"So Orochimaru finally gave Sasuke the curse seal," Elyse informed the group as she set aside the dish she had just finished her meal off of. Allen could make a mean blackened chicken, that was for sure.

Diane swallowed a piece of chicken. "We know. Ryuu heard from the woman with the collection of Bingo Books and told us all while you were out looking for a blacksmith."

Elyse threw up her arms. "And none of you thought to tell me that when I got back?"

"We were eating. And you didn't tell us until now either," Isamu pointed out.

"That's cause I was still shellshocked by finding that this village doesn't have a single blacksmith in it. It's a ninja village, but there's no blacksmith. How does that make any sense? How am I supposed to replenish my supplies?"

"Why would you need to replenish your supplies? We haven't done anything yet."

Elyse frowned at Isamu. "That's not the point. I might need to replenish my supplies if we do get into a fight. Besides, my supplies aren't the underlying issue. This is a ninja village without a blacksmith. I don't think I can emphasize that enough. How are they supposed to supply themselves?"

"Yeah, that doesn't make sense. You can't have a ninja village without weapons," Diane agreed reaching for her chain that sat beside her.

"Maybe they can. Maybe none of the ninja here use weapons. Maybe they just rely on jutsu instead," Isamu suggested.

"Well, that's just senseless," Elyse said dismissively. "Kunai are incredibly useful for a variety of techniques. They can be used for traps, distraction, straight attack, and for pinning objects down."

"I didn't say it was a good idea," Isamu defended.

"Maybe it's a ploy," Allen piped up. "They could have an underground network of blacksmiths that they keep secret from outsiders. That way they can catch us by surprise when they bring out weapons in a fight." Elyse considered the idea. "I don't think that would give them much of an advantage at all. How many ninja are going to go into a fight without expecting weapons whether the village has a blacksmith or not?"

"Oooo, I know," Diane said excitedly. "The blacksmiths all went on strike to demand better wages and fairer hours."

"Could be," Elyse considered. "But then I think the shops would still be up."

"Maybe they burned the shops down as part of the protest," Diane offered.

"That sounds a little excessive and perhaps counterproductive too. They'd have to spend the increase of their wages on building new shops."

"I think you guys are missing one obvious problem with this theory," Isamu interjected. Diane and Elyse looked at him questioningly. "Blacksmiths aren't generally paid wages around here. They set up their own shop and earn whatever they get by selling their product."

Right. Elyse should have thought of that. "Then they could be on strike to demand that people pay more for the weapons," Diane said refusing to give up.

"No. The people around here are probably part of a cult that believes that steel is too artificial for battle. They only use the most natural and pure resources like chakra," Allen invented.

"Actually," Ryuu spoke up having momentarily set his chicken aside. "The Land of River has had a steel shortage for the past 100 years. The iron sources nearby are tapped out, and the country doesn't have enough goods to trade for an adequate supply. All the blacksmiths went out of business when the steel shortage started, and there still isn't enough for a revival of the job. It's actually one of the many staggering problems that leave this country with a failing economy."

Four pairs of eyes blinked at him. Elyse clapped her hands together. "Alright, then. Mystery solved. You could have spoken up earlier and saved us all the speculation, Ryuu," Elyse scolded.

Ryuu shrugged. "I was hoping one of you knew the answer, so I didn't have to say anything."

"Stop being so lazy," Diane groaned.

"It's not laziness, it's apathy. I didn't care enough to answer until I realized the conversation would continue on forever unless I did."

"Whatever," Diane grumbled.

"Anyways, back to the topic at hand," Elyse said. There was no point in trying to change who Ryuu was. "That particular part of canon happened a bit later than in the manga, but it still happened. Are you sure you're still in on this, Diane?"

"Yup," Diane said firmly. "I made up my mind and I'm sticking to it. Don't forget that this whole thing was my idea."

"As if I could," Elyse muttered. Diane went back and forth between asking if she was crazy for coming up with the idea and preening about what a great idea it was.

The group was only a couple weeks into their self given mission. They'd travelled out of Suna to Tanigakure and settled there. As they knew both from the manga and from Allen's past involvement with Akatsuki, an Akatsuki hideout was located not too far from the village. They planned to stop in Tani for supplies and rest before heading over to the hideout and rigging the place with explosives. It probably wouldn't kill any S rank ninja, but it amused Elyse and Isamu greatly to imagine the reaction when Akatsuki realized one of their hideouts had been discovered and filled with traps. The other members of the group indulged the two in this case purely because they didn't know where else to start.

