Tobi

By Sheelos-lover

Chapter 4: Orochimaru

…So, I promised I'd get this chapter up this week. It's Thursday morning and I have until Saturday, so it shouldn't be TOO hard…

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Every once-in-awhile, I get the urge to check up on Konoha. Sure, I hate the people and despise them for all they're worth, but the buildings and the layout of the city itself are comforting to me. I grew up around them.

So, one morning, I approached his partner.

"Sasori-kun, will you go to Konoha with me?"

"Sky-sama, please don't sneak up on me like that. I could have chipped off too much of his arm. Do I have any sort of choice in this?"

"No."

"Then of course I'll go. When do we leave?"

"Why not now? We can be home before dinnertime."

"Okay." The puppet stood up and turned to face me. He's probably the most attractive of our organization beside myself.

We went through Konoha, my hometown, wearing fake headbands because a slashed leaf and slashed hourglass tend to cause suspicion, if you know what I mean…

On the way back – I hated to leave, but there's only so much you can see on the edges of Konoha and we had to stay there so that we could hide in the woods if anyone saw us – we heard people yell, then it merged into crying. They sounded young.

Because we had time, we went to investigate. There was a boy and a girl crying over another kid who had been crushed by a huge rock. The girl did an eye transplant, replacing the boy's eye with the eye of their teammate (I would assume that they were on a team together) but I didn't know why because I wasn't close enough. The two who were able left, both crying, but the boy with a sense of purpose.

For some reason, I wanted to help the kid. Maybe because he was so calm, so willing to take death without complaint. Maybe he would be good for the Akatsuki. "Should we save him, Sasori?"

"Why?"

"He looks so helpless… Let's save him."

"He could become a nuisance."

How to convince Sasori…

"If he's annoying, we can just make him forget us and send him back. Or we could kill him. It would be good practice with your synthetics, too – it doesn't look like the girl gave him a left eye after she took it out." There we go. Sasori always wants a chance to work with organic beings…

We shoved the rock off of him. "Shall we?" I asked. On the way home, we switched off carrying the kid. He was unconscious when we got him home. I was carrying him then. Fortunately, we weren't wearing our Akatsuki cloaks, so the blood stains that we got would be invisible.

They would have noticed that I was gone, if now Sasori, so I called out, "Kakuzu! Kiyo! Chedo! Rei! …We brought someone home with us!"

Kiyo came bounding down the stairs, Chedo behind her but taking them one step at a time. "Orochimaru! Sasori! We weren't expecting you home for a few more hours! Oh, my gosh! What did you do to that cute little boy?!"

"If we had done this to him, do you think we would have let him live? He's going to be one of Sasori's experiments."

"Sasori? Are you going to hurt him, Sasori? …Because then I would have to hurt you." She said it so innocently…

"I'm going to give him a left eye and make any other necessary repairs. If things don't work out so well, who knows? If he dies, I could cut him up and test my poisons on him, but I doubt that he's going to die."

She hit him on the head with her staff. Of course, he didn't flinch, in fact he wasn't really hurt by it, but he still doesn't like it when she does that. "If you can't honor the dead or the near-dead, I don't think you have the right to kill!"

"It would be honoring him. He would be fulfilling his duty to me as an experiment piece and be useful even after he was alive."

"How can you be so heartless?"

"I took it out when I made myself into a puppet and gave it to Kakuzu. Now I have rechargeable batteries."

…Well, Kakuzu certainly had five hearts…

I handed the boy to Sasori and went to the bathroom to clean the blood off my arms.

And that was the last of the boy that I heard that day.

At 1:54 the next morning, I was awoken by a scream, which turned into a series of screams, then sobbing, then lighter crying. Apparently the boy had woken up, and beyond a shadow of a doubt, Sasori had put in a new eye.

The problem was that it interfered with my sleep schedule.

It took awhile to get back to sleep. Whether you're in the Akatsuki or not, the human body has a subconscious reaction to screams, so I was awake for about a half-hour.

At a much more reasonable time that morning, I went to check on Sasori. Sometimes he powers himself down – he is centrally run by a false heart which spreads who-knows-what through his body, and that is powered by a rechargeable battery, so sometimes he plugs himself into the wall to "sleep." I noticed that he had been reading that book I had given him written by Jiraya. I unplugged him, pressed a few buttons that no one without prior knowledge would even know were buttons, and left him to turn on again.

At breakfast he was a little dazed and he was a tiny bit clumsy with his chopsticks, but that's to be expected after he recharges.

"…So, what was that last night?"

"What?"

"He gave the little boy a new eye, so the luvvy was screaming," Kiyo volunteered. She had always talked too much… "I helped calm him down. It looked really painful."

"You can't do work on the head without anesthetic," Kakuzu said. He was the best surgeon, generally, but Sasori did good work with more delicate or detailed things. Eyes were definitely under that category.

"So, where's the boy now? Hopefully not on your worktable…?"

"He's on a futon in my room. I don't think he should leave for awhile. He's pretty beat-up."

"Okay."

Chedo announced that he was leaving, and soon after Sasori yelled at him to get out of his room. Kiyo muttered something about how Sasori was ignoring the "sweetness'" human needs and got a bowl, some rice, v and a piece of the fish that Chedone had cooked that morning.

I went to my room to read my current novel.

.-..-..-.

It's been two weeks since the boy came here. He's been walking around and socializing for awhile, but today he comes into my service. He'll be staying in the room that's connected to mine – not much more than a closet, actually, but he doesn't have much stuff to put in it in the first place – and he will act as my servant.

