Hell yes, bitches! It be done!

Now be ready for some kick ass awesomeness! Intensity to the extreme!

Yosh!

Time of Completion: Sunday, 15 February, 5:03AM Eastern Standard Time
Number of Words (in text): 4,610
Sheer Amount of Awesome: A Lot

... Read and Review, please?

"Report!" the deep voice rumbled from the dark end of the gargantuan meeting table, multi-hued eyes flashing in the dark as the words seemed to encompass the room with its severity. 5 holograms, each a 9-inch off-color, blue-and-pink-tinted image of the person being projected, fizzled into existence onto the display pads in front of him.

"Kakuzu and Hidan, reporting in, sir. We've finally settled down the occupants of the other cells. XIV and 8 almost escaped sir, and we had some trouble from the SHUKAKU project, but were finally able to sedate him. It seems he is reacting to the disappearance of KYUUBI." The man known as Kakuzu said, only his dark eyes visible over his high collar and under his skullcap, his face completely covered. His silver-haired partner stood next to him, his static image flickering as he nodding grimly.

"Damn sand bastard almost killed his handlers! When he discovered that the fucking fox had buggered outta here, he went berserk. Apparently the stupid fucking tanuki developed an attachment to the fiery fuck, if his shrieks were any indication. I wouldn't call it friendship, but the fox has generated some affect on him, and was, if my observations are correct, a crucial influence on the fucking sand kid's sanity." Hidan stated, holding on to his elbow and stretching his back every once in a while as he spoke. "The stupid bastard knocked me into a wall with one of his fucking tails when me and Kakuzu were called in. According to those dumbass scientists, when the damn SHUKAKU kid discovered that KYUUBI wasn't in the building, he went batshit insane. Started transforming or whatever, and that's when we were buzzed. Either way, the fucker's strong."

"Could you have put it any less artistically?" the blond on the far right said, glaring at the rather vulgar silver-haired man.

"Fuck off, Deidara! This isn't your report!" Hidan retorted, returning the blonde's glare as he folded his arms over his chest. The silver-haired man winced, grabbing his elbow again, his face contorted in pain as he realized his stupidity in the action.

"Ha, you stupid moro-!"

"Silence, Deidara. Your report will be next." The man interrupted, his rumbling voice threatening. The blond shut up immediately, his image flickering. He did not want to anger his boss, that was for sure! "Continue, if you have any thing else to report." The man said, turning his attention back to the images of Hidan and Kakuzu.

"Nothing really, sir. We only experienced some minor injuries, though one of the scientists was hospitalized due to several broken bones. Otherwise, nothing else of great importance." Kakuzu answered before Hidan could respond, knowing that his partner would end up saying something stupid and start fighting with Deidara, as was usual during meetings like this. Just something about the two being in the same room caused them to bicker.

"Good. Deidara, now you may report."

"Thank you, Leader-sama. I've reached the final testing stages of the prototype I had been telling you about. I've just sent you the details on what it does via e-mail, if you wish to see them. Besides that, we've also created several prototype models of offensive and assassination equipment that you should inspect before we continue with them. One of them happens to be of interest to several of our martial artists and hand-to-hand combat specialists."

"I'm assuming by 'hand-to-hand' specialists, you're referring to Kakashi?"

"Yes, sir, he's the main one interested in this particular project. He even requested to be allowed a field test of this piece of equipment before we'd even finished the prototype. And since I worked on it during one of my breaks from my main project, I believe it's quite artistic in its nature and execution. I sent the specs of this project in another email, along with a formal request by Kakashi, and the other models, too."

"I'll consider it. Sasori?" The fair-skinned red-head was snapped out of his musings by the Leader's voice, his hologram turning its head up to face the enshrouded man.

"Nothing new here, Leader-sama. Deidara's basically covered everything currently going on in the Research & Development department." Sasori droned, his voice monotonous and un-interested as he drummed his fingers against his leg.

"Zetsu? Any reports from your spy networks?"

Even though his image was the same height as the other holograms, the strange man still appeared tall. His face and, underneath his clothing, the rest of his body, were split into two 'halves'. Due to a failed experiment involving attempts to enhance both the human mind and the body, his skin had developed a strange pigmentation. The right side of his body turned black, and the left side became white. Not just black and white as in racial skin color, but as in his body developed pure black and pure white pigments in his skin. Not to mention his eye-color. The eye on the right side was now a solid yellow-orange, almost gold in color, cornea, iris, pupil and all. The opposite eye instead was only the yellow-orange in the iris and pupil. On top of his strange body changes, he also developed moderate psychosis, along with the worst case of split-personality disorder the psychologists who had tried to help him had ever seen, at least that's what they believe it was. His brain had actually partitioned into two different minds, two different people, and so instead of his mind creating a second 'personality', per se, he had actually become two completely different people inside the same body. Zetsu referred to this other person as his 'brother'.

