One Month Later

"Uncle Deidei, does this look good?," asked Hizashi as she handed her sketchpad to Deidara.

Since the Akatsuki decided to take her in, many things had changed. For one thing, she had a fairly nice wardrobe consisting of mainly loose-fitting pants and loose-shirts with a couple of frilly dresses here and there, courtesy of Konan. Of course, Kakuzu was against spending that much on an outfit, but taking in the child appeared to have awakened Konan's "motherly instincts." Naturally Pain was doing nothing to stop her, but no one really expected him to.

Another thing was that she had to take lessons everyday. Each member of the Akatsuki had to pitch in to help her get a proper education. Zetsu taught science, Itachi taught her basic shinobi skills, Kakuzu got history, so on and so forth. At the current time, she was in the middle of her art lesson with Deidara in the kitchen, while Tobi cooked lunch. He was teaching her how to draw people with Tobi as an example.

"Not bad, un." said Deidara after giving the drawing a good look."This looks just like Tobi. Did you ever draw before you came here?" He looked at Hizashi.

"Yes, but I've never drawn a person before." replied Hizashi with a grin. She rarely ever got a compliment from any of the Akatsuki, they normally just told her to work harder.

Tobi, who was listening the whole time, walked over to Deidara, took the sketch pad, and stared at it for about 5 minutes before exclaiming,"Wow, this is really amazing! Maybe instead of being a shinobi when you grow up, you should be an artist!"

Deidara and Hizashi stared at him.

"Okay, kiddo," said Deidara as he picked up the child and started pushing her toward the door."Uncle Deidei needs to talk to Nii-san, so why don't you go find Uncle Kuzu, okay?" With that he pushed her out of the kitchen and shut the door. As she walked to Hidan and Kakuzu's room, she could swear she heard the door lock and Deidara yelling.

The door was open so she walked right in to discover Kakuzu sitting at his desk, leaning over a mess of papers. She walked over to Kakuzu and asked," Uncle Kuzu, what are you doing?"

Kakuzu looked up to see her standing by the desk staring at him with a quizzical expression on her face. He didn't have his mask on, which was odd since he normally kept it on at all times to avoid scaring her, but she didn't seem scared. He closed his eyes and sighed."Oh well," he thought. He opened his eyes, smiled and said," Sit down, kid. I'm gonna teach you about a magical thing called economics."

She looked at him for a minute. Then turned around and started to leave. Before she could take even one step, she felt something pull her to the other chair by Kakuzu's desk. At that moment, Hidan decided to walk in. He surveyed the scene and saw Hizashi.

"Just who I was looking for." shouted Hidan. He strode over, grabbed the child's hand, and started to pull her to the door."Now that your lessons are over for the day, I'm going to teach you about the Church of Jashin." He was about half-way across the room when Kakuzu's strings grabbed his ankle and caused him to trip.

"No you don't, Hidan." said Kakuzu as he got up." You are not going to teach her to give all of her precious money to some stupid church for some stupid god!"

Hidan looked up and glared at Kakuzu." What did you say?" he said, his words thick with hatred.

"You heard me." said Kakuzu with a grin. He was enjoying getting on Hidan's nerves. Hizashi ran to the door and shut it just in time to hear a string of colorful curses from Hidan. She backed away towards the living room where Tobi was watching Criminal Minds and joined him on the couch.

"So far," she thought,"These are some very interesting people."

My thanks to my friend powerdown(his name on ) for helping me come up with the Hidan and Kakuzu argument and anyone who reads this story. It is people like you who keep me writing this story and working on my other stories.

Until next time.