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~Danica's P.O.V.~
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I woke up with a dull throb pounding the inside of my head. I noticed someone was tying me up. Someone... blue, and... shark-like.
I tensed, using my freak out moment to flex the muscles in my arms.
The shark man chuckled. "Awake, now are you? I suppose that's good." He grinned, flashing his razor sharp teeth. Then it hit me. Kisame Hoshigaki, the Tailless Tailed Beast of Kirigakure, Wielder of the Samehada, member of the Akatsuki. And he was in my house. Was he even real? Was this a prank? I wasn't sure. Might as well treat this like a real-life situation. It might just be a test by Savvy. But it might not be.
"Fuck," came my immediate response at this revelation. Kisame grinned and began walking away.
"I'll come get you when we're ready for the interrogation." Interrogation? What? But I didn't even do anything! I voiced these thoughts.
"'Cause I swear, if this is about that Petco incident, I am completely over that. Savvy is a well adjusted, happy individual and the parakeet wasn't even her fault," I yammered on. "And, damn. I've gone into shock-induced idiot mode, haven't I?"
Kisame looked mildly amused. "Well, it seems you have." Then he left, closing the door. I realized I was in my room. I didn't recognize it at first because all my weapons... were... not... on... the proper... shelves...
Oh, hell no! I snarled at the thought of someone tarnishing my perfect collection. Relaxing my wrists and wiggling them to feel the slack. Damn. It wasn't enough to slip my wrists through easily. Curse you, mystery books! You have failed me once again! Frustrated, I tipped the chair so I was standing sort of hunched over, the chair still on my back.
I took my mini sharpening/cleaning kit out from under my mattress, having to use my mouth to bite the thing and get the sharpest objects in there out.
I set it on the bed and had to... sort of twerk to cut the ropes until they fell, the chair almost silently falling onto the bed.
I moved some papers from the wall and took a small key from the back of one. I then used said key to open up a hope chest hidden in a hollowed out book and took out...
-Insert Zelda music here- My bitch slapping glove! Metal coated knuckles and pieces in specific shape as to leave a lasting imprint on the skin, it was my first completely original piece. I kept it for the sake of yucks, but it was still dangerous if used correctly. Might as well use it correctly.
I looked back at the wall for another weapon to see... Nothing. Not a sword in place. But there were some scuff marks on the wall that looked like someone knocked... my good swords... against the wall...
Anger renewed, I stormed out of the room. Or at least I stormed out as quietly as one storming out could get.
Oh, hell no. Nobody messes with my weapons and gets away with it. These bitches are going down!
I knew they probably heard me coming, so screw self preservation!
I burst into the room, tightening my glove.
"Who the hell messed with my swords!?" I hissed, glaring at the room. The entire Akatsuki were there, and Savanna was tied in a chair in the center of the room. The lights were off, giving the scene a dramatic feel that I was sure I just ruined. The previously broken window was boarded shut, obviously a quick job. All eyes were on me.
Well, I got this far. I reasoned with myself. Might as well keep going.
My eyes combed the mildly surprised faces until I found a specific one. A face attached to a body, which was holding... my sword. I saw fingerprints on the blade. He left fingerprints on the blade.
He stood, a bit confused as to why I was glaring at him. Then he recognized me, and I recognized him. Hidan of the Akatsuki. The guy Savvy smacked with a cactus. And the guy holding my sword.
"You! Bitch! You're the one who fucking sprayed me in the face!" he yelled.
"And you're the one I'm going to tear into fucking pieces!" I retorted. I ran at him while he continued cussing and tackled him into the ground. He easily threw me off, but while he was getting up I back handed him when he was at my height.
The metal on the glove left a clear imprint of the word, "BITCH" on his cheek in five different languages. English, Spanish, French, Latin, and Japanese.
I took everyone's stunned silence to steal my sword back and run into a corner, hissing like a cat at the nearest people.
"Oh, you poor thing. All smudged and gross. Don't worry, Mama's gonna make it better," I cooed, starting to wipe it off with the edge of my my shirt.
Most people would have called the cops by now, but for me the sword was priority right then. Plus, the chances of this being a test is much higher than the chances of this being real. If it was real and the real Akatsuki were in my home, it wouldn't do anyone any good to turn them in. If they were just plain robbers... I doubt it. Savvy stabbed Hidan and he was still standing.
