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Chapter 10: Help Me!
…Beep…
…Beep…
…Beep…
…Beep…
White... Everything was white... Why was everything so white? What happened?
'Autumn…'
What?
'Autumn…'
Who's there?
'Autumn, please!'
Who are you?
Cleopatra?
When Autumn opened her eyes, she found that she was in what seemed to be a hospital room. There was an IV needle in her arm attaching it to a bag that was filled with blood. Turning her head, she saw Cleo to her left. She was in human form, and she seemed to be... Crying? Autumn dragged her head to the right and saw Itachi brooding in a corner, but he was still managing to watch her every move. She turned back to Cleo,
"Did you know that Cleopatra was the name of the last pharaoh of Egypt?" Cleo's head shot up at the sound of Autumn's voice.
"You're okay!" Cleo hugged (strangled) her.
"Cleo! Snake-strong-!" She let go of her.
"I was so worried!"
"You should have, you almost strangled me!"
"That's not what I was talking about!" Cleo continued, crying again.
"Gee, don't get so emotional, you've only known me for two days."
"So!?" Autumn looked back at Itachi.
"Nii-san..." He walked over to her bed, and Autumn sat up.
"..." He didn't say anything, he just sat down next to her.
"BAKA!!" Autumn yelled slapping him. She seemed to be extremely okay for a person who just had a near death experience.
"BAKA! BAKA! BAKA! BAKA! BAKA! BAKA!!!" Itachi seemed unfazed.
"WHAT PART OF "I CAN SEE" DO YOU NOT GET!?" She yelled as she punched him in the face.
"I COULD HAVE DIED!! WHY THE HECK DID YOU DECIDE TO STAB ME!?" Autumn punched him again, only this time her fist was glowing with chakra, causing Itachi to fly into a wall. (I think that's enough revenge for the moment.) Itachi stood back up, and made no move to try and hit her back.
"Autumn, stop! You're still hurt!" Cleo yelled at her.
"No I'm not, I'm fine, see?" Autumn showed Cleo her shoulder.
"How-?"
"High chakra levels. My body heals itself." Autumn explained, glaring at Itachi.
"Listen, I'm glad that you kept your promise, but you should at least listen to me when I'm talking to you!" Autumn still had her sharingan activated, and she had quickly learned to sharingan-glare at people, even when she was blind. She hadn't tried it on Cleo yet, but she really didn't care to. If and when she got out of this hospital, Itachi was so going to get it!
"Autumn you ssshould calm down! Itachi wasss the one who brought you here in the first place!" Cleo shouted, apparently she was getting mad because she was starting to revert back to her hissing habit.
"What?" Autumn looked from Cleo to Itachi.
"You could have at least said something in your own defense…" She grumbled, for her, life sucked.
"… I had no reason to." He responded, Autumn just rolled her eyes.
"It would have saved you from receiving the beating of your life, via a little girl."
"… Hn…" Itachi turned and left the room and Cleo just shook her head. Autumn leaned back and decided to rest a bit. Even though she was healed, she was still in pain. Both in her shoulder and in her heart.
"Autumn…" Cleo called, softly.
"What!" Autumn snapped, Cleo glared at the girl.
"Stop being such a brat!" She spat. "I know he just tried to kill you, but that's no excuse for being so rude!"
"Shut up Cleo!" No one who was listening in was surprised at what came next. A resounding 'smack' was heard throughout the hospital.
"Don't you ever speak to me like that again. That man saved your life, and here you are acting like a spoiled brat, complaining!" Autumn looked at Cleo in shock for a moment before returning her previous glare with a sharingan-enhanced one.
"You … Hit…. Me?" Autumn lightly touched her cheek, but pulled her hand back as she felt it sting. "You BITCH!!!" She screamed. The nails on her hands quickly turned to deadly weapons as her chakra extended them into claws. (similar to what Asuma does with his blades)
Cleo acted quickly, not wanting any damage to be caused and shape-shifted into her snake form. Calling Itachi, she wrapped herself around Autumn's body, affectively restraining her, but sustaining burns from the chakra, which surrounded the girl in the process.
Itachi 'poofed' into the room and examined the wild girl, attempting to escape the snake's grasp.
"LET GO OF ME!!!" Autumn screamed. Itachi was glad that he had performed a silencing jutsu earlier, or else the whole place would've been swarmed with security by now.
