*CHAPTER TWO*

"Ka...ko...Kana..ko...","Kanako, It's time to get up! Good morning." Konan said as she shook me awake. "mmmm..." i groaned and rolled over. "Come on, don't you want breakfast?" she asked me. My eyes bolted open at the sound of breakfast. "Hahaha!" Konan laughed at my reaction. "Come on, get dressed and we'll go downstairs." So i got up and put on my dark blue shirt then my brown shorts, then my green vest. I saw konan doing her hair at her vanity; I remembered how she did my hair yesterday. "Can you do my hair again?" I asked timidly as I walked up behind her. She turned to face me, smiled, and said, "sure. sit down." So i sat down and she brushed my hair, out it up in a bun and placed the cherry blossom she made last night in my hair. I looked at myself in the vanity's mirror and I inspected my hair. I didn't have any hair hanging down, and my bun was in the side of my head with the Cherry blossom in front of it. My side bangs still hung down, though. "Come on, let's go downstairs." Konan said while putting on a strange coat, black with red clouds. She started towards the door, and I followed her because I didn't want to get lost in the maze of doors.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity of minutes, we reached the stairs. "After you!" Konan said motioning towards the stairs. "O-ok..." I went down the stairs and walked through the living room into the dining room. When walked into the dining room, there were nine people sitting there, including Mr. Pein. Konan motioned me to sit down next to her. "I've brought her, Nagato..." She said to Pein. Was "Nagato" Mr. Pein's real name? I looked around the big table, inspecting the other people's faces. The one that sat next to me had black hair with side bangs, weird lines that went down from under his eyes to the bottom of his nose; his eyes were red as well. Next to him was a man with pale blue skin, he reminded me of a shark. Next to Shark-man was yet another man, but he was younger looking with Long blond hair with one side bang covering one side of his face. He also had a top knot-like hairstyle. The half of his face you could see had one blue eye that was kind of slanted, but the rest of it you could consider normal. Next to him was also a man looked like he was younger in his years too, he had silver hair that was slicked back over His head down to his neck and also had purple eyes. Next to him was a really tall man with a mask that covered most of his face. He a dark tan skin color, with black eyebrows that seemed forever in angry position. And the last person until my eyes reached Mr. Pein was another man with black hair with an orange swirly mask. After looking around at the strange faces, i thought this must be the rest of the Akatsuki. "Well, Kanako, this is the rest of the Akatsuki." Mr. Pein said, "The one seated next to you is Hitachi, then Kisame, Deidara, Hidan, Kakuzu, And Tobi. Everyone is Kanako Matsuri." everyone looked at me. "H-hello..." i said sinking into my chair. Konan grabbed my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Well, Should we serve breakfast?" Konan asked Mr. Pein. He nodded and stood up. "Come Kanako, you can get in line first." He addressed to me. I grabbed my plate and got in line for food.

