(A/N) TBNRkurama: I KNOWWW! SO CUTE! Right, so this is the last update until December, as I am doing Nanowrimo. I've explained it plenty on my other stories. This chapter will be a series of time skips, fetching other jinchuuriki and basically encompassing a lot of their time with the Akatsuki. Hidan, Kakuzu, and Orochimaru are part of the organization, yes, but they deal with the messy bits, mostly killing the older jinchuuriki to make way for child ones. Except Bee and Nii, who are different, and will be left alive cause I like them.

"Nice to meet you!" Naruto chirped, basically catapulting himself off of his seat to land in front of Gaara, who hid behind Shisui's leg.

"He's rather shy," Shisui explained to his little brother.

"Oooh," Naruto said, nodded. He stuck out his hand anyway. "Nice to meet you," he tried again, quieter this time.

Gaara shook the offered hand quickly, then retreated behind Shisui again.

Kurama jumped down from the table, nosing Gaara's leg. "Hey, this is the container for Shukaku. The one-tails, by the way."

Gaara blinked at the talking fox. "Shukaku?"

Kurama bobbed his head. "One of my brothers. I would assume he controls your sand? Although, I don't see any sand."

"Sasori-san insisted I leave it behind," Gaara all but whispered.

Kurama nodded. "Wise. My brother can be touchy when it comes to his kits. Can you contact him?"

Gaara shrugged. "I only know of Mother."

Kurama's face went blank for a moment, then he sighed. "Tell your mother we're going to have a talk later, and if she behaves, we'll find some sand for you."

Gaara nodded, and Shisui plopped down in the seat he'd been in earlier. "Oh, and that's Deidara. He's from Iwa." Shisui waved his hand in the nine-year-old's direction.

"Art is an explosion!" Deidara said, making an explosion noise.

Naruto and Sasuke 'ooo'ed and nodded enthusiastically.

"How do you blow stuff up?" Itachi asked curiously.

"I have the Explosion release bloodline," Deidara explained. "I put my chakra into my clay, then blow it up, yeah."

Itachi nodded. "If you're going to practice, do it outside."

Shisui laughed. "Yeah, don't want to bring this entire place down on our heads!"

"That would be ill advised," Kurama agreed, sniffing Deidara's leg too. "Why are you here?"

Deidara shrugged. "Sasori muttered something about me joining the Akatsuki when I'm a bit older, un."

Itachi nodded. "So, we're keeping you until then?"

Deidara shrugged. "I guess, not much else for me to do. The old man doesn't appreciate my art, un!"

"Old man?" Naruto asked. "Hey, that's what I call my old man!"

"Who's your old man?" Deidara asked, narrowing his eyes at the much shorter blonde.

"The Hokage! That means mine's way cooler than yours!"

"Well, mine's the Tsuchikage!" Deidara shot back. "Mine's cooler!"

Shisui sighed. "Boys, the Hokage and the Tsuchikage are equally cool, and equally old. You can stop arguing now, especially you, Deidara, as you just said your old man doesn't understand your art."

Itachi sighed. "I have a feeling you two are going to get along like explosives on fire."

Shisui smiled innocently. "What makes you say that?"

Itachi sighed again, and shook his head at his cousin. "You're supposed to be older then me."

"And your point is?" Shisui asked.

Itachi just shook his head again.

Sasuke held out his hand to Gaara. "My name's Sasuke, wanna go find your room?"

Gaara nodded hesitantly, taking the hand and following Sasuke out of the dining room. Itachi watched them go, and decided they'd be fine. He was needed here. So nothing was turned into 'art'.

They found the seven-tails next, Itachi and Kakashi brought her back, and Naruto, Gaara, and Sasuke met her at the front gate.

"Hihihihihi!" Naruto said, bouncing up and down.

Fuu, the seven-tails jinchuuriki imitated him, bouncing up and down with excitement. "Will you be my friends!?"

Naruto's grin only widened. "Of course!"

Shisui, who'd accompanied the now six-year-olds, placed a hand on Naruto's shoulder. "Down, kit."

Naruto pouted. "I'm not a kit!"

