Chapter six, at last!
I'm so sorry it took so long to upload this; something went weird with the 'edit story' thing and it wouldn't let me post new chapters. However, I know what to do now and if anyone has the same problem PM me and I'll tell you what to do!
Anyway, enjoy, and I do not own Naruto!
Tenten looked up, her face momentarily aught with surprise. A mission? This soon after she first joined Akatsuki? She sighed and stood up, swallowing her last mouthful of cereal as she pushed the bowl aside. Crossing to the doorway, she cast a brief glance at Hidan and Tobi before following Itachi out into the corridor. Her long cloak swished around her ankles, surprisingly light and comfortable as she walked.
"Do you have any idea of what this mission might be about?" she asked Itachi, looking up at that pale expressionless face.
The crimson eyes momentarily flickered in her direction before he gazed straight ahead again, betraying no emotion whatsoever.
"I do not. I merely came to summon you and take you to Leader." The Uchiha replied.
Tenten crossed her arms as she walked, looking away from the raven haired shinobi and back down the dark corridor pensively. So that was Itachi Uchiha, the man who had murdered his entire clan except for his little brother Sasuke, who had then gone rogue as a result of his bitter and twisted hatred for his older sibling. Tenten decided that on first impression, she didn't like Itachi all that much.
After a further few minutes, they halted outside the wooden door that lead into the Leader's office, or quarters, or whatever they were; the room was so dark and sparsely furnished it was hard to tell.
The hazily projected figure of the Akatsuki Leader stood at the far end of the room, much like he had done the first time that Tenten had laid eyes on him. Itachi nodded at him and left the room, his footsteps echoing up the silent corridor as he disappeared.
The pair of ghostly eyes turned and fixed themselves on Tenten, those strange ripple-like patterns piercing right through her. Tenten shifted uncomfortably but refused o be intimiated.
"Weren't you going to give me my first mission?" She asked, wondering what the delay was about, or whether it was just for dramatic effect.
"I'm afraid your partners for the mission I am to assign you are late, it appears." The Leader intoned in such a way that suggested if Tenten dared speak again without being spoken too, she would be vaporized on the spot.
Tenten sighed and sat down on the plain wooden chair that sat along with several others in front of the Leader's desk. She wondered who it could be that she was teamed up with. She turned and looked at the door as it swung open with a creak to reveal a tall figure in a bright orange mask.
"Sorry Leader! Itachi didn't give me the message." He said in that ridiculously annoying voice that reminded Tenten of child having been scolded.
Tobi stepped into the room and stood a couple of feet away from Tenten. She found it incredibly frustrating that she couldn't see under that mask; couldn't see his expression or his face. It made her feel nervous.
"Now we are only lacking the last member of your team." Leader said in that flat, emotionless voice.
Tenten sighed. Whoever this last member was, they had better hurry up; she was getting impatient.
After five minutes of silence in the room, the dim light throwing the shadows into sharp relief, a knock came on the door.
Tenten looked around and her eyes narrowed in surprise and anger as Deidara entered the room. She couldn't help but smile however, at the bags under those cerulean eyes that suggested he had slept badly.
"A little cold for you last night?" she said sarcastically, crossing her arms.
Deidara scowled at her and looked away at the hazy figure of the Akatsuki Leader.
"Enough, Tenten," he said, "now that you are all here I will explain why I have chosen to put you together as a team for now. Tenten, your strength lies in stealth, and your techniques are simple and subtle, if a little predictable. You can learn from Deidara and Tobi to vary your attacks and make your movements more confusing to the enemy."
Tenten frowned but remained quite.
"Deidara…you always make a circus of your battles, and they always attract too much attention. Learn from Tenten here to be more subtle and efficient in the way you operate."
Deidara scowled and crossed his arms.
"And Tobi, I chose you to accompany them on this mission so that you can report back to us here using your teleportation technique to inform us on how our new member is doing."
He looked at the three of them, those bottomless eyes almost glowing.