"Um... Dani? Are you okay over there?" Savvy asked hesitantly.
I hissed again. "My precious!" I hugged the sword to me.
"What the hell, un?" asked a certain bomber.
Savvy just shook her head. "Let her be. She'll bite whoever decides to approach her until she properly cleans and sharpens her sword."
I nodded in appreciation towards her. I have taught you well, kemosabe.
Hidan just laughed. "As if that bitch could do any real fucking damage- JASHIN DAMMIT! She's biting the fuck out of me!" he shouted, flailing his arm around to get his hand out of my clamped jaw. I just bit harder, inwardly grimacing when I felt his skin break. I shook my head around like a dog, feeling the urge to spit his hand out. I was disciplining him. He needed to be disciplined.
Copper leaked into my mouth and I kept my mouth closed, frowning uncomfortably at the taste of blood. He raised his hand, the words "BITCH / PERRA / PUTE / CYNOSSEMA/ 雌犬" standing out clearly on his cheek.
I braced myself, fully prepared to take the hit and keep biting him but... the hit never came.
"Hidan," came a steely voice. Pein held his arm, preventing him from moving.
0 pts. Jashin, 1 pt. Pein. You go, dude! Show him who's god!
"Control yourself. You will not harm the girls until we get the necessary information to our whereabouts," he said, staring into the Jashinist's soul with his ringed eyes. Well, not into his soul, per se, but it sure seemed like it from my angle. Or he was secretly undressing him with his eyes.
I took the two murderers' moment of silence to entertain the little yaoi fantasy before remembering that Konan owned Pein. Damn. Sadly, my OTP prevails against my yaoi happy bubble.
Finally the albino sighed, looking away. "What the fuck ever," he mumbled, shoving out of the way and back to the couch.
I held my sword tighter, seeing Pein still staring me down. "Up," he commanded.
I jolted upright, sword under my arm like it was a musket and my free hand in a salute. "Yes, sir!" I squeaked, running to hide behind Savvy.
"He's scaaaaary," I whimpered.
"You," he pointed at me. I looked around innocently before pointing at me. He nodded.
"Yes, sir?"
"Where are we?"
I looked at him sideways. "Nevada."
He glared at me. "Tell us the truth."
"You're in Nevada, you know, seventh largest state in the United States of America?" I said, the gravity of this situation finally catching up to me. "The Great Basin, Boundary Peak, the Colorado River?" He didn't look amused, so I started spouting random facts. "Hot springs, geysers, Basin and Range region? Longitude: 116° 55.9'W, latitude: 39° 30.3'N?" He began to glare at me. "Nevada, United States of America, North America, Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy? You know, just a bit short of the Alpha Centauri Galaxy and oh, holy crap, I don't even know what the hell's going on here anymore!"
He "hmph"'d and started walking away. I let out a quiet breath of relief. "Konan, Tobi, Zetsu and I will search the house. Kisame and Itachi will continue to interrogate Savanna, and Deidara and Sasori will interrogate this... Danica."
"Oi! Pein-in-the-ass, what about me?"
He met Hidan's eyes easily. "You will keep out of our way. Kakuzu will supervise."
Hidan protested loudly while I took some cleaning supplies off the couch and continued to properly shine my baby to perfection. I sat cross legged on the floor next to where Savvy was and carefully took the dropped pocket kunai off the ground, cutting Savvy free.
"So..." I started.
"'So', indeed," Savvy nodded.
"So... tell the truth, but don't get us killed?" I offered. It was a sound plan, and it also meant I wouldn't be telling them about the anime any time soon. I mentally thanked Kami/Jashin/Pein for my laziness and lack of anime-type items (excluding my swords). The only Naruto stuff in my house was the small collection of kunai and shuriken I hand-crafted. The Buster Sword was originally going to be the Kubikiribōchō, but I got sloppy and wanted to finish it quickly so I altered some bits and made it a shortened version (to fit my height) of the Buster Sword.
Savvy didn't watch anime (no matter how much I begged and bribed and blackmailed), which meant I had no problems worrying about her spilling and them killing one of us, torturing the other for bits of information on their future.
