New chapter yay.
Enjoy.
What was the last thing Amber could remember? The beautiful landscape she was wandering? The little child that she saw on the road? The assault that suddenly appeared? Ore maybe the feeling of her power being sucked out of her?
The truth was that she remembered it all, she had time to think over the past time. Right now she knew she wasn't awake, she knew that something terrible has happened.
She felt like she was drowning, like water permanently in her nose and mouth but never running out of oxygen. She couldn't hear anything except for a permanent static sound.
By now she didn't even mind, the sound and the struggling has long vanished into the background of her mind. The only question that she had now was what she was supposed to do now?
All she wanted was to help those who couldn't help themselves, those who were to weak to fend for themselves, those who only wanted peace. Now she was stuck in this limbo.
How long was it now? A week, a year, a decade? She didn't even know if her body was still there, maybe it has already rotted away. That would throw up the question if this was it.
Was this the afterlife? A simple mess of nothing? Was this really her final reward for becoming a maiden and dedicating her life to help the weekend people?
Those questions didn't even bother her anymore, she was way to long in this place to care. Maybe this was it, the end was a simple place were one could simply digest there mind until they completely disappear from existence.
Suddenly however she felt something different, this slight change she noticed immediately. It felt like someone was grabbing her, holding her in place.
She didn't even dare to move as she felt another hand. This hand however did something else, it felt like a knife trailing along her skin. Suddenly it slowly dug into her side.
She didn't feel pain but she felt that something was being cut from her. It took a while but it felt like something that was a part of her has been almost completely removed, she did feel some little tingling spots were the cut had begun.
The next thing she felt was how the chunk that was cut of was carefully put aside in the dark limbo. Then a tug and a pull. Inch by inch she felt like she was being pulled towards something. The tugging became more intense as she tried to move, to look were she was being pulled to.
Suddenly the pull became a powerful jank. Everything started to turn brighter and brighter. The world started to spin, it became faster and faster and with what felt like a shock that went through her entire body everything turned dark again and absolutely silent.
She felt odd, like her body completely twisted and turned. She was unable to move as she slowly started to hear. At first she thought she only herd useless sounds again but slowly the sounds turned into voices. Muffled but definitely people.
It sounded like arguing but she couldn't make out what it was. Something about changing and power that is now safe?
She tried to move and actually felt like doing something. For the longest time she couldn't move but now she noticed that it did something and she noticed that she was sitting and leaning against something. Next she slowly tried to open her eyes, that felt somehow extremely stiff.
The vision was extremely blurry as she almost only saw red. Slowly hazy figures could be seen, one of them extremely close to her face while she heard voices. She couldn't understand a word as there was the constant fuzzy sound of static.
Slowly the sound subsided and her vision cleared. She could only see the boy with red hair in front of her as he inspected her and hear only voices from the background that was still hazy for her.
"Are you certain that this works?"
The red haired boy growled. "Will you let me work? I'm trying to make the best out of a horrible situation. It's complicated and i need to concentrate."
"Then what exactly are we supposed to do? Stand here?"
"I did successfully separate her powers from her soul. Only the power remains in her body and if her soul isn't in there then she is already gone."
Those voices made no sense at all. Soul? Power? Who are they talking about? Amber started to realize that they were talking about her, she had to give a signal something to show that she was away. She forcefully tried to move her body but it felt so strange, like nothing was right in the first place.
"Shh, shh, shh. Calm down Amber and listen to me." The boy said in front of her. The voices behind him were silent but she still could only make out hazy figures.
"My name is Sasori and I want to help you. Please follow my finger with your eyes." The puppet master slowly moved his index finger from side to side, while ember tried her best to move her eyes. They felt heavy for some reason.
Sasori leaned forward and did something to the side of her head. A wired tingling feeling rushed over her eyes. "Try again."
This time her eyes moved easier then before and Sasori nodded satisfied. Amber tried to speak but her voice felt raspy and heavy while no sound escaped her lips which didn't feel like they moved at all.
Pulled something out of his ear. It was a small earpiece on which he flipped a little button. "Please repeat so everyone can hear you."
Amber was confused but tried again. She was surprised to hear hear a voice coming coming out of the earpiece that said exactly what she was saying in a very mechanical voice. "Were am I? What is going on?"
Sasori raised his and and spoke. "Everyone leave the room, she is my patient and my responsibility. Nagato, you wait outside. Ozpin, we will talk once she is able and excepted her situation."
