Itachi could feel the overpowering presences of the Akatsuki slowly circling around the Uchiha district. Soon, he could hear the battle cries of his clan. The slightly panicked features etched into his face instantly became noticeable to his wife, who knew that if he looked that way, something really bad was about to happen.
"What is it," she whispered, stealing his attention. "I'm not stupid. I can tell something's wrong."
The man sighed, knowing there was no way out of it, and that if there was a way, it still wouldn't be the best choice. "The Akatsuki are in the village," he replied. "More specifically, they're at the Uchiha gates."
Amejisuto jumped out of her chair and ran to the bedroom. "Why didn't you mention anything sooner?!" She yelled while changing quickly into her battle outfit. "Get in here and get ready to fight. We're not letting the Akatsuki win!"
"Are you not surprised they somehow survived?" Itachi joined her in the quick pace of preparing for a battle.
"Well there are a lot of emotions swirling around in my head that I would probably prefer to deal with after we win," she turned and glared at him. "And just to let you know, you're in the doghouse tonight, mister. You should know better than to keep things from me, especially that the Akatsuki are alive and attacking our village!"
"Well there was no way I would let you fight them in your condition if you didn't have to find out about them. I still don't want you to fight."
"You can't stop me," she strapped on her kunai pouch. "Besides, I'm already weaponised."
"But-"
"Aniki! Ameji-chan!" Sasuke burst through the door. "The Akatsuki are at the Uchiha district gates!"
Itachi turned to his brother. "How many are gathered?"
"Four."
"There are seven enemies in the village. Do you know where the other three are?"
CRASH!
"We haven't noticed since we're fighting the enemies that are at our gates," Sasuke rolled his eyes before running out of the house to help the rest of the clan hold them back.
Itachi looked over at his wife, who was shoving as many summoning scrolls and weapons she could into her Jonin vest. "Are you going to summon Kana-san?" He inquired. Kana was a large ninja panther-like cat that she had received and learned to summon in the months of their return and only had for occasional practise.
"Hai. I think this is a good time to, since she can share some of her feline traits with me and I will be able to fight better. Her abilities shared with me would probably also give me the extra boost I need," she replied. Once she was done equipping, she grabbed his hand and they ran outside to see a large summoned dog with two heads crashing through the gate with an orange-haired being riding it. Three others followed the path of destruction, entering the Uchiha district. The clan was ready behind the gates and attacked immediately.
Amejisuto took out a summoning scroll and bit her thumb, smearing the blood across the paper. "Summon!" She called, alerting the Akatsuki to her whereabouts. The odd hound charged at them, but the poof of smoke beat it and a paw lashed out at one of its heads quickly. The sharp claws coming out of it were hard for the dog to ignore, and it howled its pain to the sky before halting.
The smoke cleared and a large black cat was visible with Amejisuto riding it. It was a bit smaller than the dog, but its claws were much more powerful. "So you called me to fight a canine. Interesting," Kana grinned, loving the challenge. "And it seems like a very unintelligent creature too. Well, it is a dog." The other beast growled, leading Kana to laugh and swipe at him again. "Pitiful thing can't even talk. Even Kakashi-san's dogs are better."
"Kana-chan, can you please bond our chakra? I'm not doing so well sense-wise and I'm weak today," Ameji asked.
"Of course," the cat purred, letting her chakra flow around her summoner's body to temporarily bond their powers.
Itachi stood guarding his wife and the animal. One of the enemies charged at him, the one without hair, engaging in weapon combat, while another ran at the duo that had another few seconds before they could function properly. "Sasuke! Guard them!" He called. The other Uchiha stopped the second enemy, keeping his distance while throwing fire balls at him.
"You won't get through me!" Sasuke yelled, quickly forming hand seals and blowing an even larger ball of fire at the target. He was surprised to see the enemy appear just a few meters in front of him; the fire ball was absorbed.
"I won't have to get through you. I can just kill you," the enemy smirked, reaching his hand out to the point where he was almost touching his opponent. Sasuke could feel his chakra being ripped from his body and fell on his knees from the sudden dizziness.
"What are you doing?" He gasped.
"I am stealing your chakra. You are powerless to stop me."
The Uchiha's eyes started to close, and his body slowly sank to the ground, almost lifeless.
"GET AWAY FROM HIM!" A loud screech rang throughout the community and both sides of the battle turned to its source. Their eyes were met with the sight of Amejisuto standing on Kana. Surrounding her body was a coat of silver chakra. If the onlookers didn't know better, they would assume she was a jinchuriki.
Her eyes changed from purple to black, a tail grew on her lower back, her ears grew pointy and whiskers slowly formed on her face. "Let's destroy them, Kana," she growled in a femininely demonic voice. "They're killing my family."
"Yes, Amejisuto-sama," the feline narrowed her eyes and pounced towards the one that could absorb chakra. She didn't forget the disturbing dog though; Kana focused some chakra on sharpening some of her fur and launching it into the canine's eye, distracting it and its summoner.
"You're no match for me, little kitty," the enemy standing over Sasuke laughed. "If you come close enough, I'll steal your chakra and you'll be powerless."
The cat bent down to the man's level and hissed, almost blowing him away. "You can try, but you can't win."
The man reached his hand out in an idiotic move and tried to touch Kana's nose. A flash of light later, he watched his arm drop onto the ground, not attached to his body any more.
"Try that again, I dare you," Ameji called from her summoned animal's head. He wasn't too afraid, smirking and thinking to himself that there was no way he would fall for that again. Like a little kid thinking he wouldn't get in trouble twice, he stupidly put his other hand out, only to get it shot off.
He narrowed his eyes in surprise, looking up at the kunoichi. "What did you use for this? I saw no weapons."
