it going spare).

The moment she was gone, Deidara and Kisame rounded on Dessie incredulously. "Your head maid wants to kill you to get her hands on your fortune!"

Dessie shrugged. "Why not? It's a perfectly reasonable excuse."

"But… she wants to kill you…"

"It's a hate-hate relationship. We get along well like that." Dessie smiled.

I laughed. I couldn't help it. "I love Mrs. Wendy. She makes my life just that much better – besides, I'm waiting for the day when she actually does kill Dessie."

The door opened again and Mrs. Wendy held out a stack of money to Dessie, who then went to pay the cab driver. After that, we all filed into the house and gathered around a long table in one of Dessie's many dining rooms. She stood at the head and surveyed the four of us, her expression grim.

"So," she said. "We brought a group of criminally insane mass murderers to Earth – what do we do now?"

"Find them," I said dully. "What else?"

"Get them back home," suggested Kate. "The blue orb…There was a thunderstorm the night we disappeared…and a flash of blue light. I bet that's how we got to our world too…through a blue orb."

"So there's one is Hannah's house as well?" asked Dessie. "I'm sorry…Hannah's ex-house."

"So we find everyone and then try and find the glowing blue orb in Hannah's ex-house?" asked Kate.

I scowled. I didn't like talking about my "ex-house".

"But my parents are reselling the house," I pointed out. "So how are we going to search it?"

Dessie shrugged. "We'll just have to buy the house ourselves. Or you can just return to your parents and say 'hey mom, hey dad. Guess what! I'm still alive! Ha…ha…ha'"

"Why don't we?" asked Kate. "I want to see my parents."

"Maybe later," I said. "But right now we have the Akatsuki on the loose. And I don't think my parents will keep the house if they've already decided to sell it. Dessie can just buy the house though, can't she?"

Dessie nodded.

"Hell," muttered Deidara. "How much money do you have!"

"You don't want to know…" I muttered.

"My uncle was one of the best poker players in his time and my aunt was an actress," explained Dessie. "Its somewhere in the nine figure number…"

Deidara choked on air. "Nine…"

"So," said Dessie. "First we need to find all the Akatsuki members. On the bright side we found Deidara and Kisame already so only seven left. I suggest we split into two teams – Kisame you had better stay here since you're a freak."

"She means you're not what humans are used to seeing," Kate wuickyl translated.

"So, I think Hannah and Deidara should take the Porsche and Kate and I will take the Ferrari…"

"Eh?"

"They're cars," explained Kate. "So we can get around."

"Why can't we run?" asked Kisame.

"Because no one runs here," snapped Dessie. "Everyone here is fat and ugly and out of shape."

"Can we blow them up?" asked Deidara.

I turned to glare at him. "No, you can't. Because that would be terrorism and is highly frowned upon in most societies."

"So?"

I smacked my forehead. This was going to be a long next few days.