Over these two weeks, the boy has gotten into the habit of wearing normal Akatsuki pants and tabi, but also a long-sleeved shirt, gloves, and a black mask.

I heard Kiyo outside my door.

"Sky-sama, I have Tobi here. Should I bring him in?"

"Please."

She opened my door and nudged the boy – Tobi – inside. He looked intimidated just by the heat and smell of my room.

I like the smell of my room. It smells like me.

"Okay, Sky-sama, Tobi is yours now. Remember, he's not part snake like you. He can't stay in here for too long or his body overheats."

"Okay." I knew that already…

Kiyo left and I showed Tobi to his room. He got his futon from Sasori's room, dragged it into his closet, and opened his window as wide as it would go.

Apparently, he doesn't like the way I smell.

I don't blame him for wanting it to be cooler in there, though; normal humans react negatively to the temperature of my room.

.-..-..-.

Today, Tobi fought Chedone, the weakest of us, and lost very quickly. He's barely chunin level. The, for sport, Kiyo and Zero (who won't tell us his name) fought. Of course, Zero won, but Kiyo did a pretty good job against him.

Partway through the match – I don't know how it ended, but Kiyo never wins to Rei – I left. I had that itchy feeling that meant I was going to shed. I don't shed for size, like most snake-based creatures, but it still happens.

The hardest part for a humanoid to shed is the back, so I had the boy help me with that skin. It all happens very quickly… Then he ran off. When I came upstairs, he was eating lunch.

"Heya, Oro-san! …You look like you just shed." Kiyo… Why must you think of my snakelike tendencies as disgusting.

"Yes. Do you have a problem with that?"

"No! Not at all! …It's just that sometimes, after you shed, there are little flakes of snakeskin everywhere."

"I waited until pretty late this time; it mostly came off in big pieces."

"Awesome."

There was still something… off… about her face. "Is there something else?"

"…Well, I was just wondering if that was why To-chan here was so freaked out."

"I – I didn't mean to impose by worrying her! Honestly, I didn't!"

"It's okay. You'll get used to it."

His eyes got wider.

"Don't worry, To-chan," Kiyo whispered. "You'll be fine."

…Or maybe not. It depends on what he considers "fine." He seems like he might be pretty cute under that mask…

.-..-..-.

Kiyo is dead. It doesn't seem horrible or anything; she died for a cause she believed in. She was a girl, too, so I really wasn't that torn up. Chedo is upset, though; when he's not in his room, he's moping around. He and Kiyo were pretty close.

However Chedone feels, though, we need a new member. There are only five of us…

.-..-..-.

We've found Zetsu! Zetsu are two people and a plant; one side is black, one side is white, they each have their own personality, and they have a venus flytrap-like-thing around their head. This calls for a huge reorg.

So, I've paired myself with Zero instead of Saso-kun, but he's paired with Zetsu. Chedo is paired with Kakuzu. Sasori and Zetsu seem happy. Zero never seems happy, but he's relatively content, which still doesn't mean much because it could all be an act… Chedo is still a little upset over Kiyo, but he and Kakuzu are doing okay together… hopefully, no one will die and we won't have to reorganize again.

.-..-..-.

…But, of course, nothing lasts forever. Chedo died recently, but we've also acquired a few members: Hidan, Deidara, White-kun, and Kisame. They all came at around the same time.

White-kun is really cute. His voice isn't too deep and he has very nice hair, pretty eyes, and smooth skin. He never takes off his cloak, but he seems like the sort of person who would have a very slender figure. In other words, he's perfect.

I don't want people to talk about me, so I kept Zero for this reorg. I also wouldn't want him to think that I don't think he's cute… Kisame and White-kun are paired, Saso-kun and Deidara, Kakuzu and Hidan, and Zetsu.

Rei works well with me. White-kun can work well with just about anyone… Sasori hates Deidara, who acts a lot like Chedone in that he's cheerful and easily excitable. He's cute, too. Kakuzu and Hidan argue a lot, but I think they could be friends. Zetsu, of course, have no complaints…

Why is it that I suddenly find myself surrounded by cute boys? There's To-chan, who still works as my servant, Rei-kun, Hidan, White-kun, Saso-kun, Dei-chan… Kakuzu, Zetsu, and Kisame don't do anything for me, but still, that's over half of the people in the Akatsuki.

Tobi trained with Kiyo, and he hasn't done much since she died. What he does do is better than when he started, but still… Right now, he has only a very slight chance of becoming Akatsuki.

.-..-..-.

The Akatsuki is getting… Well, boring. I'm thinking of leaving.

.-..-..-.

Itachi.

Itachi is hotter than the sun.

And he has a sharingan.

I want his body.

He has the mangekyo, too, which would definitely be an advantage. Now, how to get close to him…

.-..-..-.

I can't get Itachi. So, I'm leaving the Akatsuki. Apart from trying to get Itachi, it's boring here. Except that Itachi lobbed off my left hand. So, I'm taking it with me. I'm going to conquer the Land of Rice Fields and start my own village, and this impudent little organization can do without one of its precious rings.

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I read the Wikipedia article on Orochimaru and I found out that I'd gotten some stuff wrong. For one thing, in Chapter 2 I forgot to put in that Kakuzu and Hidan were paired, but that could have just been assumed… And I found out that Orochimaru had actually tried to get Itachi's body (the official reason is that he wanted the sharingan, but…) so I changed around the order of events a bit. Sorry about that! Really, really, really sorry! I hate inconsistencies!

I promised this by Saturday. And It's Friday now. So, I'm ahead of schedule. And Pocky-machine isn't back yet, so I'm off to work on "Ikachi."