Neither the information from the manga nor the intelligence Allen had from being a former member provided the group with the locations of the people they needed to take down. What Allen did have were the locations of all the Akatsuki hideouts. "Maybe we should just start by rigging each of the hideouts with explosives," Elyse suggested. "If we successfully drive them out of hiding, it will be easier to find them."

"And what happens when the Akatsuki catches on to what we're doing and sets up traps of their own for us?" Diane asked not pleased with how this was going. She thought they'd just be able to march up to Pein, take him out, and move on to the next guy. She was still a little naive and hadn't thought of the logistics of the task. At least, she started thinking more carefully now.

"Then we pull a Natrin's Barrow on them," Elyse decided as she thought back to one of her favorite book series from Earth. "We make them think that we're going to play along and fall into their trap, and then we hit them with a devastating long distance jutsu before they can realize it."

"What jutsu? You can't just say a jutsu. You actually have to have one in mind."

"I'll think of one," Elyse insisted. "It'd be easier if we could just use balefire like Rand did."

"What is balefire and who's Rand?" Isamu asked with a frown. "Are you making another obscure reference?"

"Baseball isn't obscure. Although, I guess The Wheel of Time might be a bit obscure," Elyse admitted.

"Do people actually watch baseball?" Allen asked. Elyse groaned and smacked her forehead repeatedly into her folded forearms. It was getting so old.

"I do. And so do plenty of other people. You know what, I'm just never going to bring up baseball ever again. It's not worth it," Elyse announced.

"Thank God," Diane sighed. Elyse tossed a crumpled up napkin at her which she dodged.

"So… Explosives? Akatsuki hideout? Who's up for it?" Elyse asked, jumping up and setting her plate in the sink. Isamu raised his hand lazily as Diane and Allen stared at Elyse, chewing their chicken. Ryuu didn't react at all.

Diane swallowed her mouthful. "Right now? Shouldn't we come up with some sort of plan first?"

"We do have a plan. Set up a bunch of traps," Elyse said. Diane didn't look satisfied with that. "Come on. No one's going to be there. Probably. Now's as good a time as any." Diane sighed. "Fine. Let's go then." She set her dish on top of Elyse's in the sink, and Isamu followed with his dish afterwards.

Allen eyed the sink warily. "You guys aren't pawning the dishes off on me again. I cook all the time. I shouldn't have to wash the dishes too."

"You want to cook. Doing something you want to do doesn't get you out of dishes. The rule is that the first person that can't handle the pile of dishes in the sink anymore has to wash them," Diane lectured.

"That rule is ridiculous," Allen protested. "I end up washing the dishes every time because the four of you wouldn't care if the whole room was covered in dishes."

Elyse patted Allen's back comfortingly. "Learn to handle filth better. It's a skill."

"I'm not washing the dishes this time," Allen muttered. "I'm just going to leave them until mold starts to grow. One of you has to give in eventually."

"I wouldn't bet on it," Ryuu warned as he stood up and added his dish to the pile. "I'm going to bed."

"What about setting up traps in the hideout?" Diane asked. "Don't tell me you're going to skip out on another mission."

"This isn't a mission, and I've never skipped out on a mission."

"What about the escort mission to Rain when you hid out the whole time in the caravan?"

"I had to watch the supplies to make sure no one tried to take it."

"And what about the artifact retrieval mission in that temple in that village on the border of the Land of Wind and the Land of Rivers?" Elyse added.

"I had to watch outside to make sure you hadn't alerted the guards." "But what about the mission catching the thief in Suna?" Isamu contributed.

"Oh, that one. I didn't want to do that mission," Ryuu admitted. "And I don't want to pointlessly fill the Akatsuki hideout with traps."

"It's not pointless. It's fun," Elyse said before turning to Allen who was still narrowing his eyes at the dishes in the sink. "You're coming, right?"

Allen tore his gaze from the dishes. "Of course. There's a spice rack in that hideout I would love to have."

Diane snapped her fingers. "That's right! We can loot the place too! OK, I'm more on board with this now."