"Cleopatra, release her and back away." He commanded. Reluctantly, Cleo did as she was instructed and stood in the far corner of the room. As soon as she did, Itachi grabbed Autumn's throat, ignoring the chakra burns, and slowly cut off her air-flow. Autumn attempted to claw at his arm, but the IV in her arm was specially designed, so it wouldn't be removed by a child and was kept in her arm by a metal band, rendering her right arm immobile. Itachi used his free hand to grab her left arm and hold it behind her back as he glared into her eyes.
Autumn gasped for air, but the more she did, the more she found out that she couldn't. Her body slowly fell limp as Itachi's efforts started to show merit. His sharingan kept her brain active, although he was strangling her. Slowly, Autumn forcefully relaxed, and her chakra started to retract itself into her body. Once he was sure that she was finished, Itachi let her fall back onto the hospital bed. Autumn gasped for air repeatedly until her breathing was back to normal. Itachi extended a charred hand to wipe away a tear that was rolling across the once so innocent girl's face. Before he could touch her though, she screamed,
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" Autumn started to cry. At this point, Cleo stepped forward,
"Aijou… Daijoubu?" Itachi withdrew his hand, but reached out again to wipe away the tears.
"Don't cry." He whispered. Each tear that touched his hands instantly healed him. Cleo couldn't help but rush over to her friend and daughter.
"Please Autumn… Please don't cry…" She said, hugging her.
"… I'm sorry, Cleo…" Autumn muttered, sniffing a few times. Cleo pulled away from her and allowed Itachi to confront Autumn.
"Gomenasi, Shisuta-koi…" He muttered, running his hand along the soft skin of her face.
"…You have some explaining to do after I get home…" Autumn muttered, turning to Cleo.
"…Cleo… Will you please forgive me?" Cleo's eyes were watery as she turned back to Autumn.
"Of course!" She cried, pulling Autumn into a tight hug.
"… Arigatou…"
The next day, Autumn was discharged from the hospital in perfect condition.
Itachi was carrying Autumn back to her house, and she was carrying Cleo in her kitten form. Autumn's eyes were better, but she felt terrible.
When they got back to the mansion, Itachi put Autumn down and asked to Autumn to allow him to explain why he had stabbed her in the first place.
"You have five minutes, go!"
"You could have been lying." (Wow, that didn't even take one.) Autumn rolled her eyes, this was seriously jacked up.
"Gee, now if you're done insulting my intelligence, can we go back to me being scared to death?" After Itachi had stabbed her, she fainted from blood loss. Who knew what crossed over this time?
"There'sss noothing to worrrry aboouuut…" Cleo purred getting comfortable in Autumn's arms.
"You're not really helping." She said, sitting on the couch. Itachi put his hand on her shoulder causing her to look up.
"You shouldn't worry, you're one of us now." He said, Autumn looked at him sadly. Life really sucked.
"We are leaving in two weeks." Cleo raised her head.
"You can't take herrrr againsssst herrrr will." She said, her tail stroking Autumn's hand comfortingly.
"Actually Cleo, I have to…"
"Nani!?! Naze???"
"It was part of the agreement, I get to live, but I have to give up my freedom…" Autumn explained, glaring at Itachi.
"What she means is that I gave her the sharingan because she wanted to live, but Leader-sama said that she had no choice but to join the Akatsuki, if she wished to continue living." Itachi explained.
"Thank you Mister Literal, now back to me. What if it was Orochimaru that crossed over? If we can't leave for another two weeks, then we're sitting ducks!" Itachi didn't bother responding to that, and Cleo would have if she hadn't fallen asleep.
"Well at least I am…"
-Silence-
"You guys are just so helpful…" She muttered, sarcastically. Itachi petted Autumn on the head and went up to his room, leaving her and Cleo alone. Autumn went up to her room only stopping at the library to grab one of the scrolls she had been looking at before. Cleo started to wake up,
"What did I misssssss?" She asked, yawning.
"I thought you were asleep?"
"It was just a cat nap." (haha)
"Funny, do you think you can walk on your own, because I've been holding you for over an hour. You're cute and all, but eventually you start to get a bit heavy." Autumn said, placing Cleo on the ground.
"I'll be fiiine." Cleo replied turning herself back into a snake. Cleo, and Autumn walked the rest of the way up the the stairs, and into Autumn's room.
"Oh, crap!" Autumn said suddenly.
"What?"
