Chapter 12: Meet the Akatsuki Arc - Where Did He Go?

I originally planned to include more stuff in this chapter, but I ended up splitting it in two when it went over 5000 words. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or the Akatsuki!


Kagami's POV

Surprisingly, everybody seemed to be getting along well with each other, aside from Hidan and Kakuzu.

Although I wanted to stop them, Naoki consoled me quickly, explaining that they usually did that kind of intense arguing a lot. So every time I saw them fight, I shook my head, but my inner still wanted me to stop them. I didn't really mind the language that Hidan used at all, but at the same time, it was quite unhealthy.

It was past supper time, and I had finally gotten a basic grasp of who all of the members of Akatsuki were, and what kittens they had been. I facepalmed as soon as I realized that I had named Hidan Twinkleshine, wondering what in the world I was thinking. In addition, I finally understood why Sasori was so upset about being dubbed Rosie — a girl's name. Of course, any puppet-man would be irritated if they were named that, but then again, I had no idea that he was a puppet then. That morning then they had turned back into humans was also the same morning when I realized what Rin said was right. The kittens really were something else: actual humans who could perform ninja skills. However, I was still unsure about the rest of what Rin had said. It really didn't have anything to do with the powers of the Akatsuki, since she had mentioned something about them being lost. I mean, maybe she was talking about how they became kittens and got lost in our town. Sometimes, I found it hard to talk to them, since most were stoic and scary-looking.

Good thing Naoki-nii-chan is a walking encyclopedia about the Akatsuki.

He was the only one in our family that spent that much time watching anime, movies, and cartoons. Staring at the television was definitely his favorite thing to do, and if somebody so much as turned the TV off or lowered the volume while he was watching, that would be a kick to the shin.

I didn't really watch television that much, but Star Wars was actually an amazing saga. We have watched it over four million times already, but then again, we couldn't help it. It was just that good, minus all of the death and destruction.

Deidara, who had been Firework, was one I felt like I should apologize to. Originally, I thought he was a girl, even after he returned to being a human, but once I had heard his voice, I knew that I had confused his gender. But just like how badly my inner wanted to stop Kakuzu's and Hidan's fight, I felt like that I should at least have a little more fun with Deidara and get the Akatsuki to laugh.

Sure, I thought to myself. They may be S-rank criminals, but that doesn't mean that they can't laugh. After all, they did laugh when Yukio punished Hidan for spewing come colorful vocabulary in front of me.

Spotting the blond-haired boy standing in the middle of the living room, I walked up to him and tapped his shoulder. He spun around, smiling at me.

"Did you need something, Kagami?" he said, giving me a happy expression, surprising me slightly.

S-rank criminals can be happy as well, I mentally noted. But still, I kind of want to make everybody around us smile and laugh…

"Lady Deidara?" I asked him innocently. "I can't find Tobi anywhere. Do you know where he could be?"

I snickered as he dropped his smile, replacing it with a glare and an angry scowl. Off to the side, a few Akatsuki members laughed. "Who are you calling a lady, un?" he growled at me. "I'm a man, not a woman! And why would I know where that brainless idiot Tobi could be?"

Shrugging, I continued, a fake smile plastered on my face. "I thought you would know, since he's your best friend, right?"

I thought I could see tick marks appearing on his forehead. "Me and Tobi...best friends? I can't ever see that happening, un!"

Giggling, I continued. "I'll go find him, then. He's probably looking for some candy or something, now that he's not a kitten anymore. Onee-chan told me yesterday that candy is bad for cats, but maybe it's safe for him now, since people can eat candy whenever they want to!"

"Actually, no," Deidara corrected, calming down slightly, "Just sugar alone is a dangerous thing for Tobi, un. Zetsu gave him sugar at one point and...well, when I woke up, everything was either broken, damaged, burned, or on the roof of our base. Standing in the middle of all of that chaos was a very hyperactive Tobi."

I shuddered slightly, then quickly shook my head. "I can see Tobi being a hyperactive maniac, but I can't see him doing all of that destruction on purpose. Actually, why do you hate Tobi so much anyways, Lady Deidara?"

