Chapter 2

AN: Jesus christ, and here I thought summer would be a calm period. Many apologies for the delay, work kicked my ass. Enjoy the next chapter.

-XXXXXX-

The rain had stopped when they got back to Konoha and the clouds were slowly parting as they came through the gate. Ushered in by the sentries, they walked through the wet streets where small puddles still were doing their best to sink into the dirt road and were left splashing as they were struck by the feet whose owners at last could be out and move without getting too wet. The trio of young shinobi that were heading for the Hokage tower, however, were still dampened in spirit even as the weather had dried up. Kimiko's face, now healed, was a study in barely contained frustration and her teammates didn't seem much happier as they walked towards the Hokage Tower to give their report. They were given a wide berth as most civilians knew well the sight of shinobi returning from a mission that had gone south. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

On the path, however, there was one who did stop them. Coming around the corner from a side alley and starting down in their opposite direction, Sarutobi Asuma came. At first neither side noticed each other but after a couple of seconds Asuma's and Konohamaru's eyes met, the elder Sarutobi beginning to slow down as he met the trio of younger shinobi.

"How'd the mission go?" he asked before coming to a stop, Kimiko noticing him first now and coming to a clear stop along with Sasuke, forcing Konohamaru to stop as well. The mood didn't improve by this one bit, Konohamaru silently scowling but at the very least acknowledging Asuma's presence. Kimiko sighed, meanwhile, and looked into the distance.

"South," she said bitterly, Asuma nodding slowly.

"Bad info?" he asked before taking a puff of his cigarette. Being in the Hokage's inner circle gave him insight into most missions these days and Kimiko's mission was no exception. Kimiko responded by shaking her head.

"Ambush," she said with no more cheer. "Someone I haven't seen in a long time..."

"May I ask?" Asuma wondered now, not pushing the issue but merely putting it out there. It was an open no-strings-attached offer to listen. Kimiko shrugged.

"Sakura-chan," she said, her voice clearly showing how upset it made her. Asuma grimaced.

"At the very least you got out alive" he said. "Any ambush you walk away from went well." Kimiko only sighed and Sasuke stepped in.

"It was... troubling to see her again. She's fallen far," he stated, remember the wild-eyed madwoman they'd met. He thought back on the shy intellectual she'd been in the academy and felt a sting of anger at Kimiko's older brother for what had become of the young girl. Asuma shook his head.

"I won't push the issue," he told them respectfully. "Actually, I was hoping to ask you something," he said as he turned to Konohamaru.

"What?" Konohamaru asked spitefully, yelping in the next moment as Kimiko slapped him over the head without missing a single beat or indeed even looking. Rubbing the back of his head, he glared at her before clearing his throat. "I mean, what is it?" he asked with a much more neutral voice.
"Would you mind taking it elsewhere?" Asuma asked, glancing to Kimiko and Sasuke.

"No, but you can tell them too," Konohamaru said, still without spite however. That was all that stopped Kimiko from slapping him again. Asuma didn't push it.

"I... am getting married in a couple of months," he revealed, Konohamaru blinking.

"The fu..." he began but held his tongue. "Okay. so...?"

"Yeah," Asuma continued, the awkwardness so thick that you could cut it with a knife. "I... wanted to ask you if you would come... and if you did, in what capacity?"

"Capacity how?" Konohamaru asked him.

"If you'd be okay with it, nothing would make me happier to have you there as my nephew... but if that is too much, you could come as just a guest, or not at all." Team 7 all looked at Asuma, Kimiko with open shock on her face. If Konohamaru went as just a guest or was absent, that'd both be the kind of stuff that caused a scandal. Asuma Sarutobi inviting his only relative as just some guest or not even inviting... Kimiko wasn't much for social niceties, preferring to be blunt, but her head almost spun at the thought of the gossip-fest that'd unleash.

"Hey, isn't that supposed to be your day?" Konohamaru asked, no less shocked. "Shouldn't you be pushing a little harder to get me to come in the 'proper' way?" he asked, making finger-quotes.

"It'll be my day no matter what," Asuma said with a slow sigh. "I just don't know if I'm justified in demanding you to be part of it."

"Sheesh, guilt-trip me a little more will you?" Konohamaru drawled as he looked away, fidgeting a little. For a few seconds he was quiet before grunting. "I'll think about it, okay?" he told his estranged uncle. "I'll reply in a couple weeks or something..." he muttered, looking to the side towards nowhere in particular. "Thanks for giving me the option..." he added after a while.