"I forgot to ask Itachi how to turn my stupid eyes off!" Autumn turned on her heels, and ran back down to the second floor. Cleo just rolled her eyes, and went into Autumn's room.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
Autumn had just gotten down to the fourth floor when she heard Cleo scream, ignoring it she raced down two more flights of stairs, and into Itachi's room.
"Autumn?"
"You forgot to tell me how to deactivate the sharingan!" Itachi ignored her question,
"Who screamed?"
"Cleo most likely, now tell me!" Itachi stood and started going up the stairs,
"It can wait, you might want to see what is wrong with your friend." When they reached Autumn's room it was dark, and the door was wide open. It was dark because the blinds were still closed from the last time Autumn was there, but one window, way in the back on the west side of the room, was open. And in the light you could just barely make out a shadow.
"Cleo?"
"Not quite!" The figure hissed. They rushed at Itachi first, and the second they came into the light of the hallway Autumn knew who it was... Orochimaru.
It was his fault. From what Autumn understood so far, he was the reason for all of her misfortune. Whatever happened two years ago, she was sure that he was the cause of it.
"Where's Cleo?" Autumn asked quietly. Behind her, Itachi took a defensive stance. Since he had recently figured that she was okay, his main goal, and mission, was to protect Autumn at all costs. (Ha! And he does this after he stabs her, and she almost bleeds to death!)
"Who? I believe you mean Cleopatra? She's back where she belongs." He responded, taking out a scroll.
Summoning scroll…
"Give it to me." She quietly demanded. Today was so not her day. HE just smirked and played around with it for a while.
"Why? You can't use it, not unless you sign it of course."
"And that's what I'm planning on doing, so hand over the stupid scroll before I sick Weasel Boi over here on you!" Orochimaru chuckled at the pet name. Itachi just cleared his throat,
"What? I'm not sure if you've forgotten, but I'm still P. at you for stabbing me, and amost KILLING me!"
-Silence-
"Right, can we get back to the matter at hand?" Autumn said sharingan-glaring at Orochimaru.
"I see you've seemed to aquire the sharingan." He laughed causing Autumn to cringe, but she was already pissed of as it was, she instead of cowering in fear behind Itachi, like her brain told her to, she made a smart comment.
"No? Really? I thought the hours of pain I went through and the week I spent being nearly blind was just so I could win free tickets for the train to crazy town." She snapped at him.
"Witty as always, I'll make a deal with you, I'll give you the scroll, but in return you must come with me. Deal or no Deal?" (Insert game show sign, and flashing lights)
"Hmmmm, no deal. SIC 'IM WEASEL BOI!!"
-crickets chirping-
"Okay Weasel MAN, I really don't give a crap, just do something besides stand there!" Itachi charged at Orochimaru, this was going to be a good fight, but before they could get started, Autumn appeared in front of both of them.
"Hold it! You two are NOT doing this in my room, if you're going to fight, do it in the basement!" The two just looked at her,
"…"
"…"
"WHAT!? I'M BEING SERIOUS HERE! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG IT TOOK TO LUG ALL OF MY JUNK UP HERE!?" Itachi just made a handseal, and the next thing they knew, they were all in the basement.
"I guess that works, I'll go make popcorn!" She said, skipping up the stairs. She wasn't really going to get popcorn though. When Itachi transported them into the basement, Orochimaru had dropped the scroll. Autumn sprinted up the stairs as fast as her legs could take her. She collapsed at the fourth floor. Instead of actually going the rest of the way up, she made a clone.
"Could you do me a favor and get the scroll that's in my room? Thanks."
About fifteen minutes later...
The clone came back with the scroll in tow, panting heavily, it didn't look that heavy. Before she could say anything, she disappeared in a puff of smoke, dropping the scroll. It landed with a loud THUMP! I guess looks can be decieving, ah the wonders of genjutsu. Autumn opened the scroll, so far there were only two names in it. Shrugging, Autumn took a kunai that she had gotten from team Kakashi, and cut her finger with it.
"Ouch! She had better appreciate this!" Autumn grumbled to herself, signing the scroll. She signed her name using the japanese kanji for 'Aki', or Autumn. Cleo had taught her a little Japanese recently, and Pein had insisted that she learned how to write in kanji while he was there. Picking up the scroll, Autumn walked/crawled back downstairs. She could hear the battle raging on beneath her feet. She wasn't concerned though. Itachi was strong enough to win, and as soon as he did, he could show her how to use the stupid scroll in the first place! Autumn put the scroll down, it was heavy! She started doing what she was going to do before Itachi came and almost killed her. Homework. May had brought it over the last time she visited. Sitting on the couch, Autumn started writing.