Savvy shook my hand and nodded her head firmly. "Another good plan, sarge."
"Thank you, corporal."
"Corporal?"
"And congratulations on your promotion, ex-private."
"Oh. Well, thank you, sarge."
"Much obliged."
She smiled shyly at me, and I gave her what I thought was a reassuring one back. It came out as more of a grimace.
"Okay, Danica. Follow me, un," ordered Deidara. Sasori grabbed my arm and dragged me along, making Deidara asking me sort of redundant. Oh, well. It wouldn't do to correct murderers. I already bitch-slapped one.
The artist duo brought me to my room and took my sword and glove from me, making me internally whimper pathetically and openly stare longingly at them.
"I'll stand guard at the door. Hurry up, brat," Sasori huffed, marching out the door and closing it behind him.
"Okay, hm. We'll start simple. What's your name?" Deidara began. I figured Savvy had already told them, seeing as they'd already addressed me by my name, but whatevs.
"My name is Danica Martinez Potter," I said simply, only giving them what they asked for. "You can just call me Danica."
"Why does Savanna call you Dani, then, yeah?"
I gave him a "duh" look. "It's a nickname. We're friends," I said, putting emphasis on the friends part.
"Then why can't we call you that?" he asked, looking surprisingly genuinely confused.
I wondered when he had joined the organization. Maybe he was a newbie. I made sure to enunciate clearly. "Well. Let's review, shall we? You break into my home, threaten my friend, knock me unconscious, interrogate me, and you took my swords. We aren't gonna be friends anytime soon."
"Oh. Un," he said. I felt a bit concerned about back-talking my interrogator, but meh. It's in the past. Might as well run with it.
"Next question-"
"Here I stand/ helpless and left for dead." came my phone. It blared out of my pocket and the iHome speaker on my desk.
Deidara, for all his ninja training, jumped up and pulled out a kunai I recognized as mine.
"Hey, isn't that-?" I began, but was cut off by Sasori, who opened the door so quickly I was worried for its health.
"What is that noise?" Sasori asked over Breaking Benjamin.
I quickly muted my iHome as the other Akatsuki members plus Savvy came rushing in.
"Close your eyes/ so many days go by/ Easy to find what's wrong/ harder to find what's right." my phone sang.
"Sorry, that's my dad calling for the night," I excused, holding the phone and checking the caller ID to make sure that, yes, it was my dad.
"That blue box is your dad?" Tobi asked, confused. "Tobi is confused." I just thought that, Tobi. No need to reiterate. "Oh, sorry Dani-chan!"
"Sorry for what?" I asked. Oh, holy crap. Can he read minds?
"No, Tobi's constant habit of talking in the third person allows him to break the fourth wall."
"... What?" I tilted my head.
"Never mind. Tobi was just being silly."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"... Okay? But no, the phone is not my dad." I answered his previous question.
"It's..." Savvy started, struggling a bit with her words. "It's a communication device. Like... a radio. You know what a radio is, right? Like, you aren't a bunch of murderers-slash-robbers-slash-... uh, what's that one word?"
"Amish," I supplied helpfully.
"Yeah. That's the one," she nodded.
Deidara twitched slightly. "Yes, we know what radios are, hm. We aren't idiots."
"I ain't a fucking Amish, bitch!" Hidan cussed.
"You sure? 'Cause you don't seem very... up-to-date with modern technology," Savvy commented skeptically. Why was she acting all normal? Oh, yeah. She acts annoyingly casual when stressful shit's going down. We all have ways of coping, don't question ours.
Before those offended could retaliate, I cut in. "Can I just talk to my dad now?"
Pein went quiet for a second before responding. "Yes. Do not try to tell him anything about us, or we will kill you."
"Kay-kay!" I smiled, choosing to ignore the "kill you" part. I answered the call and put it on speaker for Savvy. I didn't really care if the Akatsuki were there or not. If they talked, it wouldn't be my fault that they got found out. Besides, you should always make sure to have people to back up your lies. I nearly frowned at the 'lies' part of it, but sheer willpower stopped me from openly expressing my disdain for dishonesty. Damn my moral code.
"Hey, short stack!" my dad greeted.
"Wassup, home slice?" I responded. It was our thing.
