The night had passed without any disturbances and the group awoke early the next morning. They were only two days away from the Leaf Village now and since their presence was known, they would have to be extremely careful for Leaf sentries hiding in trees. They started walking through the woods. Avoiding the roads would make the journey longer but would also reduce their chances of being spotted by guards.
"Tobi spies with his little eye..." started Tobi.
"Shut the fuck up you stupid fucking idiot!" sneered Itachi feeling like he might kill Tobi if he kept acting without thinking. "Do you want us to be heard by the guards that are posted all around? Are you trying to ruin the most important assignment of all our lives? If you do I will not hesitate to kill you. And the way I will do it will make the sand ball incident seem pleasant."
"Sorry Itachi" said Tobi sounding hurt.
The group continued in silence for quite a while. They had reached a particularly dense part of woods and their progress had slowed to a crawl as they worked their way over and under thick branches. They were making more noise now but they knew the chances of there being anyone in this area of the woods was slim.
They had been going like this for a few minutes and the forest showed no signs of letting up. Branches brushed against them constantly making low rustling sounds, twigs cracked under their feet and low curse words could be heard whenever one of the members got a branch in their eye or hit their head while crawling under a thick log.
All these low sounds were suddenly broken by a high, echoing scream that made the whole group jump and Kisame hit his head on the branch he was crawling under. They all turned to see what the source of the scream was.
Deidara had tripped over a log and fallen face first on a small snake that had instantly bit him in the nose. Kisame snickered and was about to say something but Itachi shushed him.
"Everybody move!" Itachi yelled.
They all jumped out of the way exactly as a swarm of kunai was thrown where they had just been standing. However, since they were in such thick forest they had all jumped towards the same opening and found themselves tripping over each other and landed in an embarrassing pile on a road next to the forest face to face with Ino, Shikamaru, Choji and Asuma. The group got to their feet quickly and faced the Leaf ninjas.
A kunai had hit Deidara in the leg and blood was flowing steadily from a wound in the back of his shin. Itachi told him to stay back and provide cover with his explosives while the rest of the group faced off against their assailants. After all even without Deidara it would be four against four and Itachi was not worried that four Akatsukis could overpower three chunins and a jonin even if one of the Akatsukis was an idiot.
Sasori was facing Ino, Choji was glaring at Tobi, Kisame was smiling menacingly at Shikamaru and Asuma was looking intently at Itachi. Asuma knew he needed to be the one that fought Itachi because of his powerful sharingan and he was not looking forward to having to try to fight a whole battle with his eyes lowered.
"Okay everyone... on my signal..." started Itachi and was interrupted by Tobi suddenly running at Choji.
"Tobi will prove himself to Itachi!" yelled Tobi in a frenzy and surprised the whole group by connecting a hard kick to Choji's face that sent him flying a few feet back.
Shikamaru was about to strike Tobi but Kisame sent a thick wall of water in between them to defend his partner. In the commotion and surprise Itachi had gotten the chance to set a genjutsu on Asuma and no one had noticed.
Ino was barely managing to block Sasori's blows even though he was easily their weakest hand to hand fighter. Choji was incapable to match Tobi's speed and Tobi's blows, although weak compared to what big Choji could handle, were starting to add up. Shikamaru was putting up a good fight thanks to his ability to plan and predict an opponent's moves but Kisame's sheer force was making it hard for him to get any attacks in.
Meanwhile Asmuma was in a different world. The sky had grown dark and his team had disappeared. He was surrounded by Itachi on all sides. Suddenly each Itachi took a baby out of behind their back. Although it was not yet born, Asuma somehow knew that was his child-to-be that Itachi was holding but he couldn't tell which was real. Each Itachi grabbed a kunai in the other hand and held it up to the baby's throat.
"No...you wouldn't..." gasped Asume knowing full well that the man surrounding him had killed his whole clan and would not hesitate to kill another.
The Itachis smiled and with a quick flash each kunai slit each baby's throat. Blood poured slowly from the wounds and started dripping. But no drop made it to the ground. As they left the baby's skin they transformed into a blood red crow. Crows flew towards Asuma in every direction. Their cries resembled the crying of a thousand babies and each started pecking at Asuma from all sides.
In the real world the only person that noticed Asuma's predicament was Deidara who was watching the whole fight from a small distance. He looked towards Itachi and Itachi gave him a small nod. Deidara reached into his satchel and started molding a clay crow knowing it was probably appropriate to the situation due to Itachi's love of the animal.
Throw the sea of birds pecking at his flesh Asuma saw that all the babies had stopped bleeding and their skin was starting to bubble and melt. The babies all melted and flowed together in front of one of the Itachis. They combined together into the shape of a big, pitch black crow. This crow flew at the Asuma who was paralysed by all the bird pecking at him. He closed his eyes and the crow hit.
All the fighting stopped. Everyone turned towards where the explosion had come from. Ino, Choji and Shikamaru gasped as they saw their sensei reduced to bits by Deidara's explosive. Sasori recovered first and quickly stabbed Ino in the stomach with a kunai. This brought Choji and Shikamaru back to reality.
An anger and sadness like he had never felt before took over Shikamaru and he released something he had never been capable of doing before. A shadow left him and divided itself in five, catching each one of his opponents.
Shikamaru smiled demonically. "I'm gonna kill every single one of you little shits!". Sasori noticed a hand of shadow had started crawling up his body towards his throat.
The hand grabbed Sasori's throat and started squeezing. Sasori started gasping and wheezing. After a minute his eyes closed. Shikamaru released his shadow and his body fell to the floor. The hand then started crawling up Deidara's body.
Shikamaru and Choji were both staring and Deidara with hatred in their eyes. "This is for Asuma you cowardly fucker." Said Shikamaru with hate and anger in his voice.
They were both staring so intently at the choking Deidara that neither saw the kunai that hit Shikamaru in the head coming. Shikamaru fell to the ground dead and all his shadows disappeared. Deidara was blue in the face but still standing, gasping for breath.
Sasori, the owner of the kunai, stood up calmly, looking at Shikamaru coldly.
"Poor idiot had no idea we was fighting a puppet. Still, letting your guard down like that... he deserved it." Sasori said coldly.
Choji was left facing the five Akatsukis. The group surrounded him each sporting the same evil smile.
"I was honestly expecting better from my former village." said Itachi calmly. "Now if you know what is good for you, you will tell us everything you know about the girl Hinata."
"H-h-hinata? What do you want with her?" stuttered Choji.
"None of you concern." Replied Itachi coldly. "If your next response isn't an answer to my question, we will kill you."
Choji looked at them all. Suddenly his faced firmed and he looked determined. He turned towards Itachi and opened his mouth. But rather than speech, a thick glob of saliva left his mouth and landed heavily on Itachi's cheek.
A flash of intense anger flashed on Itachi's face. He grabbed Choji by the throat and picked him up with surprising strength. The anger left his face and he smiled creepily.
"Tobi tie him up, Deidara get your clay ready. This fat boy looks hungry."
Itachi burned the four corpses and the group spread the ashes around. Before he burnt them, Itachi noticed the group was full of supplies as if they were just leaving on a mission. This meant that the village would not notice their disappearance for a while, thinking they were gone on their mission.
The Akatsuki slipped back into the woods and resumed their walk, their thirst for action quenched for just a little longer.