"Thank you," Asuma said, remaining calm but Kimiko could outright smell the waves of joy that rolled off him. It was a skill granted by the Kyuubi, pretty helpful at times like these, and she grinned up at Asuma.

"Congratulations!" she said warmly. "Can I guess who the lucky bride is? Maybe another senseeei?" she asked, Asuma replying with a stupid smile. "I thought so!" she sing-songed happily.

"Congratulations," Sasuke agreed, bowing slightly. "Pass on my well-wishes to the bride as well."

"I will," Asuma told them, "I gotta go now anyway, good luck to you as well." With those words, he departed and left Team Seven behind as he headed off to his destination, wherever that was. Kimiko looked to Konohamaru with a wide smile and ruffled his hair.

"Well done Kono-chan," she said happily, all smiles and sunshine. "I'm really proud of you right now."

"Well I couldn't tell him to fuck off now could I?" Konohamaru asked, leaning away from her to make her stop ruffle his hair. "After this mission I'd come across as an asshole if I did."

"Isn't that what you are?" Sasuke asked, causing Konohamaru to blink.

"Hey!" he began before stopping. "Well, yeah but... not like that!" he eventually protested.

"If you say so," Sasuke said airily, "Shall we proceed?" he asked Kimiko, who was hiding a smile at Konohamaru's floundering. Konohamaru gave him a murderous glare but didn't say any more as they began to walk. The mood was lightened at least somewhat but it didn't last, Kimiko being back to gloominess by the time they reached the Hokage tower. The events that preceded their return to the village weren't that easily cast from Kimiko's mind and as they walked towards the Hokage's office she walked in silence and with a face where frustration and disappointment lay clear.

As they entered the tower they once again had an encounter with familiar faces. This time it was Zaku, Kiba and Hinata, the now chuunin of Team 8. They were in a better mood by the looks of it, or at least not as foul. Zaku raised a hand to salute them as they came walking.

"Sup," he said in greeting. Zaku was perhaps one of the few who'd mellowed out in the last years, wearing a konoha uniform in addition to a large scarf. Somewhat amusingly, he'd taken to try to grow a beard but only produced a small patch of hair that he tended to with almost excessive love and care. Kimiko was usually on good footing with the Tsubaki clan, having been one of the few friends they still had in the village, but as it was she didn't find the strength to return Zaku's greeting and instead merely walked past the young man and his team, leaving Zaku to look after her with a surprised and somewhat hurt expression. After these last three years the Tsubaki clan had taken to holding the friends they still had in very high regard. Those in Konoha who didn't view the clan as potential traitors had long since learned that a Tsubaki friendship was something not lightly given but when it was, it was as firm as the mountains. Zaku was no exception and the rejection of his greeting from someone he'd held very dear left him instantly worried. Meanwhile, Kimiko and her teammates were brought into the Hokage's office where Minato awaited them.

The past three years had not been kind to the fourth Hokage as the elemental nations had been teetering on the precipice of disaster ever since the Akatsuki raid on the chuunin exams. The Raikage had half withdrawn from the alliance, refusing to commit any shinobi to joint missions or attempts or share information in the efforts to track down the Akatsuki. Kiri had gone one step further and what the Mizukage had promised after the exams had come to be. Konoha shinobi were not permitted beyond the coastlines of the elemental nations. Minato had ordered the seas to be left alone so as to not provoke any more fury from the vengeful Mizukage. Iwa lurked in the northwest, having been ominously silent for over a year. Only Suna remained even nominally friendly to Konoha, if nothing else due to the Kazekage's personal grudge towards the Akatsuki after the death of all his children in one, fell swoop. Even then the alliance built on a mutual enemy only where once there had been ties of friendship through Kimiko and Gaara. Add to this a Konoha that had been in shock after the exams, roving bands of minor clans, robber bands and all manner of miscreants seemingly coming out of the woodwork as well as an enemy that Konoha was hard pressed to get any intel whatsoever on and it was not hard to understand why the gold in Minato's hair had begun to be mixed with silver.