"Nothing much. Hey, why did you answer my call so late?" he asked.
I racked my brain for a lie when my three years of drama club kicked in. "Savvy dared me to watch a scary movie. The phone startled us and I was kinda worried someone would pull some 'Seven days,' crap on us." I made sure to make my voice extra creepy for the 'Seven days' part, fishing for a laugh.
I got what I asked for and he laughed heartily. His laughter was contagious and I giggled a bit. Like a prep. Gag me with a spoon.
"Okay, well I gotta go. Late night, last-minute stuff. The big-wigs expected three dozen perfect swords in a month. Can you believe it? I got it down to one dozen and the final two next month, but I might end up with repeats." I could hear his cringe at the word "repeats". His disdain for making two swords of the same kind was almost as bad as my OCD tendencies and honesty policy.
"That sucks. Do you have any pre-made swords left?" I asked.
"Well, now that I think about it... Yeah! Yeah, they should be lying around here somewhere... Thanks, Danica. You're a lifesaver."
"No probs, Pops. Happy to help your perfectionistic self," I smiled.
"Well, don't stay up too long, short stack. G'night."
"Night, Daddy-O." I hung up after that, letting out a breath of relief. The phone conversation had been short, and I had been worried we would end up chattering on and I would slip somewhere.
Savvy patted my head sympathetically. She knew how much I hated lying, especially to people who trusted me.
"We will continue with our investigation," Pein announced. People nodded and left my crowded room, allowing me to breath. Savvy was dragged away with Kisame and Itachi. I stayed put with the artists.
Sasori nodded at Deidara and went back outside. The blondie cleared his throat awkwardly.
"Back to where we were," he began. "Why do you have so many weapons?"
"I'm a blacksmith," I said simply. "I excel in pointy things."
"And where did you get your blacksmith training, yeah?"
"My pops. Obviously," I muttered the last part under my breath.
He "Hm"'d and stopped to think. "Where are we?"
"Nevada," I deadpanned. "I already told you."
"That's a lie," Deidara said, beginning to glare. "What country, un?"
"America. Land of the free, home of the brave? Ringing any bells?" I rolled my eyes.
"I mean actual country. As in, Fire, Earth, Water. That kind of stuff, yeah." He was starting to get a bit annoyed.
"Look," I huffed, exasperated. I went to my desk, fully aware of the nuke-nin's eyes tracking my every movement. I pulled out my sixth-grade History of America textbook that I never returned. Whoops.
I opened up the beat up cover and went to the back of the book, thumbing through the book and turning to the world map. I stuck a finger in the other maps I found, just to be sure.
I pointed to America, the green splotch in the blue. "This is North America." I pointed my finger a little south to be stuck in the middle of the continent. "This is the United States of America." I flipped to another page my left index finger had been holding. I found our triangular state next to Cali and jabbed my newly freed finger at it. "This is Nevada. We clear?"
He snatched the book from me and flipped through it. Rude, I thought.
"What the hell kind of code is this, hm?" he asked. "This isn't Japanese!"
"Well, you aren't in Japan," I sighed.
"What the hell is Japan?" Face, meet Desk.
"You aren't even speaking Japanese!" I shouted, finally losing my temper. "This is written in English, bakayarou!" I resorted to calling him a dumbass in Japanese, an old habit I had in middle school. I cussed in foreign languages to avoid getting in trouble with the teachers. "You're in freaking AMERICA! Speaking English, reading English, expecting Japanese when you don't even know what Japan is!"
I vaguely remembered they were from another universe, but I ignored it. As far as they were concerned, I didn't even know universal, actual universal, not world-wide, travel was even possible.
I breathed and sat down. "I had to walk home in the rain today, have not one, not two, but ten criminals in my house, lost all my precious swords, had to lie to my dad, and now all I want is a coffee. Go get me a coffee and I'll talk."
"Okay, whatever, un," he said, rolling his eyes and walking away, mumbling about sex-deprived little boys.
"I'm a girl, dimwit!" I yelled back. "I'm tiny, I have short hair, and I'm as flat as a ten year old boy, but I'm a girl, dammit!"
He stopped, shocked. Freaking morons. "Oh, un. I thought it was a bit weird when you giggled."
