Chapter 3

Timeskip: 3 years

Naruto: 10 years old

Itachi: 16 years old

3 figures leapt silently through the foliage of a forest. One of them had a large and bulky figure with a huge sword attached to his back; another had a more slender figure, and whose movements were noticeably more elegant and graceful than the other; and finally, there was an obviously smaller figure, who travelled with a noticeable bounce in each of his steps. Without warning, they paused and leapt to the ground. The largest figure bent down to the ground, and inhaled. A look of concentration passed his face as he paused to think…

"The tracks are a few hours old. We're closing in on them."

The second figure nodded imperceptibly. Taking that as a signal, the three leapt into the leaves again, and continued to close in on their targets. They continued to move on, swifter this time, their speed increasing with their anticipation.

"Fish-fry! Remember, no mercy. They're our targets. They're the job. The faster we kill them, the quicker the job's done, and we can all go back home. Got it?"

Naruto nodded. This was one of his many 'training' missions. He'd accompany a pair of the Akatsuki, and they'd go on a mission together. Sometimes, he'd just observe. Sometimes, he'd help with the small fry a.k.a. the thugs and the mercenaries accompanying their main target. Other times, like this time, he'd be put in charge of the mission, with the pair monitoring him off the side, ready to leap into action at any given moment. But they'd only help if they really thought Naruto would come off the losing side. Once, two lucky kunais stabbed his left shoulder and stomach, and Deidara and Sasori remained unmoving. He'd almost passed out then, but, luckily, incapacitated the last two ninja defending their cowardly target quivering behind the carriage. He'd learnt a lesson from that. He'd have to fight hard if he wanted to survive these 'training' missions. Neither the Akatsuki nor the Kyuubi would let him die, but they'd let him suffer through a mountain of pain before they actually helped.

Sensing some movement ahead, the party of three slowed down. Silently and slowly, they crept up on their target. He was surrounded by a group of mercenaries, obviously hired to guard him on his way to his destination. They did not know the details. Not his destination, not whatever valuable he carried, not the reason that he had to be eliminated. This was how Leader did things. They were given a mission scroll with a face, a name, and a location. Kill whatever gets in your way, and leave no witnesses. If it was a retrieval mission of an artifact, it was the same. Just that your target need not be eliminated, but rather, stolen.

Finally, Itachi spoke, "Naruto, you know what to do. Quick and clean."

Nodding, Naruto leapt into action. Stealthily, he pulled out two kunai. The target was in the middle, with two mercenaries on each of his sides. Eight in total. The kunai were thrown silently, and hit the two mercenaries in the back of their hearts. They died before they even knew what hit them. Hearing the two thumps behind them, the rest of the guards turned around. Three of them immediately circled the target, while the other three went on the offensive. Naruto jumped into the fray.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

2 shadow clones popped into existence, and the three of them rushed to the offensive mercenaries. Because they were just mercenaries with feeble fighting skills, they hardly put up a fight, and were quickly defeated by simple taijutsu. The other three mercenaries rushed forwards with their swords drawn.

Deciding to take them out in one blow, Naruto quickly muttered, "Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu."

A fireball expanded from his mouth, and travelled at fast speeds towards the attackers. They were killed in a heartbeat, the fireball to quick for them to even try to evade it. The target was already running away from the fray in one last desperate attempt to hold on to his life for a few more minutes. But even he knew, this would probably be the last time he saw sunlight. And it was, because in the next second, a kunai was thrown right into the back of his heart, silencing it forever.

Kisame and Itachi emerged from the dense forestry around them. Kisame was grinning, his sharp canines glinting in the sunlight. Itachi looked as expressionless as always. Naruto glanced at them with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh come on, is that it? Why was Akatsuki hired to kill someone guarded by eight mercenaries? Mercenaries! And only eight of them!"

Itachi looked at him sternly. "We do not question the mission, Naruto. We complete it, then we forget it."

"Yea, yea. Itachi-nii! Anyways, let's go back. It's way too hot to walk around in this thick cloak! Why can't the Akatsuki have winter and summer uniforms?"

"Because, fish-fry, we'd be like little school girls going to school. The most notorious criminal organization in the world can't change uniforms two times a year just because of the weather! Come on, anyway, wearing a dark cloak with red clouds is completely badass. We look like grim reapers!"