"Welcome back," he greeted them, the three all bowing in greeting of the Hokage. The man leaned back in his chair as he watched the three of them, his eyes going from Sasuke to Kimiko and then to Konohamaru. "Judging from how you look it didn't go well." Kimiko looked away at this, feeling once again the frustration well up inside her and Sasuke took charge now.

"We went to Tanzaku Gai, as ordered, to make contact with the Tanzu Group and convince them to hand over the Akatsuki defector. After some initial difficulties the group's Oyabun acquiesced and brought us to see that person. It turned out to be a trap. The Tanzu Group was already dead, down to the last man, and their corpses reanimated to serve as decoys. The Oyabun, meanwhile, was not reanimated but his skin was worn as a disguise by Haruno Sakura, who cornered and cut off Namikaze-san in an attempt to capture her. Sarutobi-san and I managed to fight our way through the dead yakuza and prevent Haruno from succeeding, however she got away before we could capture her." He gave his report in a brisk, unsentimental manner, leaving his personal feelings at the door.

"I see," Minato said, having clasped his hands in front of his face and sighing deeply when Sasuke was done. Leaning his forehead against the interlocked fingers, he was silent for a second before looking up. "What was your assessment of Haruno?" he asked.

"Lethally competent, ruthless to the point of psychopathy and mentally unstable," Sasuke said frankly. "She..." he hesitated for a second, glancing at Kimiko but when he was given no sign that she didn't want him to continue he kept talking. "...managed to corner and best Namikaze-san. If we hadn't intervened I am uncertain what would have happened."

Minato listened in silence to what the young Uchiha told him in silence, slowly rubbing his thumbs against each other and nodding as Sasuke spoke. He had no reason do doubt any of what he was told, yet all the same it broke his heart.

"I want a detailed report on this mission as soon as possible, especially concerning Haruno's abilities. Cooperate with the Intelligence Division on this to cross-reference what you've learned with what they know. Dismissed," he finished, sitting up straight as he looked them over. "Also... despite everything, good work escaping the ambush... you can stay Kimiko," he added after a second's hesitation. He probably broke a whole lot of rules by asking his daughter to stay behind like this, not the least the unwritten rules of professionalisms, but screw those right now.

Sasuke and Konohamaru both left the room without much ado or any objections, leaving father and daughter alone in the room. Standing up, Minato walked around the desk and came up to her. One hand landed gently on her shoulders as Minato pushed her face up with the other.

"Are you okay?" he asked her tenderly, Kimiko instantly wrapping her arms around her father as she took a deep, shivering breath. She clung to him and Minato tenderly embraced her as well, stroking her hair.

"I don't know..." Kimiko whispered. "I'm just so confused. Sakura-chan acted so weird, like some crazy hostess or something... but at the same time... it was almost like watching oniisan. She was amazing... she fought like... wow... but she seemed to hate me so much... I don't know..." she whimpered, clinging to her father as she did her best to hold back the tears. Minato let his daughter vent all her confusion and frustration but felt at the same time how his own sorrow over the situation grew with every passing word. Already his son was deep in enemy territory, seen as a traitor by everyone bar Minato, whose relationship with his son really hadn't been that splendid anyway. His daughter was left grieving the effective loss of her big brother as well as one of her closest friends. His wife had wanted to believe that it all just was one giant undercover operation but after three years of no evidence trust was low, tension and uncertainty rife and it had left Minato and Kushina all but separated. Most of these things, however, were things he had been forced to account for when making a snap decision that saw Naruto thrust into the middle of these psychopaths.

Yet... Haruno Sakura... he hadn't, couldn't, account for Naruto's little apprentice taking the leap that time, going to the very end for her master's sake. All he knew was that Sakura's defection had twisted the dagger in Kimiko's soul even more. In Kimiko's and Minato's both really; considering that Naruto had asked Minato to take care of his apprentice only to have the girl do something this unexpected.

Perhaps it didn't matter in the grand perspective, maybe Sakura was a minor player, an unforeseen consequence that could or indeed should be disregarded or removed from the board. But Minato couldn't bring himself to see it from that angle. He just couldn't. Sakura was a victim here, not a nuisance, and Minato could only remember the small, sickly girl who had been so eager to please and make her master proud. Caught in the cogs of this entire set-up, she was being ground to dust right now, and he hated it.

So what could he do? Not much as it was. Hold his daughter, comfort her and let her know that despite her failure and the painful blast from the past she'd experienced today he still was here for her. When deeds failed, he supposed love would have to do. He just hoped it did.

