Summary of Events: After being attacked by Wargonians, the Akatsuki is now joind the War Council in Suna.

The chapter is dedicated to KillerCloudKunoichi because I promised her I'd update before midnight. It's 12:01...

Chapter Sixty-Nine: The War Council

Rule Number Sixty-Nine: The Akatsuki does not honor peace treaties very well.

Hannah

We all crowded into the council room. It was built in a way that sort-of resembled the coliseum; with rows upon rows of seats circling around a podium in the middle of the room – of course, there weren't any gladiators here. However, knowing the Akatsuki, this was a possibility.

The Akatsuki were given the northern section of the council room. We slid into our seats (with the loudest people shoved at the back). Out of the four teams/countries represented, the Akatsuki was not the smallest, but it was swamped by the masses of Konoha and Suna politicians and shinobi who had come. The group we had seen arriving from Konoha was only a small portion of what they had brought. They filled up their section of the council room and part of Hebi's section. Suna was much the same with some of their people being forced to sit next to the Akatsuki, needless to say, they weren't very happy with the seating arrangements.

"I think most of them are glaring at you, Deidara," said Kisame.

Tobi shuddered and grabbed hold of Deidara's arm. "They're not going to kill Deidara-senpai, are they?"

Deidara scoffed. "They're just upset because they think I killed their Kazekage."

"Didn't you?" Kate asked.

Deidara shrugged, a small smile flickering on his face. "The Kazekage came back to life, so what does it matter? Some bitch brought him back from the dead."

"Oh," said Dessie. "So no one cares, then.'

"Well…" said Deidara. "Apparently they care…"

"Shut up, all of you," said Leader grimly. He turned around to face the rest of the room. Leader and Konan sat at the front of the section, where they could be easily seen and heard by the other groups. Itachi, Kisame, Kakuzu, Zetsu, and I all sat in the row behind Leader. I assumed it was organized from most reasonable people to the least reasonable people, since Kate, Deidara, Tobi, Hidan, and Dessie were in the row behind us.

"Why won't they start already?" grumbled Hidan. "I'm bored."

"Join the club…" said Dessie.

"Patience is a virtue," said Kisame cheerfully.

Deidara smirked ad kicked Kisame in the back. "We're in the Akatsuki – weren't virtues abandoned a long time ago."

"Point to Deidara," said Dessie, making an invisible tick mark in the air. "Anyone want to place bets?"

"Ten on Kisame," said Kakuzu.

"Damn…" muttered Dessie. "I wanted to bet on Kisame…"

"Why do you two have so little faith in me, uhn!" asked Deidara angrily.

"Will you all shut up!" snapped Leader, whipping around to glare at us all his ringed eyes burning with hatred. "At least act like reasonable human beings!"

We shut up. After several more minutes of a bored and quiet Akatsuki – which involved flirtatious glances between Kisame and Kate, explosions from Deidara, and a full-out fist war from Dessie and Hidan (all of which were done in absolute silence) – the meeting started.

Gaara rose to his feet (insert drooling from Dessie and Kate) and addressed the room. "We were called here today to discuss the threat of the Wargonian army. What you see here today is the people who promised to aid us in our battle against the Wargonians. All other countries turned down our requested and refused to believe in the existence of a different dimension – despite the very physical evidence."

"Before we get to discussion," said Gaara. "I would like to have a quick debriefing on the situation from, Pein, the leader of the Akatsuki."

Leader got to his feet and retold the story of the blue orbs, the Wargonians, and the invasion. Everyone had heard the story before – some of us multiple times – but we still listened in rapture until the story's end. When he was done, Leader sat back down again.

Gaara had the other groups confirm the existence of the Wargonian threat and then, after that, discussion time began.

"We must fight them!" cried a Konoha shinobi.

I rolled my eyes. I thought that option was a duh. What next, make a peace treaty with them?

A Suna shinobi rose to speak. "I think we should try negotiations with them. For all we know the Wargonians come in peace – the Akatsuki are criminals and are not likely to try making peace with the foreigners."

"Ouch…." mutered Deidara. "That hurt…"

"And here I thought people couldn't get nay stupider," I added.

To my surprise, it was Dessie who rose to respond to this argument. Leader looked like he was about to tackle her to stop her from talking, but Dessie ignore him and said, with surprising civility, "Don't speak of what you know nothing. Warg is the god of war and destruction. His followers only want to cause war and destruction. They want to conquer and destroy. Peace is an unknown concept to them an they will slaughter anyone who goes near them."