Over breakfast the rest of the group questioned me. The first to ask me a question was Mr. Deidara. "Where is your family, hmm?" "Oh... I don't have one. My parents were killed on an attack from rogue ninja. So I moved to live with my aunt in Takigakure, (Hidden waterfall!)." why did you Leave, Hmm?" I thought about my answer for a second, then replied, "because she used to make me do all the household chores and when I did something that didn't please her she would abuse me, but she always slapped me and hit me even when i didn't do anything." His eyes widened, and He said," Oh. Uh, that sucks. Hmm." I ate my last bit of food and looked down and stared at my plate. "Well, Hidan, clean up. Kanako, please meet me in my office. "What? I don't want to fuc..." Hidan looked at me and continued to say," I don't wanna fencing clean up this fencing mess!" he whined to Mr. Pein. "Just do it." Mr. Pein said without even turning around. I followed Mr. Pein into his office *Click* he shut the door behind us he sat behind his desk and motioned me to sit down. "Well, seeing that you can't go back home, you can stay with us. But, you'll have to work like the rest of us." Mr. Pein Stated. He was going to let me stay? Why did i feel so relieved? I would be around S-ranked criminals! But i really found staying here natural for some reason, so i agreed to his offer. "What kind of work will i Be doing Mr. Pein?" he ran his thumb over his chin and said, "well, mostly house work, Like cooking, cleaning, laundry. And you'll also have to be in charge of waking everyone up in the morning at 5:30. Also, you Will have to do odd jobs for the rest of the members." i told him that I was capable of doing such things. And after mulling it over for a while, he said "Good. Welcome to the Akatsuki, Kid." then he got up and walked out. I decided to follow him. When he reached the living room, he announced my acceptance into the Akatsuki, as well as my daily duties. And after that he announced the day's jobs and everyone departed. I was left with Mr. Pein. He gave me a tour of the base, a schedule for when to do things, and also told me more about my superior members. So, after my briefing I was assigned my first job, alphabetizing files. While i was working, i heard a small, "Shoot..." so turned around and saw Mr. Pein on his hands and knees on the ground, searching under his desk. "What happened Mr. Pein? Did you drop something?" he replied, "yeah... I took out one of my ear piercings but I dropped the back to it. Help me look for it." So, I got on my hands and knees and began searching. After what seemed like hours i put my hand down, but I put my hand down on something. "Wow..." i said lifting my hand to inspect the object jabbing my hand. It was the back to Mr. Pein's ear piercing. "I found it Mr. Pein! I found it!" I shouted to him. "Good work." he said taking it out of my hand. Once he put his ear piercing back, he patted me on the head. I smiled. I was useful!

