Hidan and I hurriedly made our way to Jinji Homanaka's estate. We were ecstatic at the thought of getting in so easily, since it normally seemed to take them a long time to do much of anything. Jinji was waiting at the entrance to the estate.

He was a smaller man who seemed to have a slight sense of humor. He wasn't wearing a shirt, which showed off his abs. Scars covered those abs. His pants were a mirky brown color, but were ripped at both knees. His hair was black and very short. Sweat glistened on his face, which meant he had recently been working out.

"Ah, you must be Akami. And who is this lovely woman?" Jinji gestured to Hidan, who was smiling sweetly. "This is my wife, Kaminari."

Hidan did a small curtsy before shaking Jinji's hand. 'Kaminari' was wearing a sundress that was bright shades of yellow, pink, orange, and red.

"Well, why don't we take this inside. That way, I can find out just what you are looking for Akami-san." Hidan and I looked at each other, knowing everything was going as planned.

Upon entering the estate, we were greeted with a vast majority of stables. It seemed everything from horses to frogs were in there. A lions jumped, attempting to break out of their prison, but Jinji had it covered.

Out of nowhere, a whip slapped the lion, pushing it to the ground. It lay immobile for only a moment before it stood back up, though rather shakily. It did not attempt to kill the newcomers anymore.

"Some of these ones still have more training to undergo. They will, on occasion, try to maul any unfamiliar chakra signatures. Therefore, we put them near the entrance to see which ones need more training." Jinji smirked and continued leading the way deeper into the estate. It was much larger than Hidan or I had originally expected. We would have to change our plans in order to compensate for this new information.

We finally made it to the building. Inside was a whole new story. Animals were everywhere. A strange looking animal with a seal on it's head came to them. It seemed to be a bit of a cross between a frog, bird, and human. "Master, the chimpanzees have destroyed training ground eight."

Jinji sighed and said, "Of course they have. If they can't learn to listen, they will have to be dealt with. Thank you, Owani."

The animal bowed and walked away, ordering some of the snakes to stop squeezing the statue. I had to blink a few times before I recognized the snake in question. 'That was one of Orochimaru's most loyal...Yaminaru.'

"Yaminaru, I already told you the statue is not an enemy! You're enemy is in training ground four!" Yaminaru hissed in annoyance and slithered off the statue.

Hidan faked a screech of horror at the snake. I nearly laughed at him. Jinji put on a apologetic look. "Sorry. There are going to be more of them. It's not really the place you want to bring a lady."

"I-I think I'll show myself out." Hidan, still holding the terrified look turned around and ran out the estate. I looked at Jinji and said, "Sorry. She's always been scared of snakes. She hates it when I hold them."

His eyebrows rose for a moment. "You've held snakes before?"

This was when I played my trump card. "Yes. I've held almost every snake I've come into contact with. They seem to trust me for some reason."

"Interesting. Well, if that's the case, we should go to training ground four. That's where the snakes are trained. There are some vicious snakes in there, just to warn you." He smiled and went on his way. I smiled back. This was going as planned. Maybe the original plans didn't have to be changed.

The rest of the walk to the training ground was quite uneventful. They saw some other beasts that looked just like the beasts Pain-sama summoned. Maybe this was part of the reason.

"Ah, here we are." Jinji slid the door open to the training ground.

Covering ever surface of the ground was snakes. They were a vast majority of colors, ranging from orange and red to blue and black. One of these snakes was definitely a summoning snake. It took up half of the training ground coiled up. I was actually surprised to see so many of them.

"I have one test for you," Jinji said, as he picked up a green snake with an orange stripe down it back, "Hold this snake. If it really is as you say it is, this snake will call you it's master."

I gulped, putting on a show for Jinji. I held out one arm and felt the snake coil around my arm. It managed to slither up my arm and around my neck. That is when I heard it.

'You're ssstrong, but not who you sssay you are.' Inwardly, I smirked. 'You thought right. I plan on releasing you from this prison, if you allow me to do as I please with Jinji.'