"Oh…and if our new member here tries to betray us or escape in any way…kill her immediately." Leader said.
Deidara grinned, his eyes narrowing.
"Of course." He replied.
"This mission, after all, requires stealth and cunning as well as brute strength, which is another reason I have chosen you three. The likes of Kisame or Hidan would attract far too much attention; they prefer to main and slaughter first, think later." Leader continued.
"Sir, what does this mission actually entail?" Deidara asked. Tenten could tell he was getting bored already.
"We need you to sabotage an operation in Orochimaru's hide-out. We believe he has devised the means to work out the impure-world-resurrection summoning. It is vital he does not complete this forbidden jutsu, or it will vastly aid him if he is ever to stage an attack on Akatsuki." Replied Leader calmly.
Tenten looked at him curiously. She had heard that Orochimaru had once been a member of Akatsuki, but had left under certain circumstanced and was no longer loyal to the orginistaion.
"We have located the base of this experiment to be located on a secluded island near the land of water. Intel suggests that many people from around the surrounding area have been going missing, probably to act as vessels for this technique." Came a serious voice from the Leader's Side.
Tenten jumped in surprise. It was Konan who had spoken. How long had she been standing there? The blue haired kunoichi shared that expressionless face of her partner next to her.
"We have the co-ordinates of the location in this document. These papers are confidential so do not misplace them." She continued.
Deidara took the thin file from her and glanced through it before nodded disinterestedly.
"We need you to get inside the hide-out, and destroy whatever experiments he is working on there. The likelihood is that he will just begin these experiments again, but it will buy us more time to plan our attack on him. He knows too much that could harm the organization and must be disposed of at some point or other." Konan said, closing her blue eyes.
"If this is a destroy-the-base type mission, why not send Kisame or Hidan, or even Kakuzu? Or Sasori?" Deidara asked absently.
"The hardest part of this mission will be infiltrating the base unseen. If they find you, they will kill you and since his workings are so shrouded in secrecy we do not have an accurate picture of his strength. We don't need to lose any more members at a time like this. Hidan, Kakuzu and Kisame tend to get carried away when dealing with the enemy, even more so than you. As for Sasori, he has been partnered with Orochimaru in the past, so the enemy would probably be able or predict and anticipate his attacks." Leader explained.
"Fine, fine…I'll need some time to gather my clay supplies." Deidara sighed, giving Tenten the impression that he just anted to get out of this dark room and get the mission over with.
"And I'll need a little time to make sure my weapons are all in working order." Tenten added.
"Very well. We expect you leave tonight. This mission could take a long time, so make sure you leave prepared." Leader said before turning, those bright lights of eyes extinguished as his hologram flickered and disappeared.
Deidara led the way out of the room, and looked over his shoulder to Tenten before saying:
"We'll meet at the back entrance at noon. Hey, don't slow us up, hmm?" before he was off down the corridor to his room.
Tenten crossed her arms and ignored him, instead retracing her steps from the Leader's office to the door that led outside, to the back exit of the Akatsuki base. She smiled with relief as she realised she had indeed chosen the right path, finally swinging open the unobtrusive wooden door to the harsh morning light outside.
Shielding her eyes from the sudden brightness, she stepped out into the sunlight and walked across the earthy clearing. The ground was torn up everywhere from her battle with Deidara, she could see the crater that had formed from one of his explosions. She reached the other side and sat down with her back against a tree, taking out her weapons from various scrolls and sharpening and polishing them in turn.
She sighed as she wondered why in this solitary moment she didn't try to escape. She then thought about the cold shoulder her village had given her since birth and shook the thoughts of escape out of her head. And anyway, technically speaking, sabotaging Orochimaru's experiments couldn't be a bad thing.
Finally happy with her array of blades and other weapons after a few hours of careful maintenance, she restored them to their respective scrolls and stood up, massaging her aching back. She stretched and took out some food she had stored in her bag from the Akatsuki kitchen. Some dried meat didn't exactly make a gourmet lunch, but it served its purpose along with a couple of slices of bread.