He asked Sasori-no-Danna to watch me while he went for coffee. It took me a minute to realize he had taken my textbook with him. Probably going to use coffee as a cover to report back to his leader. Oh, well.
My time with the puppet master was short, but I noticed he wasn't in Hiruko. He was his normal, redheaded self. Deidara had my kunai, too. Maybe they were brought here without weapons? Hm... Food for thought.
Soon Deidara came back (without coffee) and said Leader-sama had called for all of us in the main room.
"About time, brat," Sasori scoffed. They led me out and I took a seat on the couch next to Savvy. She took my hand and squeezed, and I let myself become a little girl, just for a second. I squeezed back, thankful for her comforting presence.
"We have confirmation. Neither of the girls lied to us. We are in... Nevada, America-" I had to physically shove my hand in my mouth and bite down to quiet my smart mouth, though my mind still swum with replies, accompanied by a mental sarcastic snort. "-and we will be staying here until we can find a way back to our world."
I groaned and Savvy lept up, screeching things like, "What? Are you freaking SERIOUS?" Pein easily silenced us with a sharp glance, but that didn't stop us from glaring daggers at our least favorite member, a certain white-haired, pink eyed jerk. Hidan was as verbal of his discontent, if not more, than Savvy was, but he was silenced by glares and a smack on the head from Kakuzu.
"Can we at least set up some rules first?" I asked.
Pein inclined his head slightly. "I suppose you may, but you are still our prisoners."
"And you are still our guests," I countered. Not too smart on my part, but whoopsie-daisy. "Okay, one: You break it, you buy it. And since I doubt you have the same currency as us, you need to find and uphold a job long enough to get paid, and that in itself will be tedious." Kakuzu glared at everyone, silently daring them to make him pay anything.
"Two: Don't mess with my shit. I will bitch-slap you and you'll be labeled a bitch, just like Hidan." Said zealot furrowed his brow in confusion before feeling his cheek, cussing, and looking at a mirror hanging on the wall. He screeched in rage and made to attack me, nearly knocking over a vase and violating rule one. Kakuzu caught and restrained both, setting the vase back on the table and holding Hidan up in the air, detaching him from his body to prevent further harm. I stared at his mega-cool threads before smiling at him. Savvy cheered at Hidan's bodiless head before realizing he was still alive and booing. Kakuzu was no longer on my shit list.
"Three: if you kill Savvy, I'll kill myself and report you. Then who will house you? 'Cause I doubt you can dodge a nuke." I didn't think they knew what a nuke was, but Pein nodded anyway. I normally would have said "clean up after yourselves," but I figured that would be pushing my luck.
"Anything else, Savvy?" I asked. She shook her head before stopping and nodding.
"Yeah. I go to uni and Dani goes to hell- I mean high school during the day. I expect the more responsible ones to watch after the idiots. Oh- and if you perv on either of us, I will let Dani pull out the pointy objects." I grinned evilly and gave everybody an insane giggle at the last part.
"You bitches still go to fucking school?" Hidan snickered. "You are all fucking idiots!"
Savvy cleared her throat. "Education is very valuable here. The smarted you are, the farther in life you'll get. That's why most of us are stuck in school for thirteen years, seventeen if you wish to get a higher education and therefor better jobs with higher payrolls."
"Any objections to our rules, boss-man?" I asked Pein.
"None. But we will be confiscating your weapons." I froze.
"W-w-w-w... what?" I hoped to kami/Jashin/Pein that my ears had deceived me.
"We cannot have you escaping," he said simply. I felt my shoulders slump. "Go bring them here."
"All of them?" I asked meekly.
Pein nodded. "All of them."
I trudged towards the hall before going back and tapping the tallest guy in the room's shoulder- that is to say, Kisame's.
"Mind helping me out?" I asked.
The shark man shrugged. "Why not?"
I pulled myself into my room and opened the door, going under my bed, into the hollowed-out books and hidden hope-chests, pulled up a couple of floorboards behind some stuffed narwhals, and tore open said narwhals to get my weapons and have Kisame hold them for me.
I went back to the living room and lay out the knives in my arms in an organized pile on the large, open floor. I was vaguely aware of everyone's eyes on me, but I didn't care. Kisame came into the room and I took the weapons from him, carefully setting those ones down.