Unfortunately for Diane, the hideout didn't have much in the way of goods to loot. It was mostly bare other than a scattering of scant furniture. Allen's new spice rack was one of the only non-furniture items in the whole place, oddly enough. "Sasori put one in every hideout we have. He says he can't stand bland food," Allen explained.

"Isn't he a puppet? Can he even taste food?" Elyse asked.

Allen shrugged. "I never asked because I wasn't supposed to know that. It was probably just a ruse to convince people he was still human."

"Sounds like a waste of spice," Isamu said as he triggered the fridge to shoot shuriken at whoever opened it next. "We can add that to the list of reasons to take down Sasori." Besides trying to figure out where the people they wanted to go after were for the last couple of weeks, the group had many discussions over who they should actually go after. For instance, Diane was completely against going after Sasori and Deidara.

"That's still not a good enough reason," Diane said to Isamu as she rummaged through the empty drawers in the kitchen. "Once we take down the big guys in the Akatsuki, Sasori won't be a significant threat. It's not like he's still going to go after dangerous demon containers when Akatsuki's disbanded. He'll probably just go off and do puppet things."

"What are puppet things?" Elyse asked. "Cause in this world, I'm pretty sure puppet things involve shooting weapons at people and trying to crush their bones and other similarly murderous activities which seems like a perfectly good reason to stop Sasori."

Diane laughed. "Of course not. We can't stop every single person that commits murder. That's like every single ninja. We're only supposed to stop the people that want to take over the world."

"That's like every single ninja," Elyse repeated. "Or at least fifty percent according to the last poll the Nintendo council took."

"Well, we're limiting our efforts to those that actually have some sort of a chance which significantly lowers that number. One puppet man isn't going to take over the world."

"Forget it. We'll go after the more dangerous characters first anyways, so we don't need to have this conversation until later."

"And when we do have that conversation, let's not forget that Sasori apparently spices his food even though he doesn't have taste buds," Isamu added.

"I'll keep that in mind," Diane said drily. She turned to Allen. "So what's the deal with this place? Where does the Akatsuki keep its valuables?"

Allen chuckled. "Not here. None of the Akatsuki would keep their valuables in reach of the other members of the Akatsuki."

"What about weapons? Scrolls? One of those cloaks with the clouds on them? Anything?" Diane pressed.

Allen shook his head. "Probably not, but you can look around if you want." Suddenly, his eyes lit up. "Ah, I know. Kakuzu collects forehead protectors. I usually see one or two somewhere in every hideout."

Rubbing her chin thoughtfully, Diane said, "A different forehead protector can be sort of useful. It can help with a disguise, I guess."

"Why does he collect forehead protectors?" Elyse asked furrowing her brow. That was a strange hobby.

"He says he can sell foreign headbands for a hefty price on the black market. Although, I don't know why he leaves some behind in the hideouts then." Allen shrugged again.

Elyse frowned at him. "You really don't know much about your own former organization do you?"

"Missing nin generally don't like questions very much, so I didn't ask. And they don't share a lot of information voluntarily. Really, most of what I know about each of the members, even Itachi, I learned from the manga," Allen mused with a slight smile.

"So much for you being a source on the enemy," Diane said. "I'm going to go look for Kakuzu's headbands."

Elyse watched Diane dart off before nudging Isamu. "Want to go set up traps in that big cave room? There's a lot of room for traps."

Isamu nodded eagerly. "I actually came up with a trap specifically for that room. You know those traps in movies where the walls keep moving closer and closer together? I figured we could do something like that except put explosives all around the room instead and trigger them all at once whenever someone walks into the room."

"I like that idea. It's consistent, but what does that have to do with the traps in the movies?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to make you think we were going to put a different kind of trap in this room for a second," Isamu confessed.

"Ah." Elyse had no problem with that. She preferred explosives to all other traps anyways. Besides, that ensured that the Akatsuki hideout would be completely destroyed after someone set off all the traps.

A thousand explosive tags later, give or take, Elyse and Isamu completed their objective. Giving Isamu a huge grin, Elyse held up her hand for a high five which he returned. She only wished she could be around to see the resulting blast and rubble from the trap they created.

When Isamu and Elyse regrouped with the other two, they were met with a pile of headbands and a frowning Diane perusing through them. "What's the matter? You realized that you don't really want a bunch of useless headbands?" Elyse asked referring to the unsatisfied expression on her teammates face.