In the basement...
Itachi wasn't really fighting with Orochimaru. In fact, it seemed like he was just toying with him! All he had been doing for the last few minutes was dodging Oro-baka's attacks! Suddenly Orochimaru stopped.
"Come now Itachi-kun, that girl shouldn't be worth the trouble. She treats you as if you're her pet! Let her come with me, and she'll be out of your hair!" Itachi threw the kunai he had been blocking with at Oro's head. But Orochimaru didn't flinch, instead he just stood there getting a few of his hairs getting sliced off.
"Why do you insist on being such a pest?" Itachi asked simply. Orochimaru smirked and continued talking,
"My, Itachi-kun, why must you insist on being so unreasonable?" Itachi stood there, unblinking. The next thing that hit the creepy snake dude was a huge blast of fire, curtesy of a partially annoyed Weasel Man.
Back with Autumn...
Autumn was bored, and the battle didn't really interest her, either way, she lost. Itachi wins, she joins akatsuki. Orochimaru wins, she ends up in some science lab. Even though she still lost, she prefered the first option. The idea of living with a creepy snake dude wasn't as appealing. Autumn picked up the scroll, and held it close to her. Laying down, she used it as a pillow. With another few bangs coming from the basement, she was slowly lulled into a deep sleep.
It was dark when Autumn woke up. She yawned, and made a grab for the scroll she had been using as a makeshift pillow, but what she grabbed wasn't the scroll, it was an actual pillow!
"Huh?" Autumn looked about in the darkness, until she finally figured out that she wasn't on the couch anymore, she was back in her room. The reason why it was so dark was that all of the blinds were still closed from when her eyes were still sensitive. The only blind that wasn't closed was the one on the far side of the room that Orochimaru had supposedly opened the other day, from that she could tell that it was night time.
"So you're awake." a strangely calm voice said, a light came on in the room, illuminating a figure on the other side of the bed. Seeing who it was that spoke, Autumn was immediately alarmed. Silver hair. There are very few people that Autumn had dealt with that had silver hair, there was Hidan, there was Kakashi, and then there was Kabuto.
"Yakushi, Kabuto... What are you doing here?" She hissed, her voice clearly showing her distaste.
"Truthfully I have no idea, but it certainly not of my own free will." He said coming toward her,
"Where's Itachi?"
"I believe Itachi-kun left to become more acquainted with his new surroundings." Autumn got out of bed, and grabbed one of the kunai that she kept hidden under her pillow. Kabuto just smirked, and kept advancing on her,
"Please, I'm not here to fight, Itachi-san seemed to trust me enough to temporarily leave you in my care. Besides, you don't honestly think that you could hurt me with that thing, do you?" Now it was Autumn's turn to smirk as the clone she had secretly made came up behind Kabuto with a shuriken.
"How naive." He spoke. Turning around, he killed her clone, but Autumn had a plan, as he was dealing with the clone, she stabbed him with the kunai she was holding.
"Now, what were you saying?" She asked, twirling another kunai. Kabuto pulled the first kunai out of his arm, and let it drop to the ground.
"I see you've improved." He said, healing himself. Autumn reached under her pillow, and fished out her gun,
"Yeah, sure I can do that, but I can do so much more with this." She aimed at his chest,
"Ya wanna see?"
"I'd rather not,"
"Your loss!" Autumn skipped (yes I said skipped) past Kabuto, and down the stairs, today might actually be fun!
With May...
May hadn't seen any of her friends in days, she was still in her little depression. She went to school as usual, and she even dropped Autumn's homework off at her house, but every time there would be some strange man there, telling her that Autumn was asleep. She went to her house every day too, no one could sleep that much. Looking over at the digital clock that sat on her dresser, it was around 7 am. You couldn't tell though, with the clouds over head, and the fact that winter was on it's way, it was way to dark outside. May didn't mind the weather though, it suited her mood. Recently, although no one seemed to notice it, the emo cloud above her head had started to grow, and to make matters worse, the cloud had started to rain on her head!
"Autumn... Where are you?"
With the Happy-Skippy Girl, the Weasel MAN, and the Evil Assistant to the Micheal Jackson Wannabe...
Itachi had come back to find an unusually happy Autumn, and a somewhat disturbed Kabuto.