There were hush whispers before she hear foot steps leaving. Sasori kneeled down in front of her and touched the side of her head again. A few clicking sounds were audible before her vision returned to perfect normality, in fact it seemed almost better. She appeared to be in a wide open dark vault or something
Sasori pressed the button on the earpiece and put it back into his ear. He looked concerned at her and with a hint of regret in his eyes. "Amber, what do you remember?"
"I was attacked. Someone attacked me. I can't remember there faces." Amber answered as she didn't felt her lips moving but Sasori nodded like he understood.
"I won't sugarcoat it and I will tell you no lies. These attacker were after the power of a maiden and they managed to steal a part of it. Your body was heavily damaged together with your soul, you could never wake up in your state." The puppet master answered.
"But I am awake." She answered confused.
Sasori looked to the side. Ambers eyes followed his gaze and spotted the pod. It still contained her body. "What? That's me. How is that possible?"
"We needed to make sure to make sure the power stayed safe and not return to its other half, but I couldn't simply do nothing to help you. I did something that you might not appreciate but I decided it would be better then let you rot inside of that thing." He answered.
Amber watched as Sasori slowly showed her a mirror and held it up to her. She looked with horror at her body. It wasn't anything like her actual body, it wasn't her body at all. It was the body of Sasori's puppet, Minerva.
"I don't understand." Was the only thing Amber could muster to say.
"I decided to give you a choice. You can either die and be released from your coma and go to the afterlife, or you can live a new life as Minerva my weapon." The puppet master answered.
Amber looked down at her metal body. "To live as a puppet and a weapon of a total stranger ore die. I don't like my options."
"I know, but it's the only way I can offer my help." Sasori said with a hint of regret in his voice.
"Will you treat me well? As your puppet?"
Sasori was surprised at that question but nodded nonetheless.
"You said that this puppet was called Minerva, please continue to do that. Amber died in that attack, this is a new life for me." She simply answered.
Sasori smiled and stood up. "Well then Minerva, let's change the world together."
Minerva stood up but her legs suddenly gave away at this unnatural amount of weight and proportion of her body. Before she could fall Sasori used his strings to make her regain balance and sat her down.
"Without my strings you won't be able to fight, but with patience and training you should be able to do minor things. In sure it won't take long until you can walk and carry things by yourself. Sadly you won't be able to do more than that on your own." Sasori answered.
Minerva looked up again and tried to reach him with a shaking arm. "Then lend me a hand and teach me how to live me new life."
Out in the city two Akatsuki members were walking down the streets in civilian clothing. One however had his sword strapped on his back.
Itachi and Kisame were walking through the busy shopping district while Itachi held a pice of paper with a address in his hands. "Why dose Roman want us to meet with this guy?" The shark asked confused.
"Apparently owner of that bookstore is actually a Fanus of white fang and he wishes to leave. Apparently he has some information that Roman doesn't have and could prove useful. He gave us time to speak with him before he sends some executioners to end him." Itachi answered as he looked around for the shop while Kisame followed.
"Normally he gives us Intel on there raids ore the facts about the amount of dust they have already collected, to which we only observe, but what is important about this guy?" The shark asked confused.
"My guess is that Roman hopes that this guy has information about this Neo and hops we can squeeze it out of him." The uchiha answered.
It only took a while longer but after a while they managed to find 'Tuxons book store'. They immediately noticed that the blinds were closed, which was unnatural during this kind of time and immediately readied themselves.
They quickly slipped through the door and prepared for combat. Itachi eyes were glowing while Kisame's hand was gripping his blade. The stench of death crept into there noses.
"Seems we are to late." Kisame answered as he let go of his blade. In the middle of the room was a man with his head gone while blood and pieces of his head were scattered all over the room.
"That's odd, it's doubtful that Roman would make such a mistake." Itachi said as he to relaxed a bit.
Kisame crossed his arms. "Looks like someone really doesn't like Tuxon or someone with authority in the organization Roman works with starts to distrust him."
Itachi only walked over to the body and kneeled down in front of it. "You look around, I will inspect the body."
Kisame did just that while Itachi examined the corps. He looked at every detail of the stump were his head should be and checked his pockets for anything of interest. Then he spotted claw marks on the desk and quickly concluded that these marks come from the dead Fanus in front of him.
After coming up with a theory he saw Kisame coming back from his investigations while he red a book labeled 'Ninjas of love'.
Itachi only raised a eyebrow. "Found anything interesting?"
Kisame shook his head while flipping a page. "He prepared to leave pretty soon, I found packed bags in the storage room. Other than that, nothing."
"And that book?"
Kisame shrugged. "I see Blake from time to time reading that, apparently she is already through that book several times but won't lend it to anyone."
"How is it?" Itachi asked.