"I only sort of wanted them in the first place, but that's not the problem. So many of these symbols are unrecognizable. Check this one out." Diane held up a headband with a depiction of a bunny. "I don't remember ever seeing a headband like this." She turned the band around to face her and gave it a fond smile. "It is super adorable though. I think I'll keep this one, at least."

"Wait, let me see that." Elyse reached over and plucked the headband from Diane's hand. She moved the sketch closer to her face to examine it more thoroughly. "Ok. That is undeniably a cute bunny rabbit. What kind of ninja village would use this as their symbol?"

"Maybe Kakuzu started making his own headbands and that was one of his own," Isamu suggested as he held up a headband he'd just picked out of the pile. The symbol showing on that plate was a crude drawing of what looked like the Gamecube symbol. "He could be one of us."

"If he is he's a very good actor," Allen muttered, taking the band from Isamu.

"You successfully acted like Kisame," Diane pointed out.

"I highly doubt that Kakuzu made a bunch of headbands with his own brand," Elyse scoffed, tossing the bunny rabbit one back to Diane who immediately started wrapping it around her head. Elyse sighed, but decided to address that particular action later. "Clearly, he just collected a lot of rare, probably extinct, ones."

"That does seem more likely," Allen agreed. "But where did this one come from then?" He held up the headband to the group.

Diane frowned at it. "Ok. What is that? Is this another one of those things I'd have to be reincarnated to get, because I'm getting sick of that."

Elyse stared at her. "Diane, our clan is called the Nintendo clan. Surely, you've seen a Gamecube logo before." When Diane shook her head, Elyse just shrugged. Well, it's not like the symbol was actually important or a prominent figure in the clan. "Never mind. It's not important. I do, however, know exactly who made a headband like that. In Fusajiro Yamauchi's memoirs, I read that their original plan for the imprint on our headbands was the Nintendo logo. They made a few initially, but soon ditched that idea for the triforce."

"A few? How many is a few?" Allen's sharp eyes bore into Elyse's own letting her know that he was on the same page as her.

"Three. One for himself, one for Naka Osahu, and one for Margaret Shell, the third member of the Nintendo clan. Not that the clan was really more than an idea at the time."

"So then how did Kakuzu get ahold of one of these?" Isamu mused. "I'd like to know that as well," Elyse said. "According to the memoirs, the headbands have been locked in the clan historical records ever since. Obviously that could have changed in between Fusajiro writing his memoirs and now, but it doesn't seem like something Kakuzu would reasonably get his hands on."

"Maybe he is one of us. That would explain how he got access to these." Despite his words, Allen sounded doubtful.

"Or someone else took it and Kakuzu got it from them," Elyse suggested.

"Or," Isamu started from beside the pile of headbands. "Kakuzu was part of our clan. Have you looked through all of these, Diane? Because I found a couple more of interest to us."

The other three rushed over to where he stood. "Which ones?" Diane asked. Isamu pointed to two headbands on the outside of the pile which he had apparently found and dug out during the conversation. The first one showed a dollar sign and the second one had a representation of a cannon inside a kind of shield.

"What's that second one supposed to be?" Elyse asked.

Diane laughed happily. "Finally, I'm not the only one out of the loop."

"It's Arsenal," Isamu said as if it were obvious. Elyse stared back blankly. Isamu turned to Allen in appeal. Allen shrugged back. "The football team," Isamu added.

Elyse nodded. "Ah, soccer. Ok. So that's three definite headbands he had with logos from our world. Two of which none of us have ever seen or heard of. That's definitely odd."

"Is it?" Diane asked gesturing to the pile of headbands. "I mean, look at this collection. With how many he had, it's not so strange that he would have headbands we never heard of or ones that relate to our world."

Elyse shook her head. "Any symbol from our world would stand out to our clan and any reincarnated person. I find it hard to believe that Kakuzu just stumbled across headbands that the Nintendo clan never had a clue about."

"Maybe the Nintendo clan has heard about them. We can ask Ryuu what he knows about these," Diane said.

Isamu shrugged. "Sure. Why not?" .

"Alright. Let's grab those three headbands and get out before someone from Akatsuki decides to show up." Elyse snatched up the two headbands as she spoke.

"No one from Akatsuki is going to show up," Allen assured. "We generally prefer to use our own personal hideouts." Elyse sighed. The Akatsuki's personal hideouts were a sore spot since Allen had no idea where any of the other members' hideouts were.