"Yes, sir. The governments of several neighboring countries would like to make some deals with you."

"The snake-fiend is also on the move. You should deal with him before it's too late."

"Noted. I shall arrange the meetings," the Leader paused for a moment, staring at the two spaces where the images of a certain Uchiha and Hoshigake were supposed to be waiting. "Why hasn't Itachi reported in?"

"Last I knew, he's still trying to locate that damn fox kid. Has been since he broke out last night. Futile, if you ask me. Kid's probably miles away by now…"

"Do not presume that you know what I do, nor the futility of my missions," Itachi's words crackled through, his voice coming from the place where he should have been standing.

"Forgive me Leader-sama, it took me some time to find a suitable connection that would allow me to contact you. Kisame and I are currently unable to enter a proper projection room, so I will be speaking for him at the moment, as well as myself."

"Forgiven, if you are able to give a noteworthy report. Continue."

"Unfortunately, I have lost my quarry…" This statement was met by several disgruntled 'hmph!'s and a triumphant muttering of 'Told you so!' from Hidan. "… at the moment. However, I do have several leads as to where the subject is staying, and will be inspecting those as soon as possible."

"Negative. You will return to Headquarters immediately. I am going to let 5776 be right now." The Leader said, leaning in a bit towards the projections, his hands clasped under his chin. The light coming from the holograms reflected off of the blue and yellow of his eyes, giving them a sinister gleam.

" We have other things to oversee right now that are far more important than some missing weapon."

-_-_-S-e-c-t-i-o-n-_-B-r-e-a-k-_-_-

Besides it beginning to rain, the ride from the mall was so far uneventful. The roads were clear of traffic, and the shadowed city streets were empty of the daytime bustle. Most of the ride had been spent in silence as the car's occupants sat in thought. Well, the two capable of silent thought, anyway. Naruto was too busy fidgeting as he chewed on the end of a used sucker stick

In the end, they had bought a decent amount of clothes, enough so that Naruto would have enough shirts for two weeks, and just about as many pants, if he wore a couple of pairs an extra day or so. Naruto was still baffled, confused, and perplexed as to why Mrs. Haruno was doing all of this. According to what little he knew about people outside of the lab, coupled with what the others, like the scientists, security personnel, and the occasional few others who would pass through the Akatsuki facility, would say or he chanced to overhear, most people would rather cut off their own arms instead of being charitable. It had been to his understanding that though there were nice people out there, a majority of the world was nothing but greedy, selfish back-stabbers, who would, instead of helping others in need, laugh in disdain and look down their noses at others, forwarding their own selfish goals without care as to the expense of others. That humanity was nothing but a bunch of hateful greedy apes, carelessly destroying the world so that they could earn wealth.

But Sakura and Emiko had blown those theories right out of the water. Everything that the two had said and done, was a contradiction to what he had learned. With the exception of Iruka, nobody had really cared as to Naruto's well being. There were a rare few other scientists who treated him as a patient, but none who truly cared about him. Not like Iruka had. It had taken years to develop the bonds with Iruka that he had had, that feeling that no matter what time of day it was, if Naruto ever needed Iruka, whether it be because Naruto needed help, was just lonely, or even if he had a nightmare, Iruka would come to his little room and talk with him, keep him company, listen to him, just because the man cared. Not because he had to, because he wanted to. All the other doctors and scientists would ignore him or just go get Iruka. The security guards didn't talk to him, because they were all afraid of him. Afraid of what he could do.

Then along comes Sakura, who, by the kindness of her own heart, decides to help him, and befriended him in the space of minutes. Her mother comes along, and not only offers him a home to live in, but clothing and food as well. Emiko and Sakura had, within the hours since they had met, been kinder to him than almost all the years he had known Iruka combined.

Tears welled up in Naruto's eyes at the thought of this. Nobody had ever been this nice. Nobody had ever cared about him, or even wanted to care about him. Nobody but Iruka, but he couldn't do that anymore. He couldn't care about Naruto anymore. The tears began to spill down Naruto's face as he silently began to cry, biting his sucker stick in half as he tried not to make any noise.