He visibly twitched at the nickname again, but answered my question. "To me, Tobi is very annoying and someone I can easily do without, un. On missions, he always sleeps and slouches on the job in very irritating ways, even while we're facing dangerous monsters, such as the Three-Tails, a giant, monstrous turtle. Even more, he has made fun of my art a few times, calling it a ripoff!"

"So he just annoys you, then?" I asked him, and he nodded in confirmation. At this, I cocked a brow, then decided to ask him a different question. "You seem to take a huge pride in your art. Tell me, what kind of things do you draw?"

He began to growl at me, but calmed down and patted my head. "Art isn't limited to just drawings, Kagami. You don't need a pen to create it. It doesn't have to be a drawing. I spend a lot of my time making clay sculptures of animals and people. In my opinion, art is something beautiful that lasts for a single moment, appearing once, and then disappearing forever. In other words—"

"Don't say it!" exclaimed Naoki suddenly. "You might scare her!"

I blinked at my brother. "It's okay, nii-chan! What's wrong with saying 'Art is an explosion?'"

In response, Deidara smirked, realizing that I was on his side for this one. "How did you know I was going to say that, un?"

"Context," I explained. "And when you blew up onee-chan's clay pot, none of the other cats seemed surprised, so I assumed that you made explosions a lot and enjoyed them. However, it was kind of hard to tell, since we were all panicking back then about our situation."

He patted me on the head again. "You're pretty smart for a seven-year-old. Well, I'll leave you to search for Tobi, but that will not change the way I feel about him, un."

I nodded, smiling at him. "Okay! Bye-bye, Lady Deidara!"

His happy expression faded once again, and I ran off, giggling. I could hear him seething with anger from all the way upstairs, but deciding that he would eventually calm down, I walked into my room in order to evaluate recent events in my journal. Well, it said that it was a journal, but I liked to call it my diary. After all, I did write about my feelings in there.

Dear Diary,

The past couple of days have been amazing, fun, but at the same time, weird. Naoki-nii-chan and onee-chan adopted ten strange rainbow-colored kittens, which were apparently washed onto our front porch. When I woke up the morning after they were taken in, I took an instant liking to a one-eyed cat that I named Fuzzsticks. But eventually, one thing led to another, and all of the kittens proved themselves to be magical S-rank criminals that are part of a gang called the Akatsuki. Even more, I got visited in a dream by this mysterious girl named Rin. By the looks of her situation, she probably died some time ago, and knew about the Akatsuki at one point. In addition, she seemed to know stuff about us, too...maybe even some stuff that we don't even know ourselves. I want to talk to her some more, but I can't right now. Rin seemed exhausted from performing whatever forbidden jutsu she performed last night, and I wish to respect the fact that all of us get tired at some point, dead or alive. However, that boy she mentioned wanting to talk to badly...there are nine boys in the Akatsuki, so I have no idea who she could be talking about. Although I want to tell my family about the odd dream in the Pure Land, I can't. I can only mention it in these very pages in which I write and keep hidden. It's all a whirlwind of feelings right now. I've never been so torn over anything before. I can't believe that I'm keeping something — something that seems very important — a secret from the ones that I love. I don't know what to do, but I'm going to go distract myself by playing with Tobi, the one who I had called "Fuzzsticks". Until next time!

Signed,

Kagami Hoshiyume

Shutting my diary and putting the lock back on it, I got up and began my search for the masked man.

"Tobi!" I called in every room. "Are you there? Tobi?"

I intruded my siblings' bedrooms as well, but he wasn't poking around in there, either. A worried expression growing on my face, I rushed downstairs, searching for my lost friend.

"Onee-chan!" I said as I bumped into my sister. "Have you seen Tobi?"

She shook her head. "Maybe he's hiding somewhere, imouto. Perhaps he wants you to look for him? I'll help you find him, since he might get into trouble if he is left alone for too long."

I clapped my hands happily, but on the inside, I was still quite worried about Tobi. "Yeah! Thank you so much!"


Kaiya's POV

After nearly an hour of looking, neither of us were able to find the masked man anywhere. Night had fallen upon the world, and it was almost bedtime for all four of us. However, until I found Tobi, I probably wouldn't be able to get some sleep anyway.

