Itachi watched as Kakuzu, Deidara and Sasori left the hideout later in the morning. Kakuzu was in what seemed to be high "spirits" and chatted something with Sasori, while Deidara was walking ahead of them, cursing something under his nose, something only he could see or maybe it was inside his head. The Uchiha was not certain when it came to the blond Akatsuki member.

"Itachi-san I am ready to go too," Kisame reported, appearing at the back exit of the cave complex "Are you sure that you want to do this on your own?" he added.

"He's not alone, you jackoff!"

It was obvious that the shark-like man had said that on purpose, just to annoy Hidan, who was temporary going to work with the sharingan user.

"Yes, as I said," The ex-Mist shinobi continued, totally disregarding his fellow Akatsuki member "I will be back shortly; my mission is a piece of cake!"

"You assrat, bastard jerk," Hidan moved sharply towards Kisame, but Itachi's hand stopped his motion.

"Just go, we will manage on our own," the Uchiha said with a warning in his voice and finally his partner went on his own mission.

"Stupid Kisame, who is he to talk to me like that, I am Lord Jashin's faithful servant, he has no idea what will happen to him once meet somewhere all alone!" Hidan ranted in his head as was cautious enough to keep such thoughts to himself around Itachi "Implying I am of no use! Me?!"

Out loud he said:

"This… thing is as annoying as Deidara!"

The Uchiha watched him with no expression.

"Are you ready to leave now, Hidan?"

"No, but obviously I have no choice," The white-haired man frowned. You're the same prick as him, Itachi!

"We need to be back before sunset, so we have to move fast." The black haired men said, looking intently at his marvelous persona.

"From what I can see you are the one that is not moving!" Hidan complained, as he was moving down the rocky mountain path. That self-centered, ankle-biting, washed-up rat bastard you'd rather see tied to the back of a burning log. How dare he boss me around!

Between the forest and the mountain slope, where there was a small dell rested a very tiny, very forewarn village. It had around a dozen huts and maybe 20 people were living there. Currently all of them were dead, bodies scattered around the ground.

Itachi walked around corpses, his feet soaking in the bloody mud that had formed. Hidan was merciless when it came this. The man had absolutely no moral restraints regarding the people he killed; from what the Uchiha had gathered as information he considered slaughter a religious calling, and often took considerable pleasure in making his opponents' deaths as painful as possible. This was not the case as they were short on time and the villagers were mostly old people.

"Are you done?" Itachi asked.

"Do I look like I am done?" Hidan was laying on the ground, in a circle drawn with blood, his skin black and white.

"Excuse me for interrupting then," the former Konoha shinobi said. He will be in this trans for at least ten minutes, I have time to check this…

Walking out of the settlements' circle the man fell between the trees. He looked around with care, his sharingan scanning, checking and searching. Finally, satisfied with the privacy, Uchiha Itachi picked up something from his pocket. It was a small leather bag, worn out and tied with red woolen string. The villages' "elder" gave it to him, claiming it contained what he needed. Then of course he ran and Hidan killed him, before Itachi could do anything else.

Regrettably the bag's content was not what he searched for.

"Oh, then I guess we will have to search for the villagers that managed to escape in the forest," he sighed, stuffing the bag back in his pockets as it could be useful for something else "I just need to persuade Hidan that there were actually people who ran away from him."

"Look Sakura," Chōji's voice was loud and clear despite the fact he was bending halfway near under bushes "Is this the one we are after?" he asked, pointing at the orange fruits, that grew on these plants.

The girl approached the Akimichi shinobi and inspected his discovery. Regrettably it was not the one Tsunade-sama had sent them for.

"You know… it has to be the colour of peach, Chōji…" Shikamaru sighted, jumping from the branch of the nearby tree.

"But peaches are orange!" Reasoned his team mate.

"I seriously doubt that you have eaten a peach recently," the other Konoha shinobi rolled his eyes "Anyways…"

"We also had to search bushes and grass-like plants for them, not the trees," Ino joined their very important conversation.

"We better hurry," Sakura interrupted, looking at the sky "If we don't want to spend the night here."

"What do you mean I let them escape?" Hidan raised a white eyebrow and stared down the man in front of him.

"I am stating the fact," Itachi's cool demeanor was driving him crazy "You said you can take on all the villagers, didn't you?" The impeach in his tone was barely noticeable.

"Like hell I did!"

"I had to find the thing The Leader asked about, while you were appointed with simply stopping the people."

"You!" Hidan pointed a finger at Itachi, furious. How dare he question his actions? He wished for a countless time to kill this annoying Uchiha, but… the man was too big of a bite for him. For now. "Weren't you supposed to cover my back?" he managed to ask at last, his face red.

"No."

"What do you mean no?"

The sharingan user turned and looked at his fellow Akatsuki.

"You did not ask. Now let's move if we wish to catch them."

Hidan grabbed his scythe and dragged after the other man.

Good, he's finally not blabbering, Itachi's eyes were scanning the trees, looking at leafs, branches, trunks. I'll have to be careful, when messing with a mind such as his.

"I see no marks, no one passed through here!" Hidan complained, looking at the small forest path that stretched like forever in the distance. It was late afternoon and the sun was soon going to disappear behind the mountains.

"Be silent or you might scare them," Itachi whispered.

"Scare no one? How is that possible, eh?"

"Keep quiet, Hidan."

"Stop bossing me around!" his voice reached the higher noise margins and the Uchiha sighted.

"Don't make me silence you."

The treat was nothing special, but this made the white haired man stop with his ranting.

Now if only he could spot this herb and be done with it…

A loud explosion severed the silence that had fallen and both men look at each other, none of them particularly worried.

"Don't go there it looks like the place is being guarded," Shikamaru warned as he and Ino were inspecting a small bush.

Their teammate smiled broadly.

"What can happen? It's just a bunch of rocks."

And that was the last thing they heard for a long time from Chōji , who had the bad luck to step into one of the traps Itachi had set up for his imaginary runaways from the small village.

Sakura woke up, feeling tired. Her mouth was sore and she was dying for water. She tried to stand up, but her legs were stuck beneath something. She gathered her strength and pushed up, managing to set herself free. Behind her loomed the flames of a fire and she couldn't see anything. The girl was disoriented, but understood that she had to run. And so she did, as fast as she could.

All around her everything was on fire. The dry trees were burning, the grass was black already and the animals were as noisy as Naruto when he heard of free ramen. The thought of her friend managed to shake her off and she kept running forward.

After a short, but unknown period of time she crashed into something. As it appeared, after the kunoichi managed to see better, despite the smoke around her - it was a man. Sakura raised her head and tried to speak, her lungs burning with pain.

"Wh… whooo…"

The man grinned, but there was no fun in the grin, it was more like a knife.

"Hey Itachi, look what the cat dragged in." a tall man in a black cloak with red clouds said picking up the girl by the collar of her cloth.

The man that he called to showed up, emerging from the smoke. He wore the same cloak and something in him was familiar, but she just could not figure it out, until two red eyes engulfed her.

"Sa… sa… sasuke?" She called uncertain, not able to say the word.

"Hidan, grab her and let's get out of the fire," the man ordered and as the one holding her did not react he added with urgent tone "Now!"

She was picked up even higher and thrown over the shoulder of the first man. The last thing Sakura saw was the staring eyes of the man with the sharingan who walked behind.