"What the fuck is your luck?" Indra hisses, head shaking as he makes his way across the dirt path to a fallen tree. He shrugs off the pack (one Jiraiya had given him, which really only contains a bed roll and a few storage scrolls with everything else in) and drops down to sit on the worn trunk, sword by his side. Indra runs a hand through his bangs, laughing in disbelief.

Had he stuck with the Leaf Village, would he have just crossed paths with Itachi at the perfect moment? With Asura as company, it would seem so. Utterly unbelievable.

"Who the fuck are you?!" Hidan snarls, brandishing the scythe in his hands and Indra looks to the sky, contemplating praying for patience. His eyes land on the moon, a thin sliver of a crescent and his mouth turns in a firm, downwards frown. Fuck praying when that's the only god up there. He'll take his chances on a life without any gods.

"Your worst fucking nightmare, 'ttebayo!" And she's off, pack hitting the floor a moment after her fist collides with Hidan's face.

She makes good contact, there's a satisfying crack that must be his cheekbone, a wild smile on Asura's face. Fuck, she looks very attractive mid-fight. How has he never noticed that?

Oh yeah, he's always been busy being the one dodging those tiny fists. He should watch her more often, it's much better being on the side-lines.

Shifting his weight about until it no longer stresses his ribs, Indra settles in for a fight, chakra pooling behind his eye-sockets but not yet activated. Just in case. He's relatively certain he won't have to interfere, relatively certain Asura will crush this one like she does all her opponents in the end (or convert them, but he'd rather not have this psycho on their side and he thinks Asura agrees with that), but it never hurts to be prepared.

There's a thunderous bang, the two of them separating with the force of the blow and Indra watches as a Rasengan blooms to life in her hand, wind chakra following up a moment later. Now that, that's impressive. Probably terrifying to be on the other end of, especially when it gets thrown at you like that, but hey, Indra's not been in that boat yet. He has no plans to be either. He's perfectly content on watching the destruction that particular attack causes from behind Asura's back.

Hidan goes down and he goes down hard. Once again, unsurprising, but isn't this supposed to be one of the immortal ones? Hey, he'd done his research prior to hunting down Itachi but, upon learning this one was dead (out of commission?) he'd not put too much effort into remembering the key details. He'd been much more concerned with-

With the figure walking out the bushes right now.

.

Fuck.

.

What the actual fuck?

.

What else is there to do, other than laugh at the fact Uchiha Itachi has just walked in on this fight, walked onto this dirt path to find Indra sitting on his makeshift bench losing his marbles as Asura mops the floor with Hidan (who isn't an Akatsuki member then, given his lack of cloak?). He barely offers enough focus to register the blue haired woman and the semi-masked one (not Tobi, not Indra's immediate problem), too busy trying to contain his hysterical laughter at the behest of his aching ribs.

"Eh? Little Itachi?" Asura babbles because of course she does. His brother is (Indra performs some very quick mental maths, nose scrunching with the thought) sixteen right now and doesn't seem to have grown at all since killing the rest of the Uchiha clan.

Huh. Maybe he hits a growth spurt this year? He must do because at the moment, he's the same height as Asura. He's shorter than Indra himself and that's a mind fuck and a half.

"Idiot," Indra scoffs but it's clear his favourite idiot in the whole world is sufficiently distracted from her fight and it won't be long until Hidan gets up and goes for her, despite what should have been a killing blow. His eye twists from black to red and black, the dark flames of Amaterasu exploding to life and swallowing Hidan whole.

Let's see him get up from that.

"Wha- Indra!" Asura turns on him, unbelievably putting the three actual Akatsuki members (they're in the cloaks, they're the enemy right now; he's gonna rip that cloak right off Itachi's shoulders) to her back. "You can't just sit the fight out and then jump in at the last second, you bastard!"

She actually shakes her tiny (world-shattering) fist at him. Cute. He's having flashbacks, it's nostalgic. How hadn't his younger self realised this idiot was the one for him?

Maybe he's more like Madara that he previously thought; that bastard had been massively invested in the idiot that was Hashirama, hadn't he? If Hashirama or Madara had been born a girl, Indra would bet everything he owns that the Leaf Village would have been cemented in an alliance with a marriage.

Maybe he's just the first in a long line to have his life-assigned idiot be born a girl?

"We've got more important things to deal with," Indra mutters, waving a hand towards the three Akatsuki that seem to be torn somewhere between 'attack' and 'what the fuck'. Indra's experienced that particular mix too many times to count. Now, he just gets on with it, has a lovely little balance between the two and can take all the events that occur during that time and shove them into a mental compartment to be revisited while having his next breakdown. He's mentioned this before, hasn't he?

Eh, the point stands.

"But the only one that's an issue is Stitches?" Asura says it like a question, but it's really not. Not for Indra, not for her- oh, it's for the benefit of their audience.

Slowly clambering to his feet, Indra lifts his arms above his head, ribs screeching in protest but they're just gonna have to deal with it if this goes the way he thinks it's gonna go. Because Asura's good, but the genjutsu-breaking demon in her belly is asleep so, if Itachi catches her, then she's out of commission. Which means he'll have to deal with his (big or little?) brother.

"I can't fight for long, Asura. My ribs are broken."

"Wha- what the fuck do you mean your ribs are broken, bastard!"

"You watched me wrap them this morning, idiot." How can she be so oblivious?

"I thought it was just another one of your weird-ass fashion choices!" Which, fair enough, he's had a few of those over the years.

.

A quick flash of chakra to his left eye has the Rinnegan spinning to life and all three of the Akatsuki, who've been watching them with something akin to horrified fascination (for different reasons, he hopes), flinch back in surprise.

"Let's get this over with."