"Naruto? Naruto, are you okay? What's the matter?" He could hear the motherly concern in Emiko's voice as the tears began to flow even more. Naruto looked up, seeing Sakura turned around to face him, and Emiko's concerned eyes looking at him through the rearview mirror.

"Nothing... it's... nothing," he mumbled, trying to prevent any sobs from getting through his clenched teeth.

"Don't lie to me! I'm a mother, I know these things! Now tell me what's the mat... what does that idiot think he's doing?!" The change in tone made Naruto look up, wondering what she was shouting about. To his surprise, there was a man, looking at the ground, standing in the middle of the road barely twenty feet in front of them. Naruto lurched forward against the seatbelt as the minivan screeched to a halt, stopping mere inches from the strange man. They all sat and stared at him through the windshield, the view slowly becoming obscured by tiny raindrops, and then restored back to clarity by the wipers.

Then he looked up, revealing a white mask with a glowing red eye as electricity arced out of his hand.

-_-_-S-e-c-t-i-o-n-_-B-r-e-a-k-_-_-

Deidara stomped into the Research & Development lab, brewing with rage as he fisted the note in his hands.

"Who the hell authorized the removal of the Chidori Hand-to-hand Combat unit?" He yelled, the bustling room coming to halt. The half-dozen night-shift researchers stared blankly at their department head in confusion.

"Didn't... didn't you, sir?" came a timid response from one of the scientists. The other five quickly moved away from him, knowing better than to get in the way if Deidara went into one of his rages, which usually resulted in debris and visits to the hospital.

"What the fuck? No. Who the hell told you that?!" The blond took two steps toward him, shaking in anger.

"Ummm... well, sir, Kakashi came in here, and it had your signature..."

"What had my signature?!" Deidara, who was not very tall, somehow managed to loom over the cowering researcher.

"The request form! The one stapled to the note in your hand!" Deidara paused, turning his angry gaze from the quivering man in front of him to the crumpled paper in his hand. The dull gray of a staple caught his eye, and he began to unfold the mess, unwrapping the second sheet of paper that he hadn't noticed from the confines of the first. The blond gave it a quick once over, and then clenched his fist again, crumpling the paper for a second time.

"Where the hell did he get this! I didn't sign any fucking approval forms!"

"He said you had green-lighted it, and that he was authorized to give it a field test! He told us that if we didn't give it to him quick for testing, you were going to get angry!"

"I'm angry right now!"

"We tried to tell him it wasn't quite ready, and there were still a couple of bugs we needed to fix!" One of the others stepped in, shifting the focus of Deidara's rage away from the other scientist.

"Like what?! I almost had the Chidori to artistic perfection! Are you saying there was something wrong with my design?!"

"Not at all! It's just that we were never able to mute the chirruping that the generator made, so it still has little-to-no stealth value, and also..."

"What else?! What else was wrong with my art?!"

"Well... we were never able to get it to..."

"Never able to get it to what?!"

"Well, sir... we couldn't get it to cap off. There's no charge limit. If it overloads, it could spontaneously discharge, or worse..."

"'Or worse' what?"

"It could electrocute the user, or even explode."

-_-_-S-e-c-t-i-o-n-_-B-r-e-a-k-_-_-

Sakura's head hurt.

She opened her eyes, her vision obscured by a pink blur. Brushing her hair out of the way, she sat up, realizing that she had been slumped over her seatbelt. She quickly fell back forward into the belt, her head throbbing. Her back was spasming at random intervals, and her arm would twitch every other second or so. There was a strange smell of singed rubber and hair, and through the windshield she could see smoke leaking out of a hole in the hood of the van.

She tried to remember what had just happened... she could remember a strange man, and jerking forward as her mom slammed the breaks. Then her memory became fuzzy... she recalled Naruto yelling "Outta the car!" and then... well... her memory was blank from there on. Did she pass out?

Something smashed into the side of the minivan, and suddenly it all came back to her. The strange man. The weird dog-like mask. The red eye. The lightning shooting out of his hand as he smashed his palm into the front of the car... and then the car sinking and purple and blue arcs of electricity dancing throughout the car. After that, it was darkness.

Sakura was brought back to attention as Naruto crashed into the minivan's hood, bouncing off and rolling onto the pavement in front of the bumper. There was a large scorch mark smoldering on his chest, visible through the singed hole in his baggy shirt.

"Naruto!" She screamed, struggling against the seatbelt. She tried to release it from the clasp, but the buckle mechanism had melted to the seat, and was still hot. She pulled back her hand, shaking and blowing on it as a few strands of molten plastic stretched from the seat to her palm.