"Where've you been!?" Autumn yelled, ambushing him.
"… Out..."
"How could you leave me with one of my worst nightmares!?" She yelled, dramatically pretending to faint. Itachi looked at her, and then looked to Kabuto who was just standing there loading a dart gun.
"What do you think you're doing?" Itachi asked, going past Autumn and over to Kabuto, taking the dart gun.
"It was for an emergency, just in case..." Itachi took out the dart, and used it to stab Kabuto's previously wounded shoulder.
"Was that really necessary?" Autumn asked, poking Kabuto's body, as she did, he fell over unconscious. Itachi ignored her question,
"Are you ready?" He asked, looking serious.
"For what?"
"Tonight is the night of the new moon…" He explained, gesturing to the door. Autumn froze up, so he was serious! Gulping, she replied,
"I will be..." He gave her a questioning look,
"There are some things I need to do... Pack, say goodbye..."
"And?"
"That should be it!" She said, excitedly, walking toward the front door.
"Later!" She left... Itachi counted down in his head,
'3'
'2'
'1'
"Wait a sec!" Autumn yelled, coming back in the house,
"You still need to tell me how to get rid of the sharingan! I can't go out in public like this!" She came up to him,
"…"
"Well?" Itachi sighed, she was going to be such a handful.
"Close your eyes," She did as she was told,
"Now shut off the excess chakra flowing to your eyes." Autumn seemed to have a bit more trouble with this, but did so eventually. Opening her eyes again, she thanked Itachi, and ran off. First stop, May's house!
With the newly Emo-fied Girl
...May was in her room, she seemed to be in a trance though. Earlier she had fallen asleep, but then she woke up she found a brand new razor in her hand. She wasn't crazy though, she wasn't about to start cutting herself!! She felt alive, just depressed. As she was looking at the shiny new razor in her hand, the doorbell rang.
"MAY! YOUR FRIEND IS HERE!" Her mom yelled from downstairs. Instead of being excited and rushing to the door as she would have done about a week ago, she just sat on her bed, and stared at the door expectantly.
"Hey.." Autumn greeted, opening the door. May just sat there emotionlessly.
"May?" any person could tell that there was something wrong with the small girl on the bed.
"What's wrong?" Closing the door, she walked over to her old friend. Finally registering what she saw, tears started leaking from May's eyes. As if she had broken out of her trance, she spoke the first real words anyone had heard from her in over a week.
"Autumn... Help..." Autumn looked around the room until her eyes came to rest on the empty corner in the room. Running over to hug her friend, she muttered her apologies. May didn't say anything, but instead, she broke out in tears. And just like that, for about three hours the two of them sat like that. That's when Autumn noticed the dark cloud hanging above their heads, raining on them. She didn't say anything though. She wanted to, but according to the authoress it would ruin the moment.
Within another hour, and several chocolate bars found around the house, May was back to her normal self. All she needed was a friend to talk to. This made Autumn sad, knowing that she was leaving all this behind.
Unknown to them they were being watched...
Autumn, being the true friend that she was, stayed with May until all feelings were resolved. This included hearing May rant and rave about Harry Potter, for an extra hour after she felt better. Only after she felt May was going to be okay for the next year or so, did Autumn leave. She conveniently forgot to tell May that she was leaving, but she thought that it would be for the best. Sometimes goodbyes were unnecessary. As she walked away from May's house, and the small quiet neighborhood that she lived in, Autumn began to feel uneasy. She knew that she had no real choice in the matter. It was either leave or die. (More lose-lose situations) As she kept on her lonely road, she started to think about a few things, what was going to happen to her? She didn't want to go off to anime land. Even though they were being 'nice' to her, she had to remember, they were all S-class criminals. They had killed hundreds of people in the past.
Before she went back to the mansion, Autumn took a detour in the tunnels, taking her to the shopping district. She had packed her money before, and was currently carrying it. A little shopping wouldn't hurt. Right? As Autumn walked toward the mall, she suddenly felt as if she was being watched. Turning around, Autumn quickly scanned the trees, seeing nothing, she brushed it off as paranoia.
Once again unknown to her, Autumn really was being watched. For she had missed the small speck of gleaming silver in the trees.