After having eaten the meagre meal, she crossed the clearing, back to the entrance to the Akatsuki base. She leant against the wall of the imposing cliff face that the wall was set into and waited for the others. After a few minutes, she heard footsteps along the corridor behind the door, and looked around.
Deidara pushed open the door and stepped out blinking into the sunlight.
"Took you long enough." Tenten observed dryly, her eyes lazily arrogant.
"Heh, so you didn't try and escape. Damn, guess that means I lost my bet with Kakuzu."
"What are you talking about?"
"I bet with him that you'd scarper away from here with your tail between your legs at the first opportunity we gave you."
"How dare you assume I -"
"Of course, it was just another of Leader's tests hmmm? To see whether you'd try and escape."
Tenten scowled darkly.
"I see…" She growled.
"Anyway, enough of that, hmm? We have our mission to attend to." Deidara continued.
"Yes, but where is Tobi?" Tenten asked.
"Oh, goofing around I expect. A shame he has to come really, I was hoping this would just turn out to be you and me." Deidara sighed, grinning at the brunette kunoichi.
"Let me get this straight, Deidara." Tenten said in a low voice that dripped with danger, "If you try anything, I'll rip off you smug head and feed it to Zetsu! I promise that I'll make your life living hell for however long this stupid mission is going to last."
"Now now, Tenten. You forget we have to learn to work together and learn from each other if this mission is to be a success, hmm?"
The two was glowering at each other as Tobi emerged from the back door.
"Whoa, I'm sorry, I didn't realise you two were having a private conversation!" He said, putting his hands up defensively.
"Shut up Tobi." Snarled Tenten and Deidara at the same time.
The three of them shared an awkward silence for a little while, before Tenten sighed.
"Look, we ought to leave so that we can cover a decent amount of ground before nightfall so we can get our bearings and come up with a plan on how we are going to infiltrate Orochimaru's lair."
"I suppose that makes sense. Although, we could get there quicker if we move at night as well, hm?" Deidara replied.
"But we can't just barge in without a plan! We have to be careful in how we do this. I expect that Orochimaru has any number of subordinates under his command, some with considerable abilities if the files we had in Konoha we correct." Tenten said exasperatedly.
"Whatever, fine, we'll go partway and stop to come up with our preparations then. Are you happy now?" Deidara said as she crossed his arms.
"Yes. I'm pleased to see you appear to have at least some sense." Tenten replied.
Deidara smirked as he reached into the bag tied o his belt.
"However, if we are going to follow through with this procedure, we travel my way, hmm?" The blonde shinobi said, withdrawing his clenched fists.
"What do you m-" Began Tenten before she leapt backwards in surprise.
Three huge birds erupted into existence in front of them. They were different to the designs Tenten had already seen; these had long necks and broader wings. She was loath to admit they were actually quite artistic. Deidara grinned and leapt atop the nearest one, Tobi following suit with the second. The clay birds looked at Tenten with those empty holes for eyes, and Tenten clenched her teeth.
"You expect me to ride one of those things?" She asked.
"Thing? How dare you, hmm? You have no appreciation of true art!" Deidara replied, "Besides, you have to admit this is the most efficient and fast way to travel, is it not?"
Tenten growled, but had to admit the blonde shinobi was right. She placed her hand onto the third clay bird and lifted herself up onto its back, gripping the area between its wings and its neck tightly with her legs.
"Just hold onto the neck and you shouldn't fall off." Deidara called to her as his bird opened its wings, beginning its ascent into the sky.
"Shouldn't?" Tenten asked.
Deidara laughed as he rose into the air, not even sitting on his bird but was standing up, the wind ruffling his lengths of golden blonde hair. His face looked so alive and exhilarated; it seemed to have lost all of its malevolence for a moment. Tenten found that she was blushing ever so slightly, but had no time to think before her own bird was flapping its great wings and rising to join Deidara's and Tobi's.
The kunoichi looked ahead, holding on tightly, wondering if every moment of this mission would turn out to be as exiting as this.