Naruto grumbled. Was this really the reason they had to always wear these cloaks? Well, at least the hats provided good shading, but really, the black cloaks absorbed all the heat. He wiped some sweat off his brow, and looked over at Itachi. He didn't know how he did it. Every hair was in place, as usual, and he looked completely unwinded and sweat-free. Kisame was more like him, with sweat rolling down his brow. And the uniform they wore all the time may be good for infiltration and creeping around in the shadows, but when they entered villages, they were stared at. It was practically shouting: "There are weird people here walking around in black cloaks with DON'T COME NEAR ME OR I WILL HARM YOU vibes." Not very good stealthiness at all.

Naruto sighed. "Let's just head back. I can't stand this heat!"

Itachi, the unspoken leader of the small group, nodded, and they leapt into the trees again, heading in the direction of the Akatsuki base a.k.a. The Cave.

"Mission success," Itachi reported, handing over the sealing scroll containing the head of the target.

"Good," Leader-sama replied. He looked over to Naruto, then back to Itachi again. "Not much trouble, I hope?"

"No way, Leader-sama! There were only 8 mercenaries! They were gone just like that!"

Naruto snapped his fingers just for the emphasis. His relationship with Leader-sama was… unusual. You could say that it was like a father-child relationship, where the father was an authoritarian, and rather sadistic and cold at times. Well, the basics of a father-child relationship was there. The whole being brought up by the Akatsuki phase of his life had practically made them his adopted family. Of course, that excluded Orochimaru. That dirty snake had betrayed them all about a year ago, leaving with one of the rings. Till this day, Sasori still got that extra calm look on his face when Orochimaru was mentioned, which meant that he was probably plotting more ways to torture him once the Akatsuki got their hands on him.

Leader-sama had seemed apathetic to the whole Orochimaru-coming-after-Itachi's-eyes-then-defecting-with-one-of-the-rings fiasco. Knowing Leader-sama, he was probably confident that Akatsuki would get the ring back one day, that Orochimaru was no match for him. Naruto had seen it coming, of course… Well, not really. He just thought the whole creepy-snake-guy-with-the-long-tongue-and-girly-hair was totally weird, and knew that Orochimaru was definitely one bad egg.

"Well, it's a good that this mission was a success anyway. We can't afford to have one failed mission on our record just because your training went wrong," Leader said.

Kisame piped up. "Hey! The fish-fry was pretty messy though. There were bleeding bodies lying all over the place, and crispy-fried corpses lying right in the middle of the track!"

"That's not fair," Naruto countered. "It was a quick and efficient way of completing the mission. So what if it was pretty messy? I bet that you would've made an even bigger mess, you…" Naruto struggled for a good insult. He didn't want to use the word 'fish' because Kisame used that to insult him, and it would be pretty unoriginal for him to use it too.

Before this pointless shouting fest could go on any longer, Itachi quickly stepped in.

"Leader-sama. Do you need our presence here any longer?"

Leader-sama seemed to deliberate for a while.

"No, you are free to go. Itachi, just hand in the mission report by tomorrow. It needs to go in the archives."

"Yes, Leader-sama." Throwing Kisame and Naruto a sharp look, he tilted his head towards the entrance.

Naruto and Kisame got the message. That had been the shut-both-your-traps-or-you-will-die-a-painful-and-unpleasant-death look. Itachi, unfortunately enough, was blessed with a Kisame as a partner, and when Naruto was added into the mix, which happened quite often because Itachi had been the one to bring him from Konoha, you ended up with two contentious brats yapping each other's ears off, and a very annoyed Uchiha.

Walking to his room was no longer as complicated as it once had been. The Cave's maze of tunnels and hidden doors had become his home, and every nook and cranny had been fully explored and discovered. Of course, only the accessible ones. You didn't really want to enter Leader's room, or Hidan's; unless you desired a traumatic and agonizing death. His room was much the same as it had been when he was assigned it. The same only-the-necessities theme, with blank, stony grey walls. Naruto hadn't decorated his rooms when he came. He hadn't wanted to give any other reasons to the members that he was weaker than them! That he, a big and mature 7-year-old, was childish enough to sulk about living in a rooms with no colourful wallpapers! No, not he; so until now, for the past 3 years, he persisted in keeping his walls the way it was. And it had become a home. The walls became endearing after a while. He would look back on it, and say to his grandchildren: "I used to live with grey stone walls, youngsters! Don't complain about your rooms!" Yes, that would be the day.

The next day greeted Naruto with some a poke in his shoulder, and a push off the bed. After landing in an ungraceful heap on the floor, he cracked his eyes groggily open. Kisame looked down on him, ginning.

"Wakie time, fish-fry!" Naruto looked at the time. It was 7-bloody-AM!

"What the hell? It's seven in the morning! We just completed a mission yesterday! Today's sleep-in day!"

"Do you think I enjoy looking at your sleep-drool early in the morning, fish-fry? Leader-sama needs us. Says its an important mission."