I left again for a second trip, going into Savvy's guest room. I took the decorative knives and swords from the walls and put them in a basket, then put the basket on a glass box display shelf with a pretty katana in it. I had Kisame wheel that one into the living room while I wheeled the other one out.
I had a mini museum in my living room now.
I led 'Same-san into the basement/workshop where I had him carry two Keyblades (we basically mass-produced them. They were popular.) and Sephiroth's Murasame while I hefted the Buster Sword over my shoulder.
The shark-man whistled appreciatively at the giant sword. "Nice."
I nodded proudly at him. "One of my favorites!"
I put on some spare cleaning gloves and yet another sharpening kit (I breathed these things) before heading upstairs one last time. I snatched a wooden box of kunai and shuriken off a table in the hall, knowing they had probably raided my other box of ninja gear from the kitchen if Deidara using my kunai was any indication. I laid the box on the floor before putting down my final pointy beauties.
I looked to Pein. "And the ones from my room?"
Pein nodded to Konan who took out a storage scroll and poof'd out my swords. "Whoa." Savvy and I loudly applauded her, making the bluette blush.
I took my swords from her and lay them out with their brethren. It nearly covered half the room, but I refused to pile my babies on top of one another.
"That's a lot of swords, Danna, un," said Deidara. Sasori merely nodded.
"Real works of art!" I said, puffing my chest out before I realized my fatal mistake. Never say "art" in front of the artist duo.
"While I admit your art is impressive," began Sasori. "it is not yet eternal, therefore not true art."
I froze. Did he just insult my art?
"There, there, kiddo. I'm sure he didn't insult your art," Savvy soothed, rubbing my shoulders to calm me.
I began to relax until- "No way, Danna, un! Art is a bang!"
Savvy raised an eyebrow. "Art is a bang? Really? You know, I could make so many 'that's what she said' jokes with that, it's not even funny."
Hidan snickered. Sasori's lips had a mini seizure, like he was fighting a smirk. Kisame actually smirked without fighting it. Tobi looked around, not getting it.
"What's so funny? Tobi doesn't get it," he said in his adorable dub voice.
Savvy and I "aww!"'d at his obliviousness. So cute.
"Wait, before I forget, boss-man. Why can't you guys read?" I asked. Carrot-top simply nodded at Itachi, who began to explain.
"When I was in the ANBU, the Yamanaka's had been developing a jutsu used to decode intercepted messages more clearly."
Savvy asked what a jutsu was and was given a short answer. "Chakra molded for the purpose of manipulating of the environment or yourself." To which I responded to by quietly singing, "Captain Planet! He's the hero! Reducing pollution, down to zero!" This was, however, ignored by most.
"Sadly, it had a few glitches, like random seizures and a few going into cardiac arrest. It only works as intended to if you have the Sharingan. Since this is an entirely different language, writing and reading is quite out of our reach. Speaking, however, is not," he said stoically.
Hidan whistled. "Damn, that's the most I've ever heard you say."
This, of course, triggered a mass reaction of different conversations.
Ding! sang the oven. Everybody shut up.
"Brownies are done," Savvy said. She went to retrieve them while I followed like the little duckling I was.
"We're housing ten criminals," she said quietly.
"I know."
"They've probably killed people."
"I know."
"They thought you were a dude."
I cringed. "I know."
"Why? I mean, 'Danica' is such a feminine name!"
"It's not common in Japan."
"What?" she did a double take, pausing in putting on oven mitts. "They're from Japan?"
"Japan in another universe. I think," I said, making sure I should know this stuff. "Blondie said something about elemental countries. Like, Fire, Earth, Water, stuff like that."
"'Then everything changed when the fire nation attacked,'" she quoted.
"I love you. But seriously. Another universe. Or world. Or dimension."
"Damn."
"Tell me about it."
"There are criminals in our house."
"I believe we already stated that."
"There are criminals in our house, and I'm making brownies."
"You don't see me complaining."
She took out two trays of brownies and left them on the stove top to cool down. After sneakily stealing two corner pieces, I followed her back to the living room, where we both sank onto the couch between the criminals.
"Well, my life's been blown to shit," sighed Savvy.
"You're telling me. Brownie?"