"Are too!" Kakashi said, ruffling Naruto's hair. "Naruto, Gaara, why don't you two let Kurama and Shukaku out?"

Naruto perked up, placing his hands in the cross sign, and summoning both Kyu and Kurama. He pouted. "I thought I had that down!"

Kyu shrugged. "Doesn't matter, I would've had to meet her at some point."

Fuu blinked, eyes wide. "You can make a friend whenever you want?"

Naruto blinked at her, then at Kyu. "Well, Kyu was an accident, I accidentally made a shadow clone with both Kurama and my chakras."

Fuu marched right up to Kyu and stuck out her hand. "My name's Fuu! What's yours?"

Kyu looked amused. "As Naruto has said, my name is Kyu."

Fuu wrinkled her nose. "Nine? Your name is nine?"

Kurama smirked. "And Naruto's name is fishcake, your point?"

"It's maelstrom!" Naruto squawked.

Fuu giggled.

Gaara had created a little sand clone for Shukaku, and the tanuki now nosed Fuu's leg. "Me too!" He screeched.

Fuu grinned, and crouched down to pet him. "You feel like sand, Mr. Shukaku."

"I am sand!" The tanuki deadpanned.

Shisui snickered. "Alright, back to the base, we don't want Sasuke to catch a cold."

"Why am I always the one going to catch a cold?" Sasuke complained, sniffing.

"Imouto, you're the only one that can," Itachi pointed out.

Sasuke puffed out a cheek in a pout. "Nii-san, you can catch a cold too."

Itachi ruffled his hair. "I'm less likely to, I have a stronger immune system than you."

Naruto, who'd been chatting equally to Gaara and Fuu, suddenly grabbed both of them by their hands, and started dragging them off. Gaara less willing then Fuu, but he'd gotten used to being dragged everywhere by an over enthusiastic Naruto.

Sasori was approached by Gaara a few days after Fuu arrived. "Can you teach me to do what you do?"

Sasori blinked at the smaller redhead. "My kind of puppetry is not for the faint of heart."

Gaara nodded. "I know, you use human corpses as puppets. I still wanna learn!"

Sasori sighed, and pulled out a small practice puppet. "I'll consider it if you can be shown how to create chakra strings, then learn to move this puppet on your own before I come back from my next mission."

Gaara learned to control the puppet two days after he got it, before Sasori even left on his mission. Sasori gave him a bigger puppet with the same instructions. Just like that, Sasori had someone to pass his techniques on to.

"Shisui," Itachi said, a long suffering expression on his face.

"Yes?" Shisui asked innocently.

"You have nail polish on your headband."

Shisui nodded. For some reason the Akatsuki all had painted nails. Shisui went with neon (and glow in the dark, but Itachi didn't need to know that) yellow. Gaara had picked a pale brown, about the color of his sand, Naruto switched Konon for the orange, then made it neon and glow in the dark, Fuu had neon glow in the dark green, Sasuke picked dark red, Itachi had a dark purplish color, and Kakashi picked silver. "I do."

Gaara looked up from where he was working with Sasori on a puppet. "Naruto told him to."

Itachi sighed. "And of course he went along with it."

Shisui just smiled innocently.

Itachi sighed into the darkness. "Shisui."

"Yes?" Shisui asked quietly, not bothering to look away from their quarry.

"Your headband is glowing."

"So are my nails. Your point?"

Itachi facepalmed quietly. "Shisui, we are on a stealth mission."

"So why are you having a problem? He hasn't seen us."

Itachi sighed again, long-sufferingly. "This is why you're the babysitter."

"Older brother," Shisui corrected cheerfully.

(A/N) *Snickers* Just seems so much like them, doesn't it? Naruto'll do the same thing to his headband when he gets one. Do you want another chapter of little snap shots of their time with the Akatsuki? Or for me to just go ahead and go back to Konoha? And yes, I'm making Gaara a Puppeteer. I do think that it's really the most sensible choice, and it comes from his home village too. My figuring is that the biggest weakness of puppeteers is their lack of self defense. Gaara has the so called ultimate defense. An offense like a puppet, would work in tandem with his sand to create a truly fearsome opponent. I could rant about this for ages, but I have a birthday to celebrate! See you in December!