"Ok. Let's go," she said.

Before they could leave, Diane grabbed onto Elyse's and Isamu's arms. "Not so fast. There's still this whole pile of other headbands that I want. They could be important too. You never know."

Elyse and Isamu grumbled, but helped Diane carry the rest of the collection.

A few days later, Diane stumbled into their temporary settlement lugging a few large boxes that she set down on the table carefully. "There! That should solve it," she announced triumphantly, putting her hands on her hips as she looked down on the boxes with a proud smile. Isamu glanced over at the boxes before shrugging to himself and going back to jotting notes about something Elyse couldn't make heads or tails of, mostly due to Isamu's poor handwriting. Elyse watched as Allen frowned, walked over to the boxes, and cut the top box open with his giant sword.

"Hey! Watch it!" Diane protested. "You'll break them." Ah. Elyse grinned. She knew what was in the boxes now.

"Plates!" Allen exclaimed. "You bought new plates?"

"And glasses and bowls too," Diane added cheerfully. "I figured I'd just buy clean dishes to replace the dirty ones. Luckily, we still have enough clean silverware for now. We can buy more when we run out." "Perfect solution," Elyse said complementarily.

"No. No, it's not," Allen disagreed firmly, still staring at the box of opened, new dishes with a frown. "None of us are working right now. I ran from my village years ago and from my new line of work more recently, and the four of you had to run from your village to come here. We're not making any money here, and we can't go about wasting our funds on dishes when we have perfectly good dishes already."

Elyse, Diane, and Isamu all looked over at the sink where the dirty dishes spilled out over the counter. The rest of the dirty dishes had been placed on the floor in front of the sink. "What perfectly good dishes?" Diane asked.

"Yeah, all we have are dirty ones," Isamu complained.

"Just wash them," Allen implored. The other three exchange looks.

"Um, I'm actually really busy," Diane started before pausing and scrunching up her forehead in thought. Suddenly she nodded. "Yes, really busy. I still haven't figured out all the symbols on Kakuzu's headband collection. So… As you can see, I don't have time for washing dishes."

"It took you longer to go buy new ones," Allen muttered. Diane pretended she hadn't heard.

"Look, Allen," Elyse said. "Just wash the dishes yourself if they bug you so much."

"That's what you want, isn't it?"

"Yes," the other three said together.

Allen nodded to himself. "Alright. New plan." Allen lifted his sword once more and smashed it down on the tower of boxes.

"Oh, come on now," Diane groaned. "Now that's a waste of money."

"I don't care. I'm determined to get you guys to do dishes."

The conversation halted as Ryuu entered the room holding a couple large boxes in his arms. "I solved the dish quandary," he said setting the boxes down at his feet. "Don't say I never did anything for the team."

Allen glared down at the new boxes balefully. "I'd ask if that's what I think it is, but I know better by now. Of course it is. Whatever. I give up. Buy new dishes every time we run out of clean ones. Just don't use any of my funds." With that he stalked out of the room.

"Well, that was fun," Diane said smirking in the direction Allen had gone.

"Yeah," Elyse said slowly. "We should probably think of the next step towards attacking the Akatsuki. We're becoming strange in our idleness."

"Yes, we should," Ryuu agreed. "But first, I think what I have in these boxes might be of interest to you."

Glancing at the boxes, Elyse nodded. "Of course, we're happy about having new and clean plates, but that's not exactly a pressing issue at the moment."

Ryuu scratched his head and opened one of the boxes he brought. He pulled out a thick scroll and waved it at his team. "What new, clean plates? I'm talking about all these files I just gathered. Legally, in case anyone starts asking around."

"If you have to clarify, it probably wasn't legal," Elyse said folding her arms. "What's in those scrolls?"

"Don't contradict your sensei," Ryuu scolded inducing eyerolls from two of his three students. Then, he waved the scroll in his hand again. "These are records of every headband ever used as known by Tanigakure. We might be able to find some information about some of those headbands you brought back and bombarded me with."

Diane rubbed her hands together. "Excellent. Maybe we could find out where the bunny headbands were used."

"Or, you know, the ones that relate to the old world," Elyse said pointedly.

"Oh yeah. That too."

Shaking her head, Elyse reached into one of the boxes Ryuu brought in before pausing suddenly and glancing up at Ryuu. "Wait a second. Why did you say you solved the dish quandary on the way in?"