"And how do you know this!" snapped the Suna shinobi.

Dessie scowled. "Because I worship Warg, shithead." And with that she sat down.

Leader face-palmed himself and muttered, "Well… That could have gone worse…"

Suddenly, Sasuke got to his feet and received the right to speak. "When the Akatsuki party came to visit Team Hebi and explain the situation, they brought a Wargonian captive. The captive mention something about a power source – I would like to ask the Akatsuki to explain more on this."

"A power source?" asked Dessie.

I recalled the mention of a power source when the Wargonian had been tossing out information in terror. Slowly, I got to my feet to speak. "Yes, a power source. In Wargonia, a different dimension, there is a temple with a glowing light on top of it. According to the Wargonians, that light is a gift from Warg and whenever the light glows, the Wargonians' power grows rapidly."

When I was done, I quickly sat back down and waited for everyone else to speak.

"We should destroy the power source then," said Tsunade. "But how…?"

"Art is a bang!"

Silence. Slowly, everyone turned to stare at Deidara. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that he was grinned maniacally, holding one of his little birds in his hand. The bird flapped its wings and flew away from Deidara. He raised two fingers and cried "Katsu!" The bird exploded in a rush of flames and smoke.

"Be serious!" cried a Konoha shinobi.

Deidara smiled. "I am being serious. We blow up their source of power, uhn."

"That puts a lot of responsibility on you!" snapped Temari. "Why should we trust you? You killed our Kazekage! You might just abandon the mission and screw us all over!"

Deidara opened his mouth to reply, but I beat him to it. Slowly, I got to my feet and regarded Temari. "I wouldn't trust Deidara to do a lot of things – like clean a toilet, go shopping, drive a car, meet my parents, go to my high school reunion, or raise a child – bit, if there is one thing I can trust Deidara to do it is to blow things up. If you want something to go boom, Deidara will not fail you."

Silence.

"Man, Hannah," said Dessie. "That was badass."

"Yeah, yeah…"

"Okay," said Tsunade loudly, trying to cut off any response from Suna. "So we will send a party to Wargonia… But that means infiltrating the Akatsuki's ex-hideout where the Wargonian troops are gathered…"

Leader got to his feet. "Anyone in the Akatsuki is completely willing to take part in this mission."

Tsunade nodded. "Of course we wouldn't send anyone who is unwilling. Deidara will be going, since he is the only one with explosives of that caliber."

"And Dessie," added Leader. "As a worshipper of Warg who had been around the city, it seems to be the best choice."

"I want to go!" said Hidan, getting to his feet.

Leader turned around and glared at Hidan, saying, "You're a Jashinist, they hate Jashinists. They would kill you on the spot with no questions asked."

Hidan rolled his eyes. "I'm a fucking immortal – perfect for a suicide mission."

"He has a point…" said Sasuke.

Leader sighed and nodded. "Fine. The Akatsuki will send Deidara, Dessie, and Hidan. Does Team Hebi, Suna, or Konoha want to add to the party?"

The leaders of each group immediately turned around ad had whispered conversations with one another. Tsunade was the first to turn around and announce, "Konoha will send Sakura, Neji, and Gai. The party will need a medic ninja and Sakura will fill that role."

Dessie groaned. "Pinkette and Spandex… At least we get Ice-Hottie…"

"Hush!"

Gaara then rose to address the council. "Suna will send only Temari."

"Even worse…" muttered Dessie, only to be shushed again by Konan.

Sasuke added that Team Hebi would send Suigetsu since he seemed to be the only member who could stand being in Dessie's pretense without having the overwhelming urge to kill her. Which I thought was a completely sane reason, but Konoha and Suna shinobi looked scandalized.

Leader got to his feet and said, "The Akatsuki hideout is, fortunately, sandwiched between Suna and Konoha. So, if we send troops to both places and protect them, the main brunt of the Wargonians forces should attack there and we can battle them head on."

After Leader was done, Gaara rose to speak, "I think that Suna has enough troops to defend itself, as does Konoha. We may send some troops to Konoha and vice versa, but I see no need for a mass reshuffling of troops."

Tsunade nodded in agreement.