After Autumn's
extremely short shopping spree...It was about noon, and she hadn't even bought anything of importance. She still had almost all of her money, and there wasn't much to do now, but go home and face her destiny. According to Itachi, she didn't have to pack that much of her stuff, because she would have to change it all once she got there. She wouldn't be able to wear her old clothes or anything! She was going to renew her wardrobe, go through actual training at an academy, and then she would be forced to join the akatsuki. Also Itachi said that since he was originally he was sent to kill her, no one knew that she was still alive, so it would take a long time for all of this to officially be arranged. Meaning that she would have to live with them for a while before they sent her off to an academy in another village. They had breifly discussed the matter, and it was already decided that she wasn't going to the academy in Konoha, Oto, or Suna. Probably not Mist either. Itachi seemed to have talked to Kabuto about it too, because he was worried about her chances of escaping and making her way to Konoha without them knowing. Walking above ground, Autumn stopped walking, and quickly threw a shuriken at the tree behind her. Apparently it hit something, because as soon as it went up, it came back down. But this time it was aimed at her.
Instead of doing the whole "ninja" thing, she just side stepped it, and watched it plant itself into the hollow ground.
"Come out Kabuto!" She shouted at the tree. Just now taking a look at her surroundings, Autumn realized that she had walked far enough as the cemetery. Not good. This area was between the shopping district, and the rest of town. It was basically a wide open space, with a lot of trees. To the side there was a fence, marking the borders of the cemetery. There were three different cemeteries that Autumn knew of in the area. East, West, and South. Each one was fairly large, but the most noticeable thing was the fact that if you looked around, and away from it, there was nothing but one two-way road separating the cemetery, from the wide empty field across from it. No people, and hardly any cars. What could happen between a mildly confused child, and a trained ninja spy?
Pain.
Kabuto jumped to the ground, smirking.
"What are you smirking at?" Autumn asked, angrily. "You could have killed me!" She really didn't care about that, she was mad that he could have been spying on her and May. If anyone knew too much about her personal life, her friends could be in trouble.
"Well then, I guess I'm lucky you dodged that then, aren't I?" Autumn twitched, Kabuto really pissed her off sometimes. Autumn sighed,
"Are you going to tell me, or are you going to actually make me ask?"
"Ask what?" He watched as Autumn twitched for a second time,
"Listen, that stupid innocent act may have worked on the rookie nine, but not on me, so cut it out!" She yelled, something was up.
"You're obviously not here to congratulate me!"
"Very clever. If you must know, I am actually here to take you back to Orochimaru-sama, before Itachi-san gets a chance to take you out of our range." Autumn twitched again.
"You people have issues…" She said, still twitching. Kabuto, just adjusted his glasses, and took advantage of her momentary weakness, he grabbed her, and dragged her off to god-knows-where.
Actually the place where he took her was a crypt in the cemetery next to them.
"Why am I here with a bunch of dead people?" She asked, staring at a spider that was hovering above Kabuto's head.
"Oh, no, there aren't any dead people here at the moment. You see the people previously in the crypt were used in a few of my projects," Autumn twitched, she could not believe that he just stood there, and openly admitted that! Yep, these people had serious issues. Autumn watched as Kabuto opened a scroll, and looked at it for a minute. She took this as her chance to escape! Autumn slowly started to creep away, but before she got very far, she was caught by a clone.
"I'm sorry, but were you going somewhere?" The clone asked, as a few more started to appear.
"Yes. Well I was until you got in my way." The clone smiled, and hit a pressure point in her arm.
"Ow!" Autumn rubbed the sore spot, until she realized that her arm felt numb.
"What did you do!?" She tried to move her arm, but it wouldn't respond.
"Don't worry, it will repair itself later." The newly formed army of Kabuto clones attacked her limbs until she fell to the ground, unable to move.
"I'm really sorry, but we can't have you moving around." The real Kabuto said from across the room. Still on the ground, Autumn heard a few "Clapping" sounds, and then the room, in her line of vision, slowly started to disappear, and instead of the world going black, it went white...
When Autumn's vision cleared, she found herself outside. It looked like any forest that you would find in the world, but something was different. The air was cleaner, the trees seemed to be much taller with more branches, and one thing that definately struck her as odd was that Kabuto was nowhere in sight. Autumn tried to move, but found that whatever Kabuto had done to her limbs was still in effect. She moved her head to the side, away from the sun, but that was all that she could do. So she waited. For over and hour all Autumn did was stare at a tree, watching the occasional squirrel run by. Until finally she could start to feel her arms again. Kabuto still hadn't come by, neither had anyone else for that matter. Just where was she? What was happening? Why did bad things always happen to her?
