Ch.3 – An Assassin – (Von's P.O.V.)

After a trip to Ichiraku's Ramen, Sasuke went on a walk and I took off to assist Kakashi in finding a home for the newbie. Tsunade partnered her up to live with the orphan boy Naruto. What a weird match up, an easily irritating boy and an easily irritated girl. I could see trouble down the road.

Currently, I was on my way home to the Uchiha compound to hopefully catch Sasuke on his way home. He was not on the streets of the isolated houses, and when I got to the house we shared, he was no where inside. The only other place he could have gone was to the dock on the pond. As I approached the pond, I could see Sasuke in the distance. Sitting on the edge of the dock, he stared into the water, as if looking into the past. Sasuke turned his head to see me walking over to him. When I sat down next to him, I threw one arm over his shoulder and pulled him in. Even though he seemed shocked at first, he gradually hugged me.

"What's up, Sasuke?"

His eyes drifted far from mine. Concern grew on my face, though I was never one to show it. "Nothing."

"Oh c'mon, kid. I can read you like a baby book."

"Do you trust that Kaede girl?"

I was surprised by his question. "Well, I don't trust anyone right off the bat, but I'm not going to judge her. Why do you ask?"

"Well, she seemed to be acquainted with the shark man Itachi travels with... do you think she might be acquainted with my brother, too?"

"I doubt it's unlikely."

Sasuke chuckled before replying," You sure are one to make things difficult."

"That I am. Would I be a good person if everything I said was yes or no?"

He laughed once more. "Apparently not."

My laughter soon joined his. "Home?"

"Home it is." He agreed.

In the middle of the night, I was woken up by a peculiar feeling of de ja vu, but with people rather than places. I jumped up and opened the curtains, I could feel 3 presences in the forest. The typical skeptic sound of wind chimes sang along with the wind's howling. Could that be any more stereotypical of a frightening night?

Everyone was already asleep, so I didn't bother to find it weird that no one was outside. Instead, I just hurried my way to where I felt the three people. For every step closer I got, a step further they got. It was likely they knew I was coming. Just then an epiphany hit me, one of the three was Kaede. What was she doing out here? I hid my chakra and swept over there in a record time, just enough to catch what was going on.

"Let me go! Damn!" Kaede yelled.

"Kae, you have to come with us. I can't afford to upset the leader." Shark boy said. He was with the weasel, Itachi.

"Why? Where are you beckoning me to go?" Kaede asked frantically.

"Because you have a bloodline trait that we are in need of. We are going to Akatsuki headquarters."

"Not if I can help it." A smile arose on my lips as I walked into the battle scene and landed in front of Kaede.

Itachi scowled at me. "What's wrong, weasel? You two can't seriously be proud of joining that ridiculous organization, can you?"

"We don't have the time to deal with you, Von. Stay out of our way."

"Sorry, but that's not how it works. I'll stay here, please and thank you."

"We'll just have to move you by force. Kisame?"

Kisame looked at me and Kaede, then back at Itachi. "Are you sure you don't want to take her on, Itachi?"

"Too scared to fight fishy?" I mocked. Kaede giggled at this.

"Fine. I'll take her, you take Kaede."

Itachi's face was priceless, he looked surprised and agitated at the same time. He unbuttoned the first three buttons on his cloak and hung his left hand on the bottom button. As curious as I was to figure out how much better he had gotten, I didn't have the time to be thinking about it. I stood my ground while I threw four shurikens from different directions and my sand clone attacked him from behind. Luck was not on my side, because he grabbed my clone by the ankle and hurled it at me while dodging all four shurikens. I didn't even have enough time to get back up on my feet when I felt a kunai in my right arm. I looked at my arm and it was in deep; bloody as ever. It was time to stop playing around and get serious. Just as my clone collapsed into a pile of biodegradable sand, my fist unexpectedly 'ran into' Itachi's cheek and sent him flying back. Exactly alike he had did to me, before he could get up, the kunai that was in my arm was now under his collar bone. Even though it was shallow, it was enough to tell him I was just getting serious. I stood above his body that was crouching over in pain.

"You've improved... a lot." He claimed.

"Well, doh. Do you honestly think I would sit around and do nothing?"

Before he could reply, I stuck my hand out for him to grab so I could pull him up and call it a fair game; but instead he stared at my hand and poof went his body. Shadow clone. A swift kick in the side pushed me to the ground as he landed next to me. At this point, I was huffing, trying to catch my breath. As much as I had the strongest desire to use my Mikotani Jutsu on him, it took up a lot of chakra, and he was one you did not want to waste strong genjutsu's on.

As quickly as I could say 'crap', four Itachi's surrounded me and stared at me with the Mangekyou Sharingan activated. If I looked in his eyes or at his nails, I was in deep trouble. In my defense, my eyes sharpened into a hazel color and I activated my Mikotani Jutsu. My hand opened as a small spear came out of it. With my eyes closed, I stabbed my spear into all four of Itachi's clones and they poof-ed away, allowing me to open my eyes and charge at the real Itachi who was standing but a few feet away. I clashed my spear into the ground and formed two peace signs together on my hands while he jumped away. A couple drops of blood formed from when I hit him earlier. They sucked ounces of blood from his body, creating a river-like puddle that flowed it's way down to me. His eyes were wide when he realized what was going on. This time I showed him no sympathy, my heart was pounding waiting for the big shebang.

When I had walked over to where he was, I pierced the spear into his back where it went through to his stomach. I made sure the spot wasn't vital, so that I could take his powers and win the battle, but not kill him. I had made a promise to Sasuke that I would let him kill his brother. Ripping out the spear, he collapsed and coughed up blood. I happily walked away with my new spear that had turned larger than the last one. The spear evaporated into my arm as I walked over to check on Kaede and Kisame. What I saw was incredibly strange...