It was Sasuke, however, who rose to speak. "Since Team Hebi has no place to defend, we will split up our team amongst the locations. I will stay in Suna and Karin and Suigetsu will go to Konoha."

There was a general nodding of heads and then Leader rose. Apparently the hatred towards the Akatsuki was greater than the hatred towards Team Hebi since everyone fell into immediate silence at the sight of Leader and spent most of their time glaring at him.

"The Akatsuki agrees with Team Hebi and plans to divide the group amongst the three locations. As already said, Deidara, Dessie, and Hidan will go to Wargonia. But Hannah, Zetsu, Tobi, Itachi, and Kakuzu will all stay in Suna while Kate, Kisame, Konan, and I will go to Konoha."

There was a mass grumbling and whispering amongst the shinobi, but Leader proudly ignored it and returned to his seat.

"Man…" hissed Kisame. "Leader can kickass when he wants to."

"I'll say…" said Kakuzu. "He kicks your ass all the time."

"Tobi doesn't like it when Leader kicks behinds. Tobi likes his behind." Tobi scuttled along the see to protect his backside from Leader.

Gaara rose to his feet and examined everyone in the room. "Is there anything anyone would like to add? No…"

Leader got to his feet where everyone could see him and added, "While negotiating with your leaders, we placed a jutsu on them where if they or any of their subordinates kill any Akatsuki member, the leaders will die. And if any group refuses to participate, their leader will die."

"EH!"

(This came from Tsunade, who was the only person not to be informed of the jutsu prior to the meeting).

"Just thought you should know," said Leader, sitting back down.

"That's not fair!" cried Temari angrily. "The Akatsuki can kill anyone they want with no consequences, but the moment we try to kill you – our leaders die!"

Dessie scowled. "Shut up, bitch. You got a problem? Come up with this badass jutsu on your own."

"Dessie, shut it," snapped Leader. He turned to regard Temari and said, rather calmly, "We know the dangerousness of the Wargonian threat. We will not put our continent at risk – especially since we plan on ruling it one day – for the sake of petty murders. We know we won't kill anyone, but we can't trust you not to kill us. Is there anyone in this room who can testify that if I remove the jutsu right now, Sasuke won't try and kill Itachi?"

Silence.

"I didn't think so. The jutsu remains in place until the war is over and the Wargonians are sealed back in Wargonia with the blue orb smashed to pieces. Then, I will be happy to remove the jutsu and go back to conquering the world to good old-fashion way."

Suddenly, Shizune (Tsunade's right hand woman) got to her feet and cried, "I understand restraining Team Hebi, but what about the rest of us!"

Leader snorted. "And Shikamaru isn't planning the death of Hidan right now? What about Suna attempting to kill Deidara? The Akatsuki knows exactly how much it is hated."

The Akatsuki immediately started laughing (much to the horror of the other groups).

"Who wins as the most hated?" asked Dessie. "Deidara, Hidan, or Itachi?"

"Twenty one Deidara," said Kakuzu.

"Itachi," said Kisame. "Definitely Itachi."

"Hey!" cried Hidan. "Why is no one betting on me! I'm pretty damn hated!"

Dessie patted Hidan on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, but you haven't sacrificed enough people yet. Maybe after the war, you and I should go on a killing spree and see how long it takes to become more hated than Itachi and Deidara."

Hidan grinned. "Yee-haw! Let's do it!"

"This is ridiculous," said Sakura. "We're at peace right now and they're already planning to kill us all the moment this war is over."

Zetsu smirked and, for the first time, spoke. "Don't worry. We're not planning on killing all of us – just most of you. There have to be survivors to breed and make more food."

Rule Number Sixty-Nine: The Akatsuki does not honor peace treaties very well.

I laughed, clutching mu stomach as spasms of joy echoed through my muscles. "I remember why we keep Zetsu around…"

"Is she starting to fall for her husband?" asked Kate eagerly.

Dessie immediately turned around and patted Deidara on the shoulder. "I was always rooting for you, you know."

Deidara swatted Dessie's hand away and turned to Itachi. With a twisted smile on his face, Deidara patted Itachi on the shoulder and said, "Just so you know, I was always rooting for you – shame Hidan had to steal her away."

"Oh, burned!"

Somewhere on the other side of the council room, Tsunade smacked herself in the forehead and said, "And these are our all-powerful allies… I can't believe they killed some of our strongest shinobi."