"That is none of your concern," the ex-Ishi glared. "Now you die."
Another flash of light left the enemy on the ground, blood pooling around him. Itachi looked up at his wife in wonder and amazement. 'No wonder she refused to use all her jutsu against me. This chakra and air manipulation is deadly.'
The blue haired woman appeared in front of the large feline, flying with wings made of paper. "Ishi – sorry, Uchiha Amejisuto, you and your husband must come with us."
"Never!" Ameji screeched. Her ands flew into different jutsu formations and a large group of summoned shadow clones appeared throughout the area, all launching at Konan at the same time with kunai. While the akatsuki member fought them off, Kana raised her paw and tried to swat at her as if she was a fly.
The woman dodged and sent several origami shuriken towards the rest of the clones, making them disappear in a puff of smoke. "Enough. You come with us, or your whole village gets destroyed. I know you could sense Pain-sama's chakra when you were with us. That was a small fraction of what he really has," she pointed to the bloody body of her comrade that was now being pulled into the mouth of a weird statue, guarded by another orange haired man with piercings.
'Damn, she was just distracting us from that,' the brunette cursed in her mind. The statue spat the other man out, and to everyone's shock, he was alive again.
"I will never come with you, Konan-san," Ameji said, somewhat sadly. "It was fun to have a few members like a family, but it took down lives of other people and used it to your advantage. I don't agree with that."
"But isn't that just what any ninja village does? There are assassination missions, and you all follow the orders blindly, not caring about anyone other than your own village. Isn't it the same as what the Akatsuki does?"
"You murder people to gain power. That's the major difference," Itachi intervened.
"Fine. You have made your choice, now you and your whole village must pay the price for your foolishness." Konan flew higher, sending paper needles towards Kana's eyes, and even longer paper spikes, trying to hit the Uchiha clan members. Half of them were battling the revived Akatsuki member, and the other half were going after the member that could bring people back to life.
The dog finally got the scratchy fur out of his eyes and launched itself at Kana, only to have the cat turn and leave deep cuts in his throat while trying to whack Konan away with her tail. While the bluenette dodged the furiously wagging tail, Amejisuto ran up the distraction and came face to face with her enemy.
"You know, I kind of missed being there with you guys," she said with slight tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. "I especially liked how kind you were considering we were your enemy. Sure, it was controlled, but for a while, I thought I had the big and odd family I always wanted."
"Then come back," Konan whispered, reluctant to harm the brunette up close. She had grown a soft spot for her, and it had been evident even to the leaders, with her trying to postpone attacks and all. When it was long distance attacks, she felt slightly more at peace knowing it could be counted as collateral if she sent a lot of paper weapons. But up close, she just simply couldn't do it.
"I'm sorry, but I can't," Ameji cried softly. "And I can't kill you. Please, just leave the village. Leave all these innocent people alone."
"That is something I cannot do," the enemy replied. "But I don't want to fight you or Itachi-kun. I can go back to Pain, but I can't show that I couldn't bring myself to harm you by asking him to pull back. Madara-sama would surely kill me."
"Alright, please make your escape, Konan-san, for even if we did fight, in my state, I might accidentally kill you."
Konan nodded, turning and flying away as if she had been running from an invisible attack. Itachi looked up with a questioning look, but noticing his wife trying to hide her tears, he understood. He decided to help her and her cat, attacking the feet of the large dog with a long blade, slicing deep cuts into the ankles.
The canine was already close to death; the bleeding wounds in its neck were simply too much for its great chakra to heal. It fell as Itachi sliced through its tendons, slowly on its way to death. Its rider scowled in fury, gathering chakra to summon another animal. Before that could happen, a lightning bolt tore through the heart of the enemy, killing her instantly.
"Just don't let the resurrection guy near her," Amejisuto and Itachi looked over at Sasuke, who had blood flowing from the corners of his mouth, evidence that he had used up the last of his chakra.
"Sasuke!" Itachi yelled, going to his brother's side.
It was too late.
"Let's honour his last wish," the brunette called from her animal, trying to keep back any evidence of emotional pain. "Let's destroy that guy."
By now, they realised that shinobi from different parts of the village were now there to help the Uchiha clan battle the two stronger of the orange-haired Akatsuki.
Suddenly, Itachi saw one of them making hand seals for an escape. "Don't let them get away!" He ordered. As the rest of the shinobi realised what the enemy was going to do, they already had disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving the Uchiha clan district alone.
"After all he did for you, you join an evil organization and try to kill members of his village?!" Tsunade yelled at the pierced man. "That's shameful."
"We didn't join this organization. We created it," Pain replied calmly.
"That's even worse!"
"It didn't start out evil. We tried to help people. Well, until Yahiko was killed," he got up from leaning on the railing of the rooftop. "Konan was devastated, half of our little army dropped out, and I was left to take leadership, though I was not fit to be leader. I had no skills in the matter."
"Why are you telling me all this?" The Hokage glared, looking out into the village, where smoke poured out of buildings and the number of piles of rubble were increasing.
"I'm teaching you the lesson about pain. Jiraiya-sensei was hell bent on finding a way to peace. I have discovered that the only way to that is if everyone experienced an intense amount of pain; only then will they connect."
"That's an idiotic way of thinking and you should know that!"
"It's definitely not what I taught him." Both Tsunade and Pain looked over, surprised to see Jiraiya standing across the roof. "Now which one are you? You say that Yahiko died, yet you look like him," the toad sage walked closer, narrowing his eyes to study the enemy. "You do have the rinnigan though. There is the possibility of you changing hair colours and styles to fit the image of your best friend."
"I have not," Pain glared.
The albino looked over the edge, observing the chaos. "I would say, according to the little dots of orange, black and red, you are just using dead bodies. Even the one we're talking to."