-XXXXXX-

In the distant, dark base of the Akatsuki, the missing-nin Haruno Sakura kow-towed in front of the robed figure that looked down on her. She carried marks of the battle she had fought still and her clothes were torn. This, coupled with the kow-towing and quiet but rapid breathing that could be heard coming from her all added to the tension of her fearful silence. The figure was staring down at her, his face unreadable behind the white mask he wore, and first after a while did the figure move. Hunching down, he reached for Sakura's head and took her by the jaw. Pulling her face upwards to look him in the eyes, the figure stared her down before finally speaking.

"So in summary, despite isolating and getting the drop on your target as well as having an entire yakuza group's worth of corpses to distract her teammates with, you failed," he asked her with a voice bereft of much of anything resembling emotions. What little emotions there were consisted of apathetic annoyance, displeasure with the results but at the same time not caring at all. It was as if the events that led to Sakura's current state didn't matter, a vestigial nuisance at best.

"Y-yes master," Sakura answered, breathless from fear and exhaustion both. As she spoke her heart pounded in her chest. She felt her body tremble with anxiety and indeed despair. Anxiety at her failure, at having had a perfect setup but never the less having nothing but a complete fiasco to show for it. The despair, meanwhile, came from the apathetic tone her master spoke with. Someone else might have been relieved by the lack of true anger yet Sakura only felt how the panic threatened to overwhelm her. Her master didn't even care about her failure! She'd done all she could, fought as smartly and as well as she could, done everything, yet she had failed and that didn't even matter to him!

"And what will you do now?" Her master asked her evenly, almost conversationally, as Sakura silently begged for him to punish her for her failure. To yell at her, ask her just how she could have failed so miserably after all he'd taught her. Sigh and shake his head in disgust and disappointment. Even hit her, let her taste the price of letting him down. Anything, as long as he showed her something other than this apathy, this disinterest. She'd given up all for the man in front of her, could he not at least care that she'd let him down? Was she so pathetic that she didn't even warrant his ire for her failure?!

"I... I will review my performance, find what I did wrong and improve on that." Sakura answered submissively. She had to find out what she had done wrong, what she had to do to improve. The young kunoichi knew she was a traitor, someone who had abandoned her family, her home and her friends. She knew that and she wasn't heartless enough that she didn't care at all about those things, no matter the facades she could put up. Yet it was the man before him that had uplifted her, turned her from a bookworm doomed to obscurity at best to someone who stood among the greatest shinobi. She was someone, someone strong, a unique person instead of a tag-along.

This wasn't due to her parents, who had considered the academy training plenty enough for their daughter. Not due to the friends she seemed to have mostly acted either substitute teacher or accessory to. Not due to the village where she'd been one unremarkable figure among thousands. She had been too subdued to stand out with such intense 'friends', too well-read to be given much of the teachers' attention and too well-behaved to be noticed by anyone. It was all thanks to the man in front of her. For the first time she'd been in the center instead of the edge of things. She'd developed, been pushed to excel, been challenged in the fields where she shone, felt like she actually belonged... and in one moment she'd thrown away everything just for that, for the feeling of being where she was meant to be instead of stuck as a mercenary. For that she had become a traitor, abandoning all. She couldn't look back now, she mustn't; yet to now stand here, a failure, and not even be admonished for her failure made her want to break down. Not this disinterest, of all things not this from him too. Not after she'd given up so much!

"Good," her master told him. "You can leave. I'll call for you when needed." With that, he had dismissed her and Sakura bowed her head. She didn't dare to say anything. Even though she wanted to implore him to say something, do something, give her anything but his apathy she kept her peace and slowly rose to her feet. She bowed once more before departing the room in silence and without a backwards glance. As she headed for the small room that she slept in she felt her heart pound at a frantic, desperate pace. She had to become better, she had to find out how to become stronger! If she didn't, she'd remained like this; a pitiful traitor ignored and dismissed by the only person she had left.

-XXXXXX-

Damn that girl Naruto thought as he looked after Sakura. Frowning behind his mask, he struggled with the feeling of disappointment that filled him. Not disappointment in Sakura's ability or her performance... or maybe that was precisely it in a way. She'd gone up against Namikaze Kimiko, Sarutobi Konohamaru and Uchiha Sasuke, each a skilled enough shinobi to have been informally known as an "ace genin" even when they graduated and who these days had become infamous in the underworld where the Akatsuki festered. Sakura had gone up against that and still almost managed to win. Had he truly misjudged her level to that extent he wondered.

What he'd hoped for when sending her hadn't been a victory. He'd all but seen her defeat as a foregone conclusion. Much like during her first and only chuunin exam, he'd expected her to fight well but fail against an overwhelming foe. Like then her failure would have been to her benefit. Back then she'd shown herself ready to take on a bijuu and fight to the bitter end. This time... if she'd been defeated she would have been taken back to Konoha, away from the Akatsuki, the insane Pein and the motley band of sociopaths he'd gathered. She would have been imprisoned in the most secure facility Konoha had and not stuck with him on this now three-year long assignment. She was breaking, had been for a long time, and Naruto had sent her in a desperate attempt to get her to relative safety. Minato knew the truth and would have made sure she wasn't tortured or executed which was more than he could hope for her where she was now.

Naruto already walked a tightrope with the madman who led this group, having long since concluded that Pein was a narcissist with a god-complex and not just a disregard for human life but a near fetish for watching people squirm helplessly in his grip. Sakura had been in his sights since day one and Naruto had been forced to one audacious maneuver after another to keep her alive. He'd hoped that this move would have fulfilled the twofold purpose of getting Sakura out of there as well as hinting to Konoha that the Akatsuki was on the move again. Yet she'd gone after three elite shinobi, one of them a jinchuuriki, and she had actually avoided capture! Again she performed better than he ever could have expected yet this time it only left a bitter taste in his mouth. She had, in a way, failed due to her lack of failure and as a result she was stuck with him in the Akatsuki. Damn it... things were spiraling steadily downwards right now, not the least since...

"Namikaze," a voice said behind him, Naruto silently sighing. There it was. He turned around to face Konan, the second-in-command of the Akatsuki. One of the most exotic shinobi he knew in terms of abilities as well as one of the deadly, she was also one of the most complete examples he'd ever seen of emotional detachment. Whatever trauma lay in her past, it had made her seem more like a machine of flesh and blood than a human being. The only thing human left in her was her devotion to Pein, whom she served with fanatic loyalty. Naruto met her eyes, feeling the sting of wariness that always came when staring into the dead eyes of the woman in front of him. She was still an enigma to him and the only thing Naruto knew for certain was that if ordered, she'd strike without even an instant's hesitation, like a switch was flipped.

"Konan," he greeted her evenly. While he respected her skill, he had dismissed her a long time ago as a human being. There was little human about her, and thus little interesting.

"He asks for you," she told him and Naruto nodded. As he'd expected. Pein wanted an explanation for what had happened in Tanzaku Gai. An explanation and to watch his "servant" squirm. Wordlessly, he began towards the woman and could almost time down to a fraction of a second her response as she turned around and began to lead him to Pein's chamber, or the Chamber of Pein as Kisame had called it once as an attempt at humor. Naruto supposed the jury was still out on whether it had succeeded. He certainly hadn't laughed, nor was he laughing currently as he followed the woman through the giant, dark chambers of the Akatsuki base.

He hated this place; it was like walking through a void at times. It certainly added to the "evil organization" feel, yet it was all too easy to end up feeling small, lost and abandoned down here. What rooms that weren't obscenely huge were cramped, almost so that you couldn't stand upright. Light was minimal and an oppressive silence hovered over everything. Naruto was pretty certain Pein had intended all of it to be precisely in such a way. For all his megalomania he wasn't stupid, only sublimely sadistic. In the massive chamber where his current master resided everything was twice as massive, dark, muffled and alien as outside it. Naruto, who knew how the world was supposed to behave in terms of light, sound and so forth; all the subtle, yet all too noticeable ways in which it was warped in here unnerved him a lot. It was so casual, such a casual defiance against the very laws of nature, and the middle of it all sat the self-declared second coming of the Sage of Six Paths.

Pein sat slouching in the giant machine throne that kept him sustained. While apparently born with the eyes of the Sage, he did not have the metabolism or physiology required to produce the chakra needed to be able to use his abilities fully, Naruto had concluded a long time ago. The device was ancient and insanely complex, with Naruto having little clue to how it worked, and what more it was heavily guarded at all times meaning sabotage was out of the question. Slowly, the master of the throne sat upright and looked at him. The lilac eyes seemed to stare into him, through him. He hated meeting this man's gaze.

"I am told..." Pein began in that slow, deliberate manner. "...that your lackey struck to seize the Kyuubi's Jinchuuriki... struck, and failed." he added, staring Naruto down.

"That is a not incorrect summary of past events," Naruto said evenly, not planning on lying or trying to squirm. If this madman wasn't fed what he desired, he'd grow bored in the end and stop trying to provoke a reaction.

"For three years we've hid," Pein kept talking. "Three years of leaving the elemental nations nothing but mists and shadow to chase. Now that mist and shadow is dispelled by your underling moving on her own, in an attack I did not allow. I am not pleased by this turn of events."

"As one might expect," Naruto remarked. "I am hardly pleased myself and I've seen to admonishing her for her failure. However, my lord, I must respectfully inform you of some of the context."

"Speak," Pein demanded of him, staring him down like a predatory animal.

"Firstly," Naruto began, "The Akatsuki is the blood red dawn. We come, inevitable and unstoppable, and yet it starts with a mere gleam in the darkness, a faint light that only grows. I can think of no fainter light than my apprentice. Secondly; the time has come to begin moving again, and like you shocked the world three years ago, this tiny pinprick sends them scrambling. We're coming. They know this, yet they cannot do anything because they know not from where we come, how or in what capacity. For three years the elemental nations has been crumbling, now merely a minor kick at the right place, even if it did not do anything lasting, will send them scurrying like rats. Thirdly; it is true that my apprentice struck at the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki; but that was for the single reason that I did not expect Konoha to be so reckless that they'd send their jinchuuriki after a supposed Akatsuki defector."

"A defector?" Pein demanded slowly.

"Yes," Naruto admitted. "I set a trap to gain intel on my home village. I expected them to send a team of regular shinobi. Shinobi that would not be the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki and her two teammates. If they had behaved rationally, they would have sent other shinobi, lesser such, which she would have been able to capture. I would have gained information and Konoha would be scrambling as they tried to find out where their shinobi had gone. Yet the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki threw a spanner into the works, as she is wont to do with most things." Naruto told the man, not able to fully suppress the feeling that in a way, this was the truth. Kimiko always threw a spanner into the works. It was what she did... and somehow he could only faintly smile behind the mask.

"Is that admiration I hear in your voice?" Pein asked suddenly, "Pride in your little sister's growth?" Naruto cursed silently as he realized he was slipping.

"My lord," he said now, moving to cover for himself. "This matter has come up before and I feel I should address it in detail. Will you forgive me if I do so?"

"Speak," Pein told him, leaning back in his throne as he stared Naruto down.

"I..." Naruto began, sucking in a low breath before continuing. "I despise my sibling. She is a person who thinks the way to navigate an obstacle is to bang your head against it until it collapses. She was given everything, while I fed off the scraps, and yet she was not content before she had nagged and bullied me into being in her life as well. She is simplistic, selfish, arrogant and quite plainly dumb as a bag of rocks. I can also add entitled, crude, naive to the point of absurdity and gluttonous to the list of traits that drive me up the wall. If anything, I am awed at the fact that this cretinous midget has survived as far as she did rather than impale herself on the ramen-coated chopsticks she jams into her mouth on an hourly basis." He spoke calmly and matter-of-factly, taking care to elaborate in detail on whatever he was able to.

Pein gave up a short, low snicker, little more than a 'heh' but enough that Naruto relaxed. The megalomaniac was laughing, that meant he was in his good graces.

"So you claim no familial affection, or indeed lingering sense of duty?" he asked and Naruto shrugged.

"If I do, it's rendered moot by our cause my lord," he assured the man. "The laws of nature are absolute, and survival of the fittest is one such law. Seeing as how we do not live in a junk food based economy where magical spirits bring good fortune to good little boys and girls my fool sibling will reap the consequences of what her idiocy sows. If those consequences are death; then that is how it is."

"So you say," Pein told him and Naruto shrugged.

"That I do," he replied, "and you will judge if I am truthful, my lord."

