A/N: Another short chapter, but I think this one at least came out better than the last. Sorry about the recent lapse in quality, I dunno what's going on with me. -.-"

Within a half-hour of Amanda's arrival, I was ready to scream. It was one thing to be enthusiastic about having guests, sure, but these guys were the psychos. As in, THE psychos. The ones who were holding me hostage in my own apartment. But then, when it comes to Amanda, "not an immediate and serious threat" is basically synonymous with "totally okay to freak out over like a twelve-year-old girl".

"Your roommate seems... enthusiastic," Kakuzu noted, raising an eyebrow as Amanda practically talked poor Itachi's ear off, presumably about ponies.

I sighed. "Yes, she does. Basically, she hasn't changed at all since we were, like, eight." I paused, then added, "Actually, I think she might be worse now."

"So we can expect this behavior the whole time we're here?" I was somewhat happy to notice that Kakuzu looked rather horrified at this prospect. So I wasn't the only one! Fortunately, he was a bit off.

"Well, no. You can expect it for... another fifteen minutes or so." He looked at me questioningly, and I explained, "Amanda has a tendency to get even more hyper than usual when she meets someone new. Once she gets used to you guys being here, she'll probably calm down some."

"Ah. For a moment there, I was worried we might effectively have two Tobis running around."

To my relief, I was right. Before long, she stopped running around harassing criminals long enough for me to pull her aside.

"We need to talk," I told her. "The fact is, this is way out-of-hand. We don't have room for these guys, and they refuse to leave."

"Wait," Amanda interrupted. "If there's no room, how have they been staying here?"

"By making people sleep on the floor. I don't know how long they'll put up with this. Heck, or how long I can keep this up!" I shoved my fingers through my bangs, scowling. "I haven't been able to go to work the whole time I've been here. My boss thinks I've just got a bunch of teenagers staying over here."

"Okay, well, that won't be a problem anymore!" Amanda grinned, getting her phone out of her pocket and tapping at it for a few moments before turning the screen toward me and announcing, "See? This summer, we never both have work at the same time."

I examined the screen for a few moments before sighing in relief. "Okay, so they won't end up being left alone. But what about space?"

Amanda didn't have an answer for that one. After a few moments of thought, she said, "We'll... think of something. In the mean time, I guess we'll just try to stop them from... I dunno, rioting or whatever."

I sighed again, this time with irritation. "Good. Preventing a riot. That's a great alternative to not risking one in the first place. But there's one more thing I need to talk to you about."

Amanda raised her eyebrows, noticing the slight shift in my tone of voice. I glanced around her, checking that none of the others were listening. Fortunately, they were all busy, back to their usual activities.

"Amanda," I said softly, not wanting any of them to overhear, "I don't know what's up with these guys, but there's-"

Before I could say "there's something weird about them", and possibly then, "they seem kind of impossible", I was interrupted.

Specifically, I was interrupted, I lost my train of thought, and I think I nearly got a ruptured eardrum, when Hidan screamed, as if what he was saying was just so important that the whole world needed to know, "I AM F**KING SICK OF THIS S**T!"

Following the outburst, I would like to say that the whole room went quiet, everyone in shock at Hidan's sudden fury. Except that basically nobody went quiet, because this was Hidan and nobody was surprised.

However, I didn't know about the others, but I did not want to risk Hidan staying too pissed off for too long. I hurriedly told Amanda I would talk to her later, then walked over to Hidan, who was currently ranting about who-knew-what, apparently further angered by the complete non-response to his outburst.

"Okay," I said, stopping beside the couch, where he was leaning over, this forearms crossed and his elbows resting on his knees. "What's the problem now?"

"I just said it; I'm sick of all this."

"I meant," I said slowly, gritting my teeth and resisting the urge to match his earlier volume, "what exactly are you sick of?"

That was when he looked up at me with an expression of utter shock, as if he couldn't imagine that I'd ever give a crap what he was upset about. "Well?" I snapped, my face reddening. What, I wasn't allowed to care about the problems of the group of psychos who had attacked me, threatened me, and were now forcing me to let them live in my apartment?

He gave me one last suspicious glance, then finally said, "All of this crap. This tiny, s**tty apartment, having to put up with all these bastards all the time, you..."

I glared at him. "Okay, that's enough. So basically, you just shouted out to the whole world that you're pissed because of a bunch of crap that nobody here can do anything about."

Hidan shrugged, apparently turning his attention back to the show about kittens that was currently on TV (accidentally flipped to while he and Deidara had been fighting over the remote earlier). "Hey, I had to do something. Sometimes just screaming about all the s**t that's pissing you off can help."

I had almost decided that that kind of made sense, when he turned toward me, with this infuriating smirk on his face, and added, "Besides, I got a chance to annoy you, didn't I? It's not like there's anything better to do around here."

I gaped at him for a moment before turning around and storming away, trying to ignore his snickering behind me. Bastard.

Before I could return to telling Amanda exactly what I was worried about here, I was interrupted again – this time as the phone rang. I rolled my eyes and over to answer it, pushing past Tobi on my way. I was starting to think Amanda would never know exactly how wrong these guys were.

And... last one. Amanda smiled as she folded the final piece of clothing from her bag, placing it in the small dresser in her room. She glanced over her shoulder, only able to hear snatches of conversation from the entry room. After Christie left to go deal with Hidan's freak-out, Amanda had decided she might as well go deal with her luggage. A few minutes later, the phone had started ringing, and Christie had been on it since.

However, Amanda was still kind of curious about what Christie had been saying earlier. There was what? There was something Amanda needed to know? What was it?

For now, however, all she could do was wait.

That was when she heard the slight shift in Christie's tone, and the worried gasp: "Wait, you- you're what?"

Okay, now Amanda was paying attention. She stood by the door, listening intently to the conversation. Now, Christie seemed to be trying to cover for her previous alarm.

"No, no, I'm not mad about it; why would I be? It's just... uh, well, now might not be the best- NO! It's just that... um. Well, we have some visitors, and- wait, what? No, no, that's okay, you don't- No, you wouldn't like them anyway, they... no, it's not that! They..."

For a few seconds, Christie was silent, while the person on the other end talked. Then, finally, she said, "Okay. I'll... okay. Bye."

After she hung up, there was another long silence. Finally, Christie called, "Amanda, I need to talk to you."

Amanda hurried out of her room, pretending that she had no idea what had just happened - which, in a way, she didn't. "What is it?"

Christie took a deep breath. "I was just on the phone with my mom. She wanted to... well, I tried to stop her, but she..." Finally, Christie stopped for a moment, then said, as if she were announcing the end of the world, "My family's going to come visit. In other words..."

At that moment, Amanda realized what the problem was - and even she could tell this was a problem.

"They're going to see the Akatsuki members."

A/N: And NOW we can get to the story arc I've been waiting for!Actually, I'm considering completely replacing the previous chapter with this one, as chapter five was 1. not really up to par and 2. not super-necessary to the story. What do you guys think?

As usual, please read and review, constructive criticism is welcome, flames are entertaining. See you with the next (hopefully better) chapter!