Ryuu smiled proudly. "Glad you asked. As I was walking back here, I came to the realization that I am your sensei and superior and, as such, I have the power to give you orders as you are all still genin. Therefore, I'm changing the rules of who has to do the dishes. Instead of waiting for whoever can't stand the clutter first, I order the three of you to do the dishes, so that we have clean ones to use."

The unimpressed expressions on the faces of his team made it clear that it wouldn't be as easy as a simple order from their sensei. "You can't just change the rules whenever you want," Diane protested.

"I'm your sensei, so I can," Ryuu repeated.

"Actually, according to village and clan law, you can only give us orders that pertain to our training or any missions we're on," Elyse pointed out satisfactorily. "So, the dish rule is up to a democratic vote, and we already voted on that."

"This relates to your training and the mission that were on. If you die of starvation because you don't have any clean plates to eat off of, that ruins the mission and ends your training."

After a pause, Elyse laughed. "That… is the biggest stretch I ever heard."

"Not to mention that this isn't an actual mission," Isamu piped up. "Technically, we are missing nin. We ran from our village."

Diane nodded emphatically. "That's true. And that means were not genin anymore, and you're not our sensei. You don't have the right to give us any orders."

"Damn, I was hoping you wouldn't notice," Ryuu mumbled. "Alright. Never mind that. We'll just buy new plates or something."

Diane glanced regretfully at the plates Allen had smashed. She sighed. "Allen's right. Eventually, we'll run out of money."

"Sooo, theft?" Elyse raised her eyebrows questioningly at the others as she asked.

Appalled, Diane gaped at Elyse. "What? No! We can't steal plates. Right, Ryuu?" She looked in appeal at Ryuu who just shrugged and sat down at the table to look over a scroll.

"Just a joke, of course," Elyse assured Diane. "Let's look into these headband symbols." As she grabbed a scroll, Elyse looked over at Isamu sending him a significant look. He shrugged back at her halfheartedly. Good enough. Elyse figured she could turn that shrug into an Isamu that was on board with her plan of plate theft.

For a while, the team poured over the many scrolls Ryuu had gathered, piping up whenever one of them came across something they found interesting. That person was inevitably Diane in every instance, considering she found almost all of what she found interesting enough to comment on. As for herself, Elyse didn't come across any information she wanted to share until she finished looking through her portion of the scrolls and started picking through the scrolls Ryuu had already gone through and discarded. On the fifth scroll, the symbol on the top of the page was just two circles, one smaller than the other, a distance from each other. The symbol in itself didn't mean anything of significance to Elyse. It was the brief description of the person that used that symbol that grabbed Elyse's attention.

According to the description, only one headband of its kind was known to Tani. The person that wore the headband was named Ai. Besides her name, the paper had only one sentence to describe Ai, "Anyone that knew of Ai believed her to be crazy and said that she insisted she was in a story." Not much could be determined from that one sentence; it didn't say anything about the story that Ai believed she was in, but Elyse had a feeling.

When Elyse pointed out the paper to her teammates, Diane jumped up and ran to her room. She came back holding a headband with the same symbol as the one on Ai's paper. "Look! Kakuzu had that one too."

Elyse stared back at the headband feeling a bit perturbed. "So that's four rare headbands related to our world that Kakuzu had in his collection. That certainly doesn't feel like a coincidence."

"It's probably not," Isamu said. "I'm telling you, Kakuzu was probably reincarnated."

"Probably," Elyse agreed. "Where did Allen go? We should ask him everything he knows about Kakuzu."

"We did. He knew practically nothing about him just like he knew practically nothing about the rest of his own organization," Diane complained.

"Hey! I knew plenty!" a voice shouted from outside.

"Well, if you're in your room listening to us just get in here and help us out already," Diane said exasperatedly.

A grumbling Allen made his way to the entrance of the kitchen. "You know-" Allen's words were cut off as the ground shook violently throwing him to the floor. The other three tumbled off their chairs as scrolls flew off the table, the boxes of already broken dishes crashed to the floor, and the ceiling lamp fell onto the table destroying it and setting it ablaze.

"Quick! Put out the fire!" Allen yelled as he scrambled up to his feet. From his position on his back, Isamu lazily used a water jutsu to put out the fire with water from the faