Chapter 3

-xxxxxx-

A small inn in the middle of nowhere became their first stop after having travelled for the entire day as well as the night. Making good progress, Naruto had decided to stop for a couple of hours to enjoy some food and rest. Sasori hadn't been happy with the idea but Naruto had simply gone inside without even looking back. Either Sasori proceeded alone or he followed Naruto's lead. Childish, maybe, but effective, and Sasori had entered as well.

Their outfits let them eat without being disturbed. The hunchback and the masked man in red-clouded outfits were intimidating enough that none went close to their table. Hardly even the waitress dared approach but had done so after realizing she'd draw more of their attention by refusing to serve them. Silently, they could enjoy the meal and Naruto thought to himself that it was a surprisingly competent meal they had been served. For being an inn in the middle of nowhere, the food was quite excellent. The curry had just the right level of savory spiciness to tickle the tongue but not so that it took over and the meat almost melted in the mouth.

"Girl," Sasori said after a while, addressing Sakura and making Naruto look up at his colleague. Sakura did so as well and Sasori nodded towards the waitress. "Bring the waitress over here. No words or gestures. One thread only," he demanded. Sakura looked towards the waitress, hesitating. "Use small commands only," Sasori ordered her "you'll burn out her nerves if you push too hard."

"I understand," Sakura said with a low, distant voice. She was like that with Sasori, he'd noticed. Whereas she could seem like a trembling leaf around her master, she was mindful of showing any emotions at all around the puppet master. Putting down her chopsticks, she put her hands together, clasping them with one finger out. She took a breath to focus and in the next instant the eyes of the currently dishes-picking waitress glazed over.

"Move her," Sasori ordered, Sakura furrowing her brow slightly as the waitress turned around sharply, her arms hanging limply by her side. Like a zombie she walked, or rather shambled, toward them. "Keep her movements natural," Sasori growled lowly. "Humans do not walk like that." Nodding, Sakura did her best to adjust as the woman began to lift her feet more and gained a slight sway in her step. Naruto thought that she still seemed like she was half paralyzed though admittedly that was a step up from corpse. Sakura had only manipulated corpses in this way before and there was no need to watch for permanent nerve damage when your puppet already was dead. This was a whole different level and at the very least Sakura hadn't been too rough yet.

Still shambling but at least looking semi-alive, the dead-eyed waitress came over to their table and stood there silently. Sasori motioned for Sakura to release her and Sakura obeyed, the life returning to the waitress' eyes in an instant. She gasped as she realized where she stood, sudden shock filling her face.

"Could I have some more water?" Sasori asked, nodding towards his glass. The waitress, who seemed ready to bolt, remembered her manners at least and smiled stiffly.

"O-of course," she said, picking up the glass as if she expected it to burn her.

"Also," Naruto added, making the waitress flinch again "Might I ask you to pass on my compliments to the chef. This is delicious." The young woman bowed slightly at Naruto now.

"I... I will do that," she said before fleeing. Sasori chuckled darkly at her fear.

"Adequate," he told Sakura. "You will keep practicing. When we return from Kiri you'll be skilled enough with this to move a person inconspicuously."

"Yes, master Sasori," Sakura said as she bowed her head towards Sasori. Naruto, meanwhile, smiled slightly to himself as he took another spoonful of curry. What a situation, really. For all his haughtiness and his aloof attitude, Sasori certainly had taken to educating Sakura in his arts. It seemed Sakura's subdued manners and sharp mind had drawn the puppet-master in. Naruto wasn't quite sure if it had initially been a desire to meddle with his apprentice or a genuine desire to teach that had driven Sasori. What he did know was that the puppeteer didn't stop in his teaching.

As they finished up the meal and the time had come to pay, Naruto put down his chopsticks and made a gesture for the waitress, doing it firmly enough that she didn't have any choice but to acknowledge it. The poor girl looked near fainting and Naruto decided to get it over with. Putting down the twenty Ryo for the meals, he added an additional ten.

"For the excellent meal," he said, smirking slightly under the mask as he saw how the woman stared at the extremely generous tip. "It was unexpected to find such an able cook at this place. Please inform the proprietor that he needs to take care not to lose this asset. It would be a great loss for him if that would come to pass."

"Uh... I... of course, thank you for your patronage" She said as she bowed to them, hesitating before continuing, "and... and please come again." It was clear that she didn't know what to think right now and though she'd probably arrive at preferring they didn't show up again

"We just might," Naruto said as they departed. "We'll see if our roads take us past here again." With that, they left the inn behind and began walking down the road again.

"What was the point of that?" Sasori asked as they walked away from the inn. "You just spent ten Ryo on pointless trivialities in the middle of nowhere."

"I'd hardly call it pointless," Naruto replied evenly. "The food was excellent, that's something that should be rewarded."

"Rewarding peons for doing their job?" the puppet-master asked. "What's next, commending beggars on their begging techniques?"

"Should I perhaps instead copy Hidan and Kakuzu; refuse to pay and bend the woman over the table to carve her up for the glory of Jashin? Or maybe Deidara and Kisame; blow the building up and flay the staff and patrons alive? To be less snide, we've both chafed in a world that doesn't pay due respects to us for our brilliance. If I did not acknowledge and praised skill when I saw it I would be a hypocrite. Hypocrisy is for lesser men, men who want to receive but not give. For every action..."

"...there is an equal and opposite reaction, I know." Sasori drawled.

"Exactly, so I don't see why I shouldn't emulate that idea in my outlook as well," Naruto said mildly. "I am a greater man than most. Yet brilliance carries its obligations as well as its rewards. The higher you've climbed the further you fall and all that."

"I've heard of holistic world views but that takes the cake," Sasori replied. "So because you're more intelligent than the peons, you should take a mollycoddling stance towards them, like someone would towards a child? Should you avoid killing butterflies since it might cause hurricanes in the southern seas as well? How far does this holism reach? Besides: respect is earned, not granted, and cooking a good meal doesn't elevate anyone."

"I beg to differ," his masked comrade insisted. "Every person is born into different circumstances, and even if everyone was brilliant there will still need to be people performing menial tasks. True, in the grand scheme their role are little more than forming the foundation upon which great people can rise, but I don't feel like they should be belittled for that."

"The payment for the meal was plenty enough of a reward," Sasori objected. "You hold no responsibility to stoke their mediocrity, and indulging them leads to complacency. Before long they'll view your rewards as expected and if you withhold them they'll despise you for robbing them of what they think is their right. Great men know to make rewards fuel for further brilliance, mediocre people let it fuel their entitlement."

"Then that's their choice," Naruto shrugged. "I don't plan to let that affect me; that'd be surrendering control of my actions to those who are my lessers. And who knows? Maybe the cook in there is a young hopeful, one stuck at this place and uncertain if he truly is that good. Such a generous tip might just spur him on and lead to the start of a great culinary career."

"What's with this obsession with bringing out the best in every peon you stumble across?" Sasori asked now, his voice holding not spite but curiosity. "Their lives are pointless in the grand scheme of things. That cook will prepare meals and people will enjoy it for the moment but forget it after a day or two. He'll leave no imprint on the world and die, fading away to be forgotten within a decade. Moving him one step out of a thousand closer to excellence changes nothing. If anything it is a distraction from your own works and your own struggle. Do you hope that your footprint in the world will be carried through these peons?"

"Who's obsessed?" Naruto asked mildly. He remembered how Guren once had told him a tale of two monks, one of which had helped a young woman over a lake despite their vows to not touch women and the other having berated him for it. The moral was strikingly similar. "I've left that cook behind, you still carry him."

"Are you quoting religious fables at me?" Sasori asked with a voice as dry as desert sand. "Seriously?" Naruto smiled behind the mask. This was fun. "I've put up with your ranting," the puppeteer continued, "answer my question."

"I just did. True, undue rewards can create entitlement but I don't see why that should make me refuse to give anything to anyone. Are you saying generosity is immoral? Because if so: A baby is a screaming, useless bag of flesh that regularly soils itself, but no sane person would claim it shouldn't be given care, feeding and nurturing for years. Is the child immoral for that? Or a parasite? Obviously not, that'd be cretinous to claim."

"I claim it's pointless," Sasori said. "You're free to mollycoddle whomsoever you please because there is no such thing as inherent right or wrong. In the end the strong do what they wish and the weak suffer what they must. Indulging them seems perverse."

"The weak can still spit in my curry," Naruto pointed out. "Also it's called social lubricant. Behaving pleasantly makes people more predisposed to behaving pleasantly. It's a neurochemical fact that people who are abused have stress hormones and defensive reactions triggered which makes them all the more difficult to deal with. Conversely, being treated well relaxes people and makes them more agreeable, or pliable to my own interests if you so will. So while it is no puppetering I am de facto slightly controlling their minds through my own actions."

"And an inn in the middle of nowhere was worth ten Ryo?"

"It's not my Ryo," Naruto shrugged. "And if Kakuzu wants to complain he's free to do so. I shut it out, like I do most of that greedy old zombie's blathering. In the end; why not? If mediocrity is all that cook will ever achieve, and I contest that it was mediocre as the curry was excellent, then at least let them excel in mediocrity. And if I can spur them on to that through a pat on the head and someone else's money, why not? I doubt he will become a entitled and arrogant from one tip."

"With all this altruistic reasoning I'm surprised you didn't become a teacher, or a priest. Being so dead-set on helping others, yet you devoted yourself to abstract sciences."

"It's a hobby, not a calling," Naruto explained. "If, for instance, the cook had asked me to escort him somewhere I would have told him to get lost. Again, I wish for due recognition so why not give it? The curry was great, beyond what could reasonably be expected, so I rewarded it for that."

"I tasted it as well," Sasori pointed out. "And I found it mediocre at best."

"Oh?" Naruto asked. "What curry is the gold standard for you, then?" he asked, changing track, "It seems you came in with very high standards."

"I suppose that's the case," Sasori muttered. "I have not had that curry for a long time, and fond memories becomes even more gilded with time."

"Indeed they can," Naruto sighed. "The years before the Kyuubi came to Konoha seems in my mind like a distant paradise. I wanted for nothing, was given endless affection by my parents and indeed, I had a little sister on the way. The world was a good place for seven-year-old me. Looking back, I can't even say that I recognize that person." This was a calculated risk he took. Speaking of one's past wasn't something done lightly in the Akatsuki. Everyone was guarded against everyone else and even between Sasori and Naruto, who were the closest thing to 'friends' that existed in the organization, little of this type of information was exchanged, even after three years together.

"Hmh..." Sasori said, being quiet at first, but eventually speaking up. "The world is never as cruel as when the innocent loses everything. That is a pain I know well. It hardened me though. Gave me strength to excel."

"Sink or swim," Naruto commented softly.

"Indeed, now stop trying to bait me into telling you of my past. I've given more than I'm inclined to." Naruto couldn't disagree with that. That was more than he'd gotten out of Sasori in the last three years. Deciding to not push his luck, he instead chose to be quiet and let them walk in silence with only the song of the birds and their footsteps to fill his ears.

-xxxxxx-

The crash that resounded through the air interrupted several hours of silent walking, making the three all stop and look around them as they tried to pinpoint the origin of the sound. It wasn't long before it was followed by other sounds, most predominantly explosions.

"Someone's having fun," Naruto remarked as the explosions came closer and a wild laughter could be heard over it. Sasori groaned.

"And I presume you're going to want to meet them?" he asked dryly, Naruto looking to him.

"That is something I admire greatly in you Sasori-dono," he said mildly. "Your exquisite talent for deduction."

"Put a sock in it and let's get this over with," Sasori growled, "the less time I spend in the company of those nitwits the better." He had barely finished that sentence as an explosion ripped the trees on the left side of the road about two hundred meters away to pieces.

Out of the smoke a figure came flying, landing on the road limply. Naruto folded his arms as he watched a familiar figure come out of the smoke after the man, running at a full pelt and with a shrieking, hysteric laughter. Hidan was having the time of his life, it seemed, and the man he was charging leaped to his feet only to have Hidan's scythe lash out at him, drawing a few drops of blood.

"Gotcha!" Hidan yelled gleefully as the man got some distance between himself and the madman.

"It'll take more than a scratch to knock me out!" the man yelled, Naruto recognizing him now. How amusing. It was the former Shinobi Guardsman Kazuma. Naruto had thought the man dead after his failed coup against Minato. It seemed he'd slipped away only to be cornered by two of the most unpleasant people in the elemental nations. Hidan only laughed even more, stopping and instead of charging again pulling down his coat to bare his chest as he leaned down and drew the seal of Jashin on the ground. Naruto nodded to himself, Kazuma was a dead man already.

Hidan's ability was strange to say the least he thought as the man's skin turned black and white. Strange and vaguely obscene. The way he could inflict damage on himself and have the enemy suffer the exact same injury was unlike anything he'd seen before, yet the man's obscene glee at wreaking havoc was all too familiar and all too disgusting for Naruto to find anything even vaguely tolerable about the zealot. Stabbing himself in the heart, Hidan brought Kazuma to his knees, the man spitting up blood as Hidan hyperventilated with joy. The former shinobi guardsman fell forwards, dead as a doornail, as Kakuzu came out of the woods as well, having stayed back.