Kisame closed the book and put it back into a shelf. "Remember the books from jiraiya in our world?"
Itachi nodded.
"It's worse and filled with ninja cringe." The shark answered while shivering.
Itachi only chuckled. Then it crossed his mind to actually grab the book to see for himself what kind of imagination Blake has what a Ninja is.
"Did you figure out what happened here?" Kisame's question stopped Itachi from thinking up a plan how to get the book without his partner knowing it.
The uchiha looked over to the desk with the claw marks. "My hypothesis is that Tuxon realized that he was standing in front of his enemy and tried to attack them by leaping from the desk at the attacker. Looks like the attacker reacted fast and countered by blasting his head of with a heavy firearm very close to his face."
Kisame crossed his arms. "Either Tuxon was a idiot for leaping at someone with a heavy firearm or he didn't know it. That means the weapon was likely to be concealed."
Itachi stood back up. "We won't be able to get anything more out of this, let's return to the school before someone wanders into this shops and spots us with a corpse. I don't believe that the police will believe me again that I acted out of self defense."
Kisame nodded and exited the bookstore. Before Itachi followed him he quickly grabbed the book that Blake read so often and hid it before exited as well.
In the cafeteria the rest of the Akatsuki members were silent sitting there while eating there food. Normal they would sit at a other table, closer to Team RWBY and JNPR but as thing were at the moment it was wiser to maintain distance. There have also been rumors spreading that Itachi and Hidan go on regularly hunts to murder criminals to satisfy there bloodlust. Naturally people concluded that the rest of the Akatsuki were also murderers.
Hidan, Kakuzu Deidara and Konan were sitting there, hearing hushed whispers and glares in there directions. Normally Hidan would shout at them, treating them to run away or find themselves in a puddle of there own blood but now it felt just so trivial. "This sucks." He finally breathed out.
Kakuzu nodded. "I agree, the rising prices of dust is just ridiculous. I mean I know we work with Roman, but could we at least get a share of there loot?"
"That's not what I meant you greedy fuck!" The Immortal barked at his partner.
Konan only shook her head with a week smile. "Never thought to see you being heart broken over a girl."
"I'm- shut up!"
Deidara only laughed but quickly his smile disappeared. "Well, I think the time for us to feel normal is over. Pretty sure it won't take long for us to be kicked from the school. That is if Sasori doesn't manage to save that girl."
Everyone of the Akatsuki new about the secret vault underneath the school, they were a team from the beginning and wouldn't keep something like that from another. Deidara looked up at the ceiling and continued to talk lost in thought. "The worst thing is that our new found friends won't talk to us. Weiss isn't even looking in my direction, probably because she connects the fact that I like blow stuff up and that I'm a murder. I'm basically a madman in her eyes that just wants to blow stuff up."
"Sounds like you believe that you aren't mad." Kakuzu said with jest in his voice.
Before Deidara could answer however people started to run towards the exit. The Akatsuki members stood up and prepared for the worst but relaxed as they heard some students scream "FOOD FIGHT!"
After the main amount of people left the four Akatsuki members spotted a giant fortress made out of tables and vending Machines while while Nora stood on top of it all singing that she was the queen of the castle. In the next moment team RWBY stood probably as they announced war against team JNPR. In that instance a full on food war erupted between those two teams.
Hidan smiled and was starting to walk over to team RWBY to aid them in this frenzy but was stopped by Kakuzu. "What to you think your doing?"
"I thought about trying to make peace with Ruby now. She appears to be happy right now so that would be perfect." The immortal reasoned.
Deidara only shook his head. "You would only ruin the fun."
Hidan looked at the artist confused, so Konan decided to explain the situation. "They have been permanently moody since that day Ruby saw you murder that white fang member, this is the first time any of them have smiled in a while. They probably want to talk to us but are simply petrified by what we do."
Hidan slumped in defeat. "Then what are we supposed to do?"
Kakuzu only patted him on the shoulder and led him together with the other Akatsuki members out of the cafeteria. "Right now we let them be children. Maybe one day they might need killers and have a reason to turn to us. Until then, we wait and do our own thing. We still have this organization that Roman works with to worry about."
In the night in a old warehouse that was remodeled by the white fang as a base of operation the criminal Roman Torchwick was currently having a heated argumentation with two of parents in crime. "I believe that I explicitly told you to stay out of my way! Tuxon was my problem to deal with and I had everything planned!"
A girl with green hair only shrugged. "Please we did you a favor. Mercury and i dealt with something that should've been dealt with a while ago."
A silver haired boy crossed his arms and chuckled. "I believe you aren't concentrating enough of late. My partner Emerald and I seem to clean after you again and again. Right Cinder?"