A black blur out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, as she looked up just in time to see the man barrel into a staggering Naruto, smashing him back into the ground, his fist glowing an electric blue as it smashed into the asphalt next to Naruto's head.

-_-_-_-

Naruto twitched as a stray spark jumped from the gloved fist next to his face onto his head. He could hardly focus upon the emotionless mask above him, his thoughts and vision spinning from the current that had been forced into his body. The masked man was silent, and as far as Naruto could tell, was just staring at him. Or at least he thought the man was staring at him... he couldn't tell much from the one eye visible... though it looked kind of familiar... there were two people he knew of with spinning red eyes, and only one of them he knew personally. This wasn't Itachi... he had two of them. So this guy had to be... well, he couldn't remember his name, but it was definitely not Itachi. How weird would that be? Two Itachi's, both with funny eyes...

Naruto's rambling thoughts were interrupted as the wooden mask smashed into his forehead, making him black out for a moment. In that short amount of time, the strange man leapt off his chest, backing up once he landed, putting a ten foot gap between them. Naruto stumbled back up, trying to reorient himself and gain balance, his eyes trying to focus on his assailant. The world refused to stop spinning for a moment to allow him a chance to stand upright! Naruto paused, and the world steadied for a moment as the stranger's voice rang out, echoing between the buildings.

"Y'know... this's been easier than I thought it'd be. I would've expected you to put up a better fight than this." The voice was strangely familiar... he couldn't quite place it, but Naruto knew he knew that voice from somewhere... However, there was one thing for sure that Naruto had picked up from that statement. The jerk thought he was weak!

"Oh yeah, bastard! You haven't seen anything yet!" With a feral grin, Naruto crouched, preparing to leap right across the street and into the masked jerkoff. He pushed off... and fell flat on his face. His balance was still off.

-_-_-_-

Kakashi stared at the idiot blond, who was now laying face-down in a small puddle. He was trying to take his revenge on this? That big-mouthed idiot at the barracks would've been tougher... even after he had already beaten the stuffing out of him. He stood there nonchalantly as the blond Project began to wobble back to his feet again, to Kakashi's great amusement.

The hand-to-hand specialist heard a muffled sound off to his left, just noticing the other occupants of the van he had electrocuted. The pink haired girl was trying to struggle out of her seatbelt as she was obviously worrying over the older woman in the driver's seat, who still remained in a slouching, unconscious position in her seat with her forehead resting against the steering wheel. Having not really intended to involve other people in this, he took a step towards the minivan to see if they were alright, completely forgetting about the blond creation behind him...

"Stay away from them!" The next thing Kakashi knew was that he was being suspended above the ground by a pair of very strong and angry arms. Then came the brick wall of a convenience store, which caused much pain, and then the strange feeling of flight as he was thrown through the air. He hit the ground rolling, standing upright and moving as quick as he could before the enraged blond could get to him.

Kakashi could feel wet drops hit his head as the rain began to fall in earnest, which was a cool contrast to the blast of heat at his back. The gray-haired man tried to run, but it was too late when the explosion hit, the fireball searing his back as he was pitched forward. The force of the explosion bounced him off of a wall, and he slammed into the concrete alley between two apartment buildings. Groaning in pain, he turned himself over so that he was face-up. Forcing himself into a sitting position, he looked out the alley, trying to figure out what had made what explode.

There was fire still spewing out of a crack in sidewalk... so a gas pipeline must have exploded. The heat waves and smoke were distorting his line of sight beyond that, but he did notice, with a hint of amusement, that a Konoha Postal Service curbside mailbox had burst, and flaming letters were fluttering about.

The sight beyond that alarmed him, though. The minivan that Naruto had been in was on its side, and the tires were on fire. Killing innocent bystanders would weigh hard enough on his conscience, but innocent bystanders who were killed in a fire that was partially his fault would weigh heavier... Something was coming through the flames. Kakashi focused his attention on that. He couldn't tell what it was though...

The fire parted, and out if the flames stepped Naruto, his clothes burning, but otherwise seeming perfectly fine standing in the middle of the inferno. But... there was something strange about his eyes, and something waving around wildly behind him. The blond's back arched, and he let loose a blood-curdling howl. Kakashi could see lengthened canines inside the Project's mouth, and Kakashi also figured out what was so weird about its eyes. They had changed, and were now a glowing red.