An important mission that broke Leader's sleep-in-day-after-mission-day rule? Naruto suddenly felt more awake. Leader never disturbed someone's beauty sleep before 9 AM. It wasn't customary, and would probably cause unpopularity.

"I'll get ready quick. Meet in the hall in 5?"

Kisame nodded, and exited the room swiftly. He too, wondered what could be so urgent that they needed to wake Naruto, of all people. Naruto was still a trainee of the ninja arts. Nowhere close in skill to any of the Akatsuki members. Why would Leader suddenly require his presence? An urgent but easy mission, perhaps? Or one where they needed to sabotage a transfer of valuables quickly?

Naruto appeared, huffing, in step behind him, clad in his robes and holding his hat. He felt excited and filled with anticipation. This was the first time that Leader had required him so urgently. All the past missions had been missions where he stood by, watching, or mundane missions where he had to kill some low-level ninja or hired thugs. Was this finally an opportunity to shine, his chance at showing them just how much he'd progressed and grown since he joined the Akatsuki?

They arrived in the hall. Leader (the man just didn't seem to sleep) was already sitting on his makeshift 'throne', which made him look more important than other lowly beings. He was going through some scrolls, and barely looked up when Kisame and Naruto arrived. Itachi was already in the hall, standing stiffly to the side.

After much fidgeting on Naruto and Kisame's part, and more impassiveness from Itachi, Leader finally looked up. He seemed to ponder over something as he gazed at the trio, as if he was internally contemplating something of relation to them.

"I have a mission for you."

Naruto felt like he was going to burst with anticipation. He knew this already! What was this "mission" that was all mysterious and important? He hoped that he was finally being allowed to be part of an important mission. Most of the missions he had been sent on were mostly of little importance, due to his relatively low experience in the field of stealth, clean kills and the whole package of being an active shinobi. But it really wasn't his fault! He lived in a cave for Kami's sakes!

"This is of vital importance. I have deemed that it is a suitable time to acquire the Ichibi."

Right. They were a tailed-demon collecting association. That makes sense… Wait, Naruto thought, wasn't this supposed to happen in a few years time? Leader had been planning to lay low for a while to build on their resources and strength. And why was HE being sent on this mission?

"The Akatsuki spy network has informed me that harsher murder attempts are being made against the Jinchuuriki. We cannot risk him being killed. The Ichibi would be free to roam around. If this happens, the Akatsuki may need to expand more effort to capture it. Capturing the Jinchuuriki now will be more efficient."

Precise and straightforward. The reason for this breach in schedule laid out in bare, logical words. But Naruto still did not understand. Why was he involved in this? He would have thought Leader might have left him out of this mission. The capture of a tailed demon was essential to the aim of the Akatsuki: World Peace. Why was he, a current shinobi-in-training, and a potential Akatsuki 1-out-of-9 member, being sent on a mission of such weight?

Naruto spoke up, "But Leader-sama! Why am… I mean, I know I am a trainee, and I have completed some missions successfully, when I was independent of the supervising pair, but… I'm not doubting your judgment or anything, but why am I being sent on this mission?"

Leader's eyes bored into his, staring into his soul, evaluating his worth with those spinning, spiral, hypnotizing eyes.

"You will be charge of the information gathering and infiltration. In other words, you are the spy for this mission."

"Me, but why me? We all know that I suck at stealth and all that!" Trying to grasp at a chance to test his strength against another enemy, he quickly continued, "but I could try helping out in the capture! I'm sure that our chances will increase with a 3 against 1 instead of a 2! I promise not to mess this one up!"

Leader slowly shook his head. "No Naruto, you are not of the level yet to stand against a tailed demon. Even if it is only the Ichibi, and even if you are part of a team. And, your position as a spy and infiltrator in this mission is invaluable, because of what you are, and your age.

What he was? Did Leader mean a Jinchuuriki? Did that mean that he was supposed to somehow subdue the Ichibi with his awesome Kyuubi-Jinchuuriki aura? And what about his age? He was 10 this year, turning 11 in a few months actually. Wait, did that mean…

"Your mission is to become friends with the target. Subdue the target when least expected, and bring him back to the hideout for the extraction. You have 2 weeks. Your target is Sabaku no Gaara, aged 10."

Hey guys, sorry for the late update. I've just been really busy lately with the new school term and everything :) Please tell me if you spot any mistakes, and any constructive criticism is welcome! Also, if there are any story or plot suggestions, please tell me! The plot is still in the development stage, so...yeah...Please REVIEW! Motivation is KEY ^^