"My goodness," I muttered under my breath, "I don't know where else the silly boy can be hiding!"

Kagami shrugged and smiled, which she had been doing for the majority of the search. "Maybe we haven't looked hard enough yet, onee-chan! He might be telling all the other Akatsuki members to hide him as we speak! Or maybe he's down there!"

I let out a gasp. "The basement? No way!"

Inwardly panicking, I headed towards the living room to see if someone had entered the secret basement, and sure enough, the cabinet that the entrance was hidden behind had been obviously moved. From there, anybody could see that there was a small staircase leading to below the house.

Grabbing a flashlight that we kept on top of the cabinet, I motioned for Kagami to follow me, and she nodded. "Come on," I said. "There's no limit to how much trouble Tobi can cause down there."

We pushed the cabinet aside and squeezed past the entrance, walking quickly down the dusty steps. I flicked the flashlight on, and shined it down towards the basement, trying to observe any damage.

To my surprise, there was no damage. Everything was still intact, even all the glassware that we kept down there. There were no burn marks on anything, so Tobi certainly hadn't used his jutsu yet.

"Where is he, then?" I asked myself, despite knowing Kagami was by my side. "Kagami, do you see—"

"Tobi!" she suddenly exclaimed in delight, eyes focused on the far corner of. "There you are!"

I turned where Kagami was facing, just in time for Tobi to turn off whatever gadget he had in his hand. "Oh, Kagami-chan!" he said as soon as he saw the girl. "Does Kagami-chan want to play with Tobi? Tobi was bored, so Tobi looked through this strange gadget that Naoki-san called a cell phone!"

I blinked. "Where did you get the cell phone from, Tobi?"

He bounced up and down playfully. "Tobi has his ways, Kagami-chan! Tobi found the cell phone in Kaiya-chan's room! It has all of these cool buttons and buzzing things!" Pushing a button, he squealed when the rubber ducky sound played.

But unfortunately, I was not amused. Only two people in our house owned a cell phone. Of those two people, only one of them had that ringtone installed in their phone, so I knew exactly whose phone Tobi had stolen, especially since he had gotten it from that same person's room.

I charged at Tobi, anger flaring in my eyes. "Give me back my cell phone, Tobi!"

He yelped, then quickly handed the phone to me to avoid being crushed to a pulp. "Tobi is sorry, Kaiya-chan! Tobi didn't know!"

Stopping my sudden lungs at him, I took a deep breath before calming myself down again. "It's fine. I just hope I didn't receive any messages while I was looking for you with Kagami."

At that, he began jumping up and down again. "Oh! Tobi knows what those are! In fact, Tobi saw one from a person named Daichi on Kaiya-chan's phone an hour ago!"

I quickly snatched the phone, my face heating up. "D-D-Daichi? Why would he send a message to m-me?"

Unlocking my phone, I quickly looked at the message that he had sent me.

Hey, Kaiya-chan, it read. I was wondering if you wanted to study together with me in the library tomorrow at lunch? My brother wants you to help him with his Algebra homework.

I almost squealed, quickly typing a response and checking it to make sure that I had texted in complete sentences without making any mistakes.

Of course, Daichi-kun! I replied, my heart pounding. I would love to! Sorry that this is such a late reply, but my phone went missing when you sent your message!

I pushed the send button, then waited patiently for the reply that came about a minute later:

That's perfectly fine! We all lose our phones at some point. See you tomorrow at school!

Smiling, I turned off the phone, lucky that the room was too dark for anybody to see me blush. Unfortunately, Kagami saw everything, then smirked.

"Is he asking you on a date, onee-chan?" she asked, even though

I was pretty sure that she was too young to know what a date was.

Shrugging, I answered her question. "Well, yeah. A study date, if that counts. But isn't this wonderful, imouto? Daichi-kun called me Kaiya-chan!"

Kagami sweatdropped. "Naoki-nii-chan said that Daichi-san had been calling you that for months now, onee-chan. Also, you're not exactly going to be alone with him. His brother is coming along too, remember?"