Kakashi went skidding across the ground again, twisting and rolling as he did. The Project was faster than he could react, which wasn't a good thing, considering that his own reactions were at the edge of the human limit... then again, Project 5776 wasn't human.

He realized that his view was unobstructed now. Apparently, he had lost his mask somewhere along the alley floor. He could see it lying, cracked in half, not even five feet from him. Now there was a foot blocking his way. Kakashi felt something tug at his collar, and then he was being lifted up. The silver-haired man felt limp, boneless, as the KYUUBI lifted him up to the blond's eye level, and suddenly he was met by a feral, grinning visage. There was very little humanity left in the look that the Project's cat-like red eyes were giving him.

"What do you want with me?" The creature's deep voice sent tremors of fear through Kakashi's body. His arms were limp at his side as he was suspended by the double-fisted grip on the front of his shirt.

"Why..." Kakashi hacked, something coming up with his violent cough. He could feel it on the inside of his facemask, and it definitely didn't taste like phlegm... he really hoped it wasn't blood. He felt a little feeling return to his fingertips. Coughing and breathing heavily, he finished what he had begun to say.

"Why... why did you kill... Iruka?" He could see the confusion in the blond's eyes, but he didn't know what it meant. He was just hoping that the blond was distracted enough to not notice that damn giveaway sound...

"Wh-what? I didn't kill Daddy... why would I kill Da..." Kakashi didn't take time to decipher the statement as he jammed his sparking palm into the blond's chest, interrupting Naruto. The Project yelped, dropping Kakashi to the ground. Kakashi could feel a couple of ribs that he had been hoping were fine break for sure, and it was suddenly harder to breath. He watched through fading eyes as the blond collapsed onto the ground next to him.

Kakashi really hoped that he wasn't going to be fired because of this. He could hardly afford his book collection as it was.

-_-_-_-

Sakura was fairly sure she had a concussion, but she disregarded the pain and the dizziness because the heat was getting worse, and she couldn't get the damn seatbelt off of her mother.

She finally managed to get the elder Haruno out from under the shoulder strap, and was starting to drag her through the shattered windshield. The pinkette almost had her mother free, when she caught a whiff of a familiar smell. The sharp tang of gasoline wafted through the air.

"Shit!" Sakura screamed, scrambling to drag her mother as far from the wrecked vehicle as she could. If enough air got into the tank when the gas ignited... well, the results wouldn't be pretty.

Sakura had dragged Emiko a full ten feet before she collapsed onto the ground, too tired and sore to move any further. And she was quite lucky she fell, because at that moment, molten flame from a burning tire fell into the crack along the top of the gas tank. There was a 'Whoosh' as the air around the bottom of the van was sucked in, making the fire visibly flux inward towards the tank, and then it exploded, catapulting the flaming vehicle over Sakura and her mother's prone bodies, and into the window of the convenience store that Naruto had slammed Kakashi into.

Sakura could feel her consciousness slipping, and tried to hold onto it as long as she could. She finally let it slip away when she heard the distant wail of sirens approaching.

Her last thought was 'I hope Naruto is alright...'

-_-_-S-e-c-t-i-o-n-_-B-r-e-a-k-_-_-

Kakashi woke up to a familiar smell. It was that annoying smell of that antiseptic clean that only tries to hide, but cannot completely cover up the underlying feel of death, that smell that only Intensive Care Units and emergency wards could achieve. Which meant that he was in a hospital. And since he was in a hospital, and he as far as he knew, still in Konoha, and he was an emergency patient of some sort, that meant that there was a chance that the one doctor he did not want to see was his caretaker.

"What the fuck is he doing here?! Get him outta my ward, and outta my hospital!" ... " I wouldn't care if he's fucking bleeding out the eyes and his insides were melting! I want him OUT! Dammit... I need sake..." The room's lone door slammed open as the busty blonde of his nightmares stormed in, with a timid dark-haired nurse trailed behind her, trying to keep damage caused by the blonde to a minimum. Kakashi gave an awkward wave, his arm spasming and causing him a lot of pain.

"Yo. Long time, no... OUCH! Dammit, Tsunade... that... hur... t..." Kakshi faded back into unconsciousness, a heavy dose of tranquilizer traveling through his system, rocking him slowly back to sleep. Tsunade didn't bother to pull the syringe out of Kakashi's thigh as she left the room, leaving it to the nurse to clean up the mess behind her.

Peace out, yo!

It be time for this chicken to go to roost!
-ChickenDeNoodleyNoodle the Third

P.S: Happy Valentines Day, everyone!