"Are you done creaming your pants? Can we get going or must you jack off some more?" the ancient mercenary asked his partner as Hidan stood on his knees, the orgasmic ecstasy having come and gone, leaving only relaxed bliss for the man. Hidan looked up to Kakuzu now, his voice calm as he responded.

"You know these things take their time Kakuzu," he said placidly, sounding almost like a monk that had reached enlightenment. Somehow the man was even more repulsive in this state. This combination of murder, masochism and death-worship gave him such a rush that in its wake he seemed like he had found the highest truth, like he was at peace. The man was just so... perverse for it. "I wish you'd show more understanding for my faith. Maybe it could give you solace where your money doesn't." He made Naruto's skin crawl! In the wake of his obscene, masturbatory murder he sounded like one of the priests Guren had gone to talk to to find guidance, people who tried to live in harmony with the world.

"The more you keep yammering on about that the less interested I become," Kakuzu drawled, Naruto thinking about how Kakuzu was only marginally more tolerable. A man given seeming immortality as well as an astonishing ability to combine elemental jutsu that bordered on kekkei genkai, the old corpse was nevertheless obsessed with one thing only: money. He had eternity, and he spent it trying to earn as much money as he could through bounty hunting.

Two repulsive peas in a pod really. Naruto raised his hands now and began to clap as he slowly approached them, Sasori following him. Hidan and Kakuzu both looked towards him now, neither of their faces seeming overly pleased at coming across him.

"Oh great," Hidan drawled, having been brought out of his orgasm-induced tranquillity, "It's the nerds."

"Still only using monosyllabic words I hear, Hidan-san," Naruto said mildly with faux politeness. "Do not worry, I am sure you'll step up to two syllables any day now." The furrow that appeared on Hidan's brow made Naruto smirk under the mask. Good. The less at peace this perverse lust-murderer was the better. Yes he was being spiteful; he hated the man.

"What are you doing here?" Sasori asked, "You're supposed to be in Kumo. Do I need to shove a compass into your skulls for you to go where you're supposed to?"

"You're welcome to try, doll-boy," Kakuzu growled, his hand clenching at his side. Not from anger, but rather agitation. "Also; we're hunting this mark to help the organization's economy. I don't see you digging your head out of your puppets' ass for five seconds to help out," he drawled, his eyes nevertheless going to Naruto.

"Of course you are," Naruto said dismissively as he walked up to the now dead Kazuma and looked him over. Dead as a doornail. He did notice the metal claws strapped to the man's wrist as well as the monk staff that had fallen to the ground next to him. "Interesting..." he said as he relieved the corpse of them and tucked them away.

"Hey, hands off my mark," Kakuzu told him sharply as Naruto did so, Naruto only looking to the man.

"You are, I presume, getting paid for the corpse, not for his tools," he replied placidly. "Speaking of tools..." he added after a second, stepping closer to Kakuzu. At this distance Naruto could see the signs clearly. The bloodshot eyes, the faint shivers that went through him... perfect. "I trust the performance enhancers I gave you have served their purpose?" he asked with a quiet voice so as to not be overheard, Kakuzu grunting.

"They did," the immortal bounty hunter said, his voice composed still. "I'm going to need more."

"Naturally," Naruto said as he slipped a hand into the sleeve of his coat and pulled out a small bottle of pills which he handed to the man. "If you feel they aren't working as well as they do, feel free to moderately increase the dosage."

"I know how drugs work," Kakuzu growled as he slipped it into his own sleeve. "Just make sure to have more produced."

"That, sadly, will be problematic," Naruto said and saw how Kakuzu instantly tensed up. "See, since those enhancers are tailor-made for you, it's not like making rice cakes. I can produce more, but I'll need to acquire components. Expensive components," he he added meaningfully, Kakuzu's glare heated enough to melt steel.

"Don't jerk me around Namikaze," the man growled, "I'm not going to dance to your tune just because you dangle something in front of my eyes."

"If my intent was to make you "dance", I wouldn't have attempted it after supplying you with another bottle," Naruto said lowly. "My issues with getting hold of components are genuine, and though I find you marginally more bearable than your "comrade", I've no plans on paying for your medication. I am already investing time; the money will need to come from elsewhere."

"Fine, how much do you need?" Kakuzu growled, Naruto noticing how he already was holding the fresh bottle in a tight grip, almost desperately.

"Fifty thousand, at the least," Naruto told him and Kakuzu's eyes opened wide.

"You are attempting to trick me," he hissed and Naruto shook his head.

"As I said I am not making rice cakes," he said lowly but with clenched teeth. "If you've got a stockpile of 4-Hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde lying around I'll gladly take it. If you don't, I'll have to ask that you give me money to keep the medication coming."

"Fine!" Kakuzu hissed, growing more and more agitated. "You'll have the money as soon as I've handed in this bounty. Just get me more of this!"

"I will," Naruto assured him. "Like you, I look to the greater good unlike some people. You getting this is part of that greater good."

"Whatever," Kakuzu said as he walked away to get the corpse. Naruto smirked as he looked after the man, satisfied with the results to say the least. By the corpse Hidan was back on his feet, having donned his coat properly and looked towards Naruto, eyes narrowed in suspicion. He leaned in at Naruto, staring into his eyes.

"Hey Nerduto," he asked and Naruto instantly was reminded of yet another reason why he hated the man. That nickname was a top tier contender in the 'things that pissed him off' category. "What exactly are you and Kakuzu cooking up? I don't like seeing you skulk around like that. You're up to something and I plan to find out what." Naruto didn't say anything, instead reached up and quickly yanked a few strands of hair off his head, causing Hidan to yelp in pain and back off. "What the hell are you doing!?"

"Taking samples," Naruto told him as he slipped the hair into a small test tube. "Was there something else, or did you just want to show off your immense wit?" he asked the man before he began to walk again, not caring to give Hidan a chance to respond.

"Hey, screw you, nerd!" the man yelled after him and Naruto smirked. As petty as it was, it still satisfied him deeply to rob the man of his peace of mind. Sasori and Sakura stood further away, Sasori glaring sourly at him.

"Are we done here?" he asked acerbically, "I can feel my brain cells leaking out of my ears the longer I have to stand around these idiots."

"Quite done, yes," Naruto smirked as he put away the small test tube inside his coat. "We can go now." Sasori grunted and they left without as much as a farewell to their partners. They were not in the Akatsuki to be chummy with each other, no matter what Kisame might have behaved like after Naruto had been recruited three years ago. And even if it would have been, their colleagues were overall much too unpleasant for that to have any realistic chance of happening.

"So tell me," Sasori asked after a while, "What's the agenda behind you getting Kakuzu addicted to your product?"

"An interesting position on responsibility you're taking there Sasori-dono," Naruto said mildly, "Going back to what we spoke of earlier, would you not say the onus for any eventual addictions is on the user?"

"Stop trying to equivocate yourself out of the question," Sasori told him dryly. "Kakuzu is letting his arrogance get the best of him; you'll have him a desperate slave to whatever you're feeding him before long. As amusing as it is to watch, I doubt you're doing it just for that."

"It improves his performance, doesn't it?" Naruto asked rhetorically. "What other use does the organization have for that old corpse? We're entering the end-game before long. All we need is for him to perform until our current goals are met. Really, isn't it a more glorious end for him to burn out than to fade away?" Naruto asked, his voice utterly ice cold as he said this.

"Seems Kakuzu is not the only one who's become arrogant," Sasori snorted.

"You can have his corpse when he's dead if you'd like," Naruto offered his colleague. "As long as I can take some tissue samples, I think you'd be the the one who could get the most mileage out of him."

"Now you have my attention," Sasori admitted. "Might I ask how this rhymes with that tiresome altruism you insisted on back at the inn?"

"I don't see the conflict," Naruto asked evenly, "I help him reach his full potential, do I not? It's just that on the course he's currently set being made into a puppet seems like the most utilitarian option." Sasori didn't respond, at least not with words. The dark chuckle that came from him was answer enough on what he thought about it.

-xxxxxx-

Kimiko sat by the table in her little apartment, having just poured some water into a ramen cup and was listlessly staring at it, feeling the smell rise from it and breathing in through her nose. Her arms were folded on the table in front of her and she was resting her head on them absently watching the cup with distant eyes. She was currently a million miles away, the ramen cup having before her inner eye turned to another table in another room, the small text on the lid having floated out to become the outline of papers scattered over the table and the colours of the painting of a ramen bowl helping her imagination create the outline of a figure sitting leaned over the table. The pale colour of the bowl became the skin and the pink broth (shrimp ramen) became the hair

"Come on Kimiko, you know this," she seemed to say, Kimiko biting on her lower lip as she felt her eyes mist up. Shaking her head, she sat up and wiped her eyes. It had been three years by now, yet she still wanted those days back as much as she ever had. Whoever said that time healed all wounds was a big, fat liar. Whatever healing she'd gotten had un-healed by what had happened in Tanzaku Gai and she still was trying to process it.

Sakura... her old friend, the brain that had bailed her out so many times, the brilliant girl who always had known what the answer was. She missed her so much! At this point she wasn't even sure what hurt the most any more, losing her brother or her friend to those Akatsuki crazies. She did know that one of the things that hurt the most was the stupid, stupid jealousy she'd felt towards Sakura.

Looking back on it, it had made sense. Of course oniisan would have taken Sakura as an apprentice and of course Sakura would have been a super-awesome one. She was dead smart, almost as smart as oniisan, and she couldn't imagine that they wouldn't have made a super teacher-student team. Yet Kimiko... like the stupid, stupid idiot she'd been, had been jealous of how Sakura had gotten all Naruto's attention during the chuunin exams and acted like a massive jerk towards one of her best and oldest friends. That had been the last time they'd talked before Sakura and oniisan had gone to the Akatsuki... She'd begrudged her friend the attention and support of her teacher while wanting oniisan to praise her instead.

Was it strange that Sakura had questioned their friendship? Maybe she really had taken that friendship for granted. The thought that that might be the case made her queasy. She didn't want to have used Sakura, that it all would have been her fault in the end. Biting down on her lips again, Kimiko felt her eyes mist up once more at the thought.

Damn it, she had made herself ramen to cheer herself up, not end up sniffling like this she thought as she turned her face down into the arms and grimaced silently, trying to hold back the sobs.

-xxxxxx-

Two of the keys out of the way Naruto thought as they moved through the mangrove swamps of Water Country, keeping out of sight as much as they could. There was no need to tempt fate, after all. As had been expected, the retrieval of the first two keys had been a piece of cake. An enthralled monk here, a nighttime visit there and neither the temple, nor the Daimyo were any wiser of the thefts.

"When we reach Kiri, how do we proceed?" Naruto asked, throwing the question out there for him and Sasori to mull over.

"I puppeteer a couple of shinobi to use for reconnaissance," Sasori said, "When we have a layout along with what you remember we assume their identities and infiltrate. If needed, we cause a distraction before breaching the vault."

"Works for me," Naruto said as they both leapt down into a valley formed between two large mangrove trees by their roots. "I'd prefer a minimum of attention."

"Nostalgic?" Sasori asked dryly.

"Prudent," Naruto corrected him. "I don't know about you, but I don't want Kiri's hunter-nin corps on my tail all the way to the Sanbi's resting place."

"Are you sure they haven't moved it?" Sasori asked as they kept running, Sakura following them a few dozen steps behind.

"Positive," Naruto said. "The keys were given to the temple and Daimyo to build trust. Asking for them back after just a few months would have damaged that trust. I know the Mizukage well enough to know she wouldn't risk losing the Daimyo after my defection caused her to all but declare war on Konoha."

"That's right, you conquered her, did you not?" Sasori asked amusedly. Naruto gritted his teeth, wondering just how the puppeteer had found that out.

"No, she conquered me," he eventually said. He wasn't going to be awkward here. "Her ability is not only found on the battlefield, she's a seductress par excellence. It was a pleasant side benefit of working in this village of blood-soaked cretins."

"Interesting," Sasori remarked. "And unexpected. Was she as able in bed?"

"Are we sixteen years old suddenly?" Naruto asked acerbically. "But yes, immensely such. I presume you're feeling jealous?"

"Whatever soothes your wounded pride," Sasori drawled. "I hope you'll not run off to mount her again this time around."

"Will you be more patient if I let you watch? That certainly would be the only way you'd..." Naruto was unable to finish what he was going to say as right in that moment they were attacked.

Out between the roots around them, from above and even from the puddles on the ground Kiri's masked shinobi came. Silently and swiftly, with bared knives and swords, they struck like a downpour and Naruto was left tearing the Kusanagi out to deflect their blows as best he could. For a few, intensive seconds the clashing of steel was like the sound of hard rain against metal as Naruto was rooted on the spot, unable to escape for the constant barrage of blows.

When it ended, Naruto came to a half with a final twirl of the Kusanagi, standing back to back with Sasori as the ridges of the depression they stood in were lined with masked and heavily armed Kiri shinobi. Right above Naruto stood, with folded arms and a frigid, enraged look in her single visible eye, Terumi Mei.

"Not good..." Naruto thought to himself.