The snake hissed slowly, opening its mouth, getting dangerously close to my neck. Then, it paused. 'Alright. I'll do it.'

"My new massster, Akami. I am Wonfee." I nodded. Jinji began clapping. "That was much faster than I expected. I'm impressed."

I smirked. "I told you. I have a way with snakes, for some reason." He nodded. A clasp of thunder rattled overhead. We looked up and saw the sky slowly darkening. Actually, it was quickly darkening. The rain started almost immediately.

"Well, looks like we need to call it a da-" Jinji was cut off by 'Kaminari' running back in. "Akami! It started storming, so I was worried. I came back i-"

'Kaminari's' eyes widened. She screamed and fainted. Inwardly, I was celebrating. It was going perfectly. "Kaminari!"

I ran forward and held onto her. Jinji winced at the next clasp of thunder. "Let's go inside, shall we? Wonfee, you should probably stay." The snake nodded and slid off of me.

We went inside to what appeared to be a living room. It was the first room I had seen that had no animals in it anywhere. I placed 'Kaminari' on the couch and sat next to her. Jinji went over to a fireplace.

"This is the biggest storm I've seen in a while. Normally, they don't come on that fast either. Strange." He was busy starting the fire. Hidan awoke and smirked. Leaving Kaminari's form, he went behind Jinji and put a kunai in front of his neck. "I wouldn't move if I were you."

Jinji froze. "I was wondering when you would finally come out."

My teeth clenched. There should have been no way for him to know! In one swift move, he managed to not only disarm Hidan, but also pin him to the ground.

"We can't leave you like that, now can we?" He smiled sickly as he looked up at me. Within seconds, I was out of my henge and also pinned to the ground. We were both glad we decided not to wear the Akatsuki cloaks today.

Suddenly, a hiss came from the door, followed by more hissing. The door broke down. Wonfee was leading the other snakes. They stopped when they saw us. My heart sank a little when Wonfee slithered over to Jinji and slid up his body, resting around his neck. "Wonfee, I'm so glad you decided this scum wasn't worthy of you."

Wonfee almost seemed to smirk. Within seconds, he was squeezing the life out of Jinji. Jinji's eyes widened in surprise. He was not expecting this at all.

"W-Wonfee?" Jinji tried to rip Wonfee off, but the boa constrictor refused to let go. Jinji was his prey. A snap reverberated through the room and Jinji crumpled to the ground. The animal, Owani, that had been pinning me down, let go the second Jinji collapsed. He seemed much happier at the present moment.

"WE'RE FREE!" The animals piled out of their cages, the doors opening at Jinji's demise. Hidan and I looked at the retreating animals. They all seemed happy to be free of their captor. Funny thing was, I never thought I'd feel that sense of happiness again. Yet here I was, not being able to contain the pure joy I felt when around Hidan.

I looked at Hidan and felt my smile falter. He was smiling, his eyes shut tight. He looked so happy. My happiness drained out of me.

Turning again, I felt Wonfee slither up my leg. He placed himself on my shoulders. 'You don't sssseem nearly assss happy assss you were when we firssst met. I sssenssse you lossst what you love.'

I ignored him and went over to Jinji, making sure he was definitely dead. Placing two fingers to his neck, I felt for any shimmer of life. There was no pulse. I sighed and let Wonfee off of my body. 'What isss it, Massster?'

'You need to be with the snakes, not with me.' Wonfee hesitated for only a moment before nodding and slithering away. Slowly, I turned back to Hidan. I felt the happiness flood into me again and I couldn't help but smile. Hidan was staring at me, a ridiculously large smile gracing his face.

"It worked! I can't believe we managed to make it work!" He ran over to me and gave me a huge kiss. It was sloppy, but I didn't care. I was with whom I loved.

I know, I actually updated! I was gone to Baltimore, Maryland and Wildwood, New Jersey last week and was almost done with this chapter anyway, so it was pretty fast to finish. Only one more chapter.