"Do not seek to play me Namikaze," Pein replied coldly now, raising his hand towards Naruto. Before Naruto could do anything his body was pulled in, sent flying towards Pein, who caught him by the throat. "You're not as clever as you think," the self-declared second coming of the Sage of six paths said as he clutched Naruto's throat, rising out of his seat and holding Naruto up in the air. Silently cursing, Naruto focused on keeping his breath going and waste a minimum of air. Though his heart was pumping furiously and he felt genuine worry he'd gone too far, he remained as calm as he could.

"You talk and talk," Pein said as he stared straight into Naruto's soul, "twisting like a snake and always coming off free of all blame. Don't think me stupid enough that I don't see it. Your lackey gave us away, and it is pure chance that it coincides with the plans I've laid. I've no reason not to wipe her off the face of the earth." he said before tossing Naruto to the floor and sitting down again. "None bar her pathetic uselessness." Hunching forward in his throne, Pein sat slouching and almost exhausted-looking as he stared down at the sight of Naruto crawling to his feet. "A god does not bother with insects. Were she more important to you, I'd order her death at your hands to teach you a lesson. Your apathy towards her makes that pointless though. But know your place, and keep your pet in line."

"As you command, my lord," Naruto said and made sure to bow deeply. Again he'd escaped death it seemed, yet he felt no joy about it. The man before him was volatile and unpredictable, just as easily being amused and approving of his wit as he lashed out for it, and Naruto had to constantly be on his toes, lest something set the madman off.

"You will go to Water Country," Pein told him now, Naruto tensing up. A little warning ahead of time would have been nice but then again he wasn't working with a nice person. "The three-tailed beast lies sealed away somewhere in that country. You know this, do you not?"

"I should, as I was the one to seal it away." Naruto said, already thinking that this would become a massive headache. So the time had come to go after the Sanbi. Pein wouldn't have brought it up otherwise, and in order to get to the Sanbi one needed the three keys to its container. One of these keys lay in the water temple, one in the safekeeping of the daimyo himself and the last one in Kiri. The three most heavily guarded places in Water Country and he'd have to break into them to retrieve said items... how delightful. Some, small part of him wanted to sarcastically ask if Pein would be okay with him bringing back some some crab dumplings or dried squid instead. Sadly, self-preservation stopped him from asking this.

"Retrieve it," Pein ordered him. "Let the world know the Akatsuki is moving again. My chosen agents will be the ones to spread the word, not some lackey. Leave." The self-declared god ended the conversation and Naruto bowed his head. Gods he hated this man, despised him in nearly every way possible. Yet the mask showed nothing and Naruto did not say anything that could incriminate him. Instead he left the room, sweeping through the Akatsuki base and listening to his footsteps echoing in the hallway.

It was hard to say what he thought about the current state of affairs. He hated that Sakura still was stuck with him, yet she was safe and his distant facade towards her seemed to have made Pein choose to not take out his frustrations on her. Things were starting to heat up, meaning it'd only get harder from now on, yet at the same time this meant they were approaching the endgame, the resolution.

What a situation really. He was stuck with a collection of sociopathic murderers chosen for their strength more than anything else. Yet as he entered the room that had been his destination, he thought to himself that he had at least met one person he actually could call his intellectual kin.

Sasori was sitting by his workbench and, as usual, worked on his puppets. Out of his Hiruko-puppet, Sasori sat in his actual form; that of a young, red-haired man as he was carefully putting a series of screws in place on a puppet Naruto couldn't recall the name of. There was something almost meditative over how his partner was working and Naruto leaned against the doorframe to watch it.

A key difference between him and Naruto, Naruto had realized, was that Sasori did not only not mind the constant, painstaking maintenance his creations required but seemed to outright love it. Naruto preferred to devote his time to something that wouldn't need to be taken apart and put together again on a regular basis and instead keep pushing forward instead of maintaining what had been. Maintenance was a tedious business to him. Yet Sasori seemed to love it... maybe because machines were easier to fix than people.

"Namikaze." Sasori said after a while, not even looking back at him. "Did you want something?"

"Many things," Naruto said, thinking about the last three years and realizing that Sasori was probably the only feature in it that hadn't been a constant source of stress and bile. While the man had his flaws, and flaws he had aplenty, he was nevertheless brilliant enough that it was a joy to talk with him. "What I don't want is why I am here however. We're going to Water Country, apparently. The time has come to retrieve the Sanbi."

Sasori stopped screwing for a moment, raising his head in surprise before looking down again and continuing to work. "I see," he said with his voice betraying the small smile that no doubt was creeping up on his face. "Interesting. I understand the Sanbi was sealed away during your tenure in Kiri, is that correct?"