Suddenly, after night fell on the empty forest, she saw something in the distance. There was a bright flash of white light, temporalily stunning Autumn. Getting over the shock, she got up, only to fall down again. Her legs were asleep. Streaching out on the ground again, Autumn waited until she could feel the blood rush back into her legs. The flash of light might have been Itachi, returning to this world! If Kabuto had really whisked her away to Anime Land, then there was still a chance that she was going to live!! Getting up once again, Autumn ran toward the direction of the light. Eventually she made it to what seemed to be a large canyon, at the bottom, a river. On the other side was for Autumn a very familiar sight, there was a giant boulder, blocking the entrance to what seemed to be a cave. The only thing that stood out was the seal on the rock. Before Autumn could get to running at it in a fit of joy, something grabbed her ankle. As she turned around, she was met with what seemed to be a giant plant, slowly growing out of the ground. Zetsu. The plant opened to reveal his face, but the expression didn't seem to care about who it was, instead, he looked hungry. As the rest of Zetsu's body emerged from the ground, Autumn found herself upside down. Dangling in the air.
"Z-zetsu-sama!" She said his name in distress, he just stared at her for bit, but then he started talking. Autumn had to strain herself in order to hear what he was saying.
"Just do it!"
"No! What if she's important? Leader-san might get mad at us!"
"Who cares? People rarely come by here, she might be a spy!" Great, they were arguing about whether or not to eat her. Before they could get into a deep conversation, Autumn decided to intervene.
"Zetsu-sama? Could you please take to Pein-sama? It's important!" She yelled getting their attention.
"How rude, you should at least say "Excuse me" it you're going to interrupt someone's conversation,"
"Well, she did say please,"
"Whatever," Zetsu stopped talking to himself, and started to walk toward the cave. Autumn crossed her arms, he could've at least put her down, and let her walk.
Eventually Autumn reached her goal, just not in the way that she planned. Apparently Zetsu didn't recognize her since he made no gesture of acknowledgement, instead he carried her upside down until he actually got inside, then he dropped her on her head, and left her to sit there while he went to get Pein!
"Zetsu... Explain." Autumn heard the familiar voice of Pein.
"She said that it was important." The hideout was dark, and she had been hiding her chakra for hours, it was no wonder that they couldn't recognize her! Autumn flipped over she that she was sitting crosslegged on the ground.
"Hiya peoples!" She said cheerily. Suddenly the rest of the akatsuki seemed to appear out of nowhere, surrounding her.
"Who are you, and what is it that you want?" Autumn released her chakra, alerting the akatsuki of who was really in their presence. Itachi reached forward, and grabbed her, pulling her up.
"Where have you been?" He asked as if she hadn't been kidnapped within the last 24 hours.
"Where have I been? Where the hell have you been!? I got kidnapped, thrown in a crypt, and then dragged into anime land, the crazyest place on earth! And then as soon as I get here I'm almost eaten by Zetsu, which causes you all to lose brownie points!"
-Silence-
"What's a brownie point, un?"
-more silence-
'I'm surrounded by idiots…'
Autumn smacked her forehead, now that she was here, what was she going to do?
"Itachi?" Pein called into the darkness, Itachi 'Hn'ed in response.
"I sent you on an assination mission, did I not?" Itachi made no move to respond.
"I do believe that this girl was your target, correct?"
"Hn."
"Then why is she standing in front of me, still alive?" It was Autumn's turn to respond, she just couldn't handle having to hear "Hn" one more time.
"I'm alive because Weasel Man here had enough sense to take me to a hospital before I bled to death." She stated calmly. Pein snapped his fingers, and imeadiately torches were lit all over the room.
"And how was this a reason to disobey my orders?" He asked Itachi.
"The blindness was only a temporary effect, it didn't last for a long period of time. It only caused soreness in the days following." He explained, Pein's eyes traveled down to Autumn,
"Very well then, you, as you were before, shall be her caretaker. In one month, you will take her to the village, and enroll her in the academy." Itachi nodded, and put his hand on Autumn's shoulder.
"Until then, she may have one of the empty rooms. Also tomorrow, you and Konan will take her shopping for clothes, and weapons... Or anything that she finds amusing, I don't what her sitting around annoying any of the other members, is that clear?" Itachi nodded once again, as did Konan. Autumn had a strange feeling that today was only the beginning of years and years of torture.