Upon the realization hitting me, I sighed sadly. "Oh...right. And Tobi, why did you go into our hidden basement to play with my phone? How did you find it, anyway?"

"Tobi leaned against the cabinet, and the stairs led to down here!" he answered. "Tobi wanted to explore a little bit, so Tobi walked around the basement a little until Tobi got bored and played with Kaiya-chan's phone."

"I see," I answered plainly. "But if you wanted to play with Kagami, next time, stay in the living room. It's bedtime for all of us."

When she heard the phantom word, Kagami immediately pouted. "Aww! I wanted to stay up late and play with Tobi!"

"Not tonight, imouto," I said, shaking my head. "Tomorrow, we have to go back to school, and remember how early I have to take you to Glory Meadows Elementary?"

Kagami huffed. "Fine! At least I'll get to talk to Tobi!"

"Tobi has to sleep, too," I told her. "Come on, let's go set up your room so that both of you can get some rest."

All three of us climbed out of the basement, with me leading the way with my flashlight. As soon as all of us had gotten out of the basement, I quickly sealed off the entrance by placing the cabinet back.

"I'll tuck you in, Kagami," I said, running up the stairs. She nodded, bouncing up the stairs with Tobi right behind her, squealing.

Smiling, I shook my head, watching the two playmates bounce up the stairs. "Hurry up," I playfully called to them, "or else the sweet dreams won't be able to get to you!"

Kagami's eyes widened, then she quickly grabbed Tobi's hand while running up the stairs in a great haste. Laughing, I opened the door to her bedroom, and she quickly rushed inside.

I followed her, taking a hidden mattress and sleeping bag rolled up in the corner and setting them up on an open area on the floor. Kagami grabbed a pillow and a couple of stuffed animals, then handed them to Tobi, who squealed with delight.

"Tobi wants to know what his name is!" he said, showing Kagami a stuffed dove.

"Her name is Mitsukai," she told him. "It means Angel."

Tobi hugged the little stuffed bird. "Tobi really likes Mitsukai! Can Tobi have her?"

Kagami nodded. "Of course!"

"Okay, Tobi," I announced, "I finished making your bed!"

Tobi placed the pillow on the floor and flung himself onto the mattress, happily bouncing on it with Mitsukai in his arms.

"Well," I said, "I'm going to leave you two to rest up, okay? Sleep tight, Kagami and Tobi!"

"Goodnight, onee-chan!" Kagami called as I turned off the lights and closed the door.

Sighing, I headed towards my own room, exhausted from what had happened. I had never fainted in my life, but seeing a bunch of S-rank criminals in my living room was enough to knock me out.

Honestly, I thought, I thought that I would faint for the first time after passing out from exhaustion, not from the Akatsuki. Although they are pretty weird people, at least they're friendly.

Walking into my room, I quickly changed into my pajamas, then remembering that Konan and Pein were going to be in my room, pulled out two sleeping bags and set them both up on the floor.

I didn't have any extra mattresses for them, but I placed the sleeping bags on my fuzzy carpet, so that they would be comfortable throughout the night. Next, I took two pillows from my bed and set one beside each sleeping bag, making sure that everything was neat and ready to be used.

Once I had finished, I threw myself onto the bed tiredly, hugging my stuffed fennec fox.

"Ah, Kitsune-chan," I whispered to the fox. "Today was quite strange. But still, I feel happy that I got to make new friends today. And even better, Daichi asked me out on a study date...with his brother."

Daichi and I had been friends since the beginning of high school, but I had only begun developing a small crush on him at the beginning of our junior year. I did not wish to tell him that, but like all cliché high school romance stories, I was probably going to have to tell him at some point.

I laid down on the bed, holding Kitsune-chan as the darkness began to surround me, allowing me to close my eyes and try to fall asleep.

Ten minutes later, I heard a scream.


A/N: The chapter splits here. I am almost done with the other half, and will probably end up posting it later tonight. Sorry if this was rather bland, but I'm currently drowning in a ton of schoolwork that suddenly got shoved at me. But as for the other part — expect the unexpected!

Question: What is/was your favorite and least favorite subject at school? My favorite is English, but I dislike Science because of our new curriculum.

See you all later tonight!

— Tenshi —