A woman with long black hair in a short red dress appeared from out of nowhere and calmly walked towards Roman. "Please children, Roman has already proven quite useful by steeling all this dust for us. However we are quite interested by those individuals who attack you recently."
Roman shrugged annoyed. "I already told you everything. A boy with red eyes with a strange pattern together with a boy who had a three bladed scythe attacked us and murdered some of our men."
"And I believe that I know them." A voice answered.
Out of the shadows stepped a young boy in Mercury's age. He had long straight black hair, pale skin and snake eyes. Roman immediately snared with detest. "What are you doing here Orochimaru? I believe we don't need a freak show like you here."
The snake only chuckled. "I believe you do. You see I believe that those two individuals were part of a organization that I was once a part of called the Akatsuki. I know that they were all dead but it appeared that they either deceived me or were brought back."
Cinder dismissed his rambling. "It doesn't matter, tell us what you know about them."
"Everyone of them is a war Maschine by themselves, they usually work in pairs but together they are unstoppable. Important to remember is that everyone has a bloody history and won't even hesitate to kill, even if they kill someone dear to them they probably won't shed a tear." Orochimaru explained.
"Bloody history?" Roman asked confused.
"Murder of Familie, religious insanity, tearing people's hearts out in oder to prolong ones life and have monsters fight by his side, the list is long." The snake explained while shrugging.
"Whatever they are we need to consider them in our plans. Let's begin with phrases two." Cinder explained while walking away, followed by her two companions and Orochimaru.
"And what dose that mean exactly? Do I get to know?" Roman asked out loud, hoping to get more information for the Akatsuki to give.
Cinder only turned around and laughed. "Oh Roma, you know the things that you need to know."
Roman was alone again, cursing under his breath the fact that Neo was still out there and he couldn't do anything. At least that snake was here now and not with her and he could tell the Akatsuki about the fact that Orochimaru was here. But Orochimaru's words still lingered In his mind.
Were the Akatsuki really nothing more then a bunch of killers? What kind of ensures dose he have that the Akatsuki will keep there end of the bargain? Whatever the case, its better then to do nothing.
As it became dark the two Akatsuki members Kisame and Itachi were currently walking back to there dorms. There investigation if anyone has seen somebody suspicious exit or entered the bookstore proved futile.
As they round the corner they abruptly stopped to see team RWBY standing right in front of them. A awkward silence followed as the girls slowly took a step back.
Kisame noticed that they were covered in food and smiled. "Interesting day?"
Ruby nodded immediately and answered nervously. "Yes, yours?"
"Nothing special, Itachi and I just decided to walk in the city a bit. Right Itachi?" The shark answered as he nudged his partner with his elbow.
In that moment the book that Itachi was hiding fell out of his shirt and landed on the floor with the cover facing up for everyone to see. Slowly everyone's head, especially Blake's went from the book to Itachi who just silently stood there like nothing happened.
His eyes looked down at the book and after a short pause he whistled. "How did that get there? Well, I better bring it back tomorrow before anyone misses it."
"Ninjas of love?" Kisame asked confused.
Itachi remained calm and simply shrugged. "Is that what that name says? I thought it said ninja of gore."
Team RWBY slowly walked passed them and continued to walk down the hall. As they disappeared behind a corner Itachi fell on his knees with his head hung low. "This was humiliating."
The shark only shook his head. "How the mighty have fallen."
Meanwhile in the room of team KSDH three members were already in bed. Hidan, Deidara and Kakuzu were last member Sasori slowly backed into the room while helping Minerva to walk by holding her hands. Slow stepp after Slow step she made here way to Sasori's bed and sat down. "Good you are learning fast, you will walk in no time by yourself."
Minerva glanced over to the other members of Sasori's team who were all asleep. "Are those the people we will work with?"
Sasori nodded. "Yes, they are a bit ruff around the edges but good people all together."
In that moment Hidan let out a loud fart followed by a laughter.
"Like I said, ruff around the edges."
Before Minerva could speak she felt suddenly fuzzy again. Sasori noticed that and answered her. "You may be in a new body now but I remodel it a bit in order for you to feel human. During combat its deactivated but now it's active and shows you human desire to sleep and rest. That should also help you getting use to your new body and less awkward to be awake while I sleep the entire night."
As he said those words Minerva already fell into slumber on Sasori's bed. Noticing this he thought for a moment were to sleep now until he ultimately decided to sleep with her in the bed.
This meant nothing though Sasori slowly fell asleep. She is simply one of his latest masterpieces that now happens to have human emotions and a personality. Nothing abnormal.