When everyone came back, it was about 6 o'clock. So, i took up my job and cook dinner. but the only thing we had in the fridge was yams. So, I prepared yams. At the table I told Mr. Pein, " sorry i only could make yams, there wasn't any else in there fridge. I'll have to go the market tomorrow. May I use some money?" Mr. Pein replied flatly, "Kakuzu is treasurer of the Akatsuki. Talk to him." Aw… he scared me… so after dinner, I approached Mr. Kakuzu. "Mr. Kakuzu," I began to say, but Mr. Hidan burst out Laughing. "Haha! Mr. Kakuzu! Kid, you might as well call him Grandpa! He's well past being called mister! HA!" "Ok then...Grandpa Kakuzu; can you give me some money to use at the market? Grandpa Kakuzu looked like he wanted to brutally Murder the hysterical man. "Yes. You can have fifty-hundred ryo. I will get it to you in the morning." "Tobi says we should watch a movie." "I like movies!" I said, excitedly. "Yayyy! How 'bout a horror movie!" Tobi yelled excitedly. "I that Ok with you Kanako? Hmm?" Mr. Deidara asked me with a questioning look. "Yeah that's ok..." I smile a outwardly smiled, but on the inside i cringed. I hated horror movies with a passion. "Cool. Then let's watch SAW!" Oh god. Not that. To me, Saw was the worst of them all. So, Mr. Kisame set up the movie. "I guess this isn't so bad..." i thought as we all watched. But was I wrong. "AAAUUUGHHH! *SQEULCH* EEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIKKKKKKK! *RRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPP*" [A/n- whatever horror movie sounds make...] I couldn't take it any longer! "EEEEEEEEEEEKKKKK!" I ran as fast as I could, screaming as I ran. I had to escape those horrible noises. Suddenly, I came up to closet. I opened the door and hid inside I crouched down sobbing into my knees. After a few minutes, someone found me. But I only saw a silhouette, I thought of the movie and screamed again and got up and backed farther into the closet, but, i knocked things over, and the fell on top of me. "Oohhh..." I groaned. "Hey kid, it's okay!" Said a distressed Mr. Kisame. "Oh, Mr. Kisame. I'm sorry, I thought I could handle that movie, but I couldn't. I'm sorry." "Hey it's okay. You should have said those movies scared you. Here, let's get this stuff off you." Hey! Itachi gimme a hand!" soon, Mr. Itachi came over to where we were. "I can't believe you didn't get hurt under all these weapons." Mr. Itachi said, flatly surprised. After the pile of weapons was off me, I stood up. "Ooww..." I said as fell back to the ground. Pain shot up and down my leg. I looked down and had a nasty looking weapon stuck out of my legs. It had gone really deep. I started to get nauseous. "Uh-Oh Kisame, you had better get Kakuzu. That looks pretty deep." Mr. Itachi said. "Okay. Get her to the kitchen." Mr. Kisame said before walking off. Mr. Itachi picked me up and carried me to the table in the kitchen. He set me down and everyone gathered in the kitchen. Grandpa Kakuzu came through the rest of the group around me and Said, "Let's have a look." so, I stuck out my leg for him to look at. While he examined my injury I looked at what was showing off his face. For some reason, it seemed that his always downward slanting eyebrows seemed to tilt backwards, as if he felt bad for me. "Ok all of you; she is going to be fine. You can all go back to watching the movie. If you want to watch, stand over there." Grandpa Kakuzu said to all of them. They all left except Konan, which she came over and held my hand. I was thankful for that, because I knew that the jagged hand knife would have to come out of my leg. "Ok Kid, I am going to pull this out, and then I am going to stitch it up, because this is a very deep cut. This is going to hurt. Get ready." He said to me. "One...two...three!" he yanked the knife out of my leg, but it started bleeding. Everything seemed to blur up. "Konan, go get me a paper towel." Konan came back with a few. She dabbed my leg until the bleeding stopped. "This next part will hurt. I have to stich it up." Grandpa Kakuzu addressed to me. I braced myself. He stuck his hand out. And a black chakra thread snaked out his sleeve. The weird thread started to make the stitches in my leg. It didn't really hurt that bad, but i was thankful when he finished because once the thread was in place, it would sting like crazy. I got down off the table and started to walk, but I didn't really walk, i limped. "Don't move it around too much or it'll come right off." grandpa Kakuzu warned me. I nodded and said to Konan," I am going upstairs. I'll see in the morning." And i walked towards the stairs, I wanted to avoid the living room, but that would mean going through Mr. Pein's office, which creeped me out. So I decided to suck it up and go through the embarrassment. I tried to be quiet walking through; maybe they won't notice me... I thought. But, was I wrong they more than noticed me; they all attacked me with questions and comments," are you ok, Kanako?" "You should have said something!" I was cornered by the lot of Akatsuki, the s-ranked criminals who obviously cared a lot about a thirteen-year-old girl's injury. Then, Konan came to my rescue, she yelled over the clamoring members, "ALL OF YOU! JUST SHUT UP! YOU HAVE EYES AND CAN SEE SHE IS ALL RIGHT! NOW THE REST OF YOU MORONS CAN JUST GO SIT DOWN AND FINISH THAT MOVIE! ME AND KANAKO ARE GOING UPSTAIRS!" She grabbed my hand and led me through the crowd. They were all dumbstruck and even Mr. Pein looked a little surprised. I followed Konan upstairs

I put my PJs while Konan took off her makeup. "T-thanks Konan... I don't know what I would've done." I said to her. She turned around, and had makeup smeared all over her face. "No Problem! It was fun to set them straight" She puffed out her chest haughtily. "Haha... hey, do you need some help for your makeup? You're kind of getting it everywhere..." Konan turned back to the mirror and gasped. "Whoa! I think that would be great." so I helped her get the rest of, and she got into her PJs. "Konan? Do you have an alarm clock?" I asked her. "I think so..." she said, beginning to dig through her closet." found it!" she said handing it to me. It was a simple alarm clock with the two bells on top. "Thanks." I said. Set the alarm for 5:30 a.m. "Good night Kanako." "Good night Konan. And then the light was turned out.

A/n- And that's chp. 2! Hoped you liked it! Please review!