"Quite." Naruto wasn't surprised Sasori knew about this. "Locked away behind a seal that needs three locks that rest with the daimyo, high priest of the water temple and Mizukage respectively. Sounds fun?"

"A challenge to be sure," Sasori said as he finished fastening the screw of his puppet and stood up, looking back at Naruto with a wry smirk. "I would ask if you had a way to replicate the keys, but I doubt you'd have told me we were doing this if you did."

"Pretty much," Naruto said. "Your puppets are waterproof I take it?" he asked dryly.

"You think me that much of a hack?" Sasori said as he took his Akatsuki robe and donned it with a deft movement. "They last through whatever they need," he said as he flicked his fingers and called the hunchbacked Hiruko-puppet to his side, which he crawled into.

"Considering your obsession with slenderizing everything, I would not call you a hack as much as... sacrificing for your art," Naruto shrugged.

"The master of bloating has spoken," Sasori said as he walked out of the room, his voice was now warped by the puppet. "As much as your inefficient obsession with minutia is endearing I do not plan on designing my puppets to be fifty meters tall and heavy enough to fall apart under their own weight."

"Certainly, because failsafes are for people who aren't perfect in all ways," Naruto said sarcastically, smiling under his mask as he fell in beside Sasori. Their design beliefs were a constant point of contention, albeit a relatively friendly such. Sasori was obsessed with efficiency and elegance. He believed that perfection had been created when nothing could be removed, not when nothing could be added. To Naruto that thinking was simplistic. It might work for simple machinery or seals but when you had complex things like the seal he had trapped the Sanbi in you needed to build in failsafes and redundancies, otherwise a single, minute failure would make it all fall apart. They'd probably be tearing at each other over this until old age he thought as they walked down the hallway.

Being in the Akatsuki was still strange. They traveled lightly, keeping what they needed in storage seals on their persons at all times. When Pein ordered you to move out, you moved out in that very moment. A part of his narcissistic personality, Naruto supposed. To see his servants move out instantly instead of waiting until the next day fed into his sense of supreme control.

Speaking of narcissistic god-complex... Naruto slammed a hand onto Sakura's door as they walked past it, making the girl come out of the room within seconds.

"Ready yourself, we're leaving," he told her, noting how Sasori gave him a dry glare.

"Are we really bringing her along?" he asked impatiently.

"Considering our beloved leader's most recent divine proclamation I am compelled to," Naruto replied. He wasn't leaving her alone with that madman, not after the man's episode just now. Sasori grunted again, not being overly enthusiastic about this evidently.

Sakura came out of her room now, having gotten all that she needed, and swept a cloak around her. Not an Akatsuki cloak, Naruto didn't have the audacity to have his "lackey" dress in what Pein considered to be a great honor to wear. He'd most likely snap her head off in punishment for her "sacrilege"(or whatever he'd call it). Therefore her robe was plain black as to not anger the beloved leader. He began to walk again with Sakura following silently behind him. As he did so, he wondered if she'd reached any conclusions on the topic they'd discussed but didn't press it. Mainly due to being preoccupied with trying to figure out just how he was going to be able to retrieve the three keys to the Sanbi's prison. The Daimyo wouldn't be too much of an issue, the Water Temple could work out if they were subtle, but the key that rested in Kirigakure, with Mei, would be a greater challenge.

Damn it. Why Water Country of all places? He did not want to see Mei again. Or rather he did, which was why he didn't want to. It had been a constant source of frustration and sorrow to think of her these last three years; how she must feel about him now, how she was doing, what she'd done since he last saw her. What little he'd heard had not improved his mood either. Mei had severed contact with Konoha and was in a cold war with them; stating Minato's treatment of a friend of Kiri as the reason for her actions.

Wasn't that a beautiful mess? Naruto didn't dare to imagine what she'd do when she found out it was all a set-up, a ploy to get someone on the inside of the Akatsuki? Naruto could imagine entire islands being among the casualties when she found out how she'd been duped. As for him? He wondered if she'd be able to forgive him.

He shouldn't be wasting time thinking about this; he needed to focus on the task at hand. With Sakura and Sasori on his side he should have all he needed to pull this off. He had grown in these three years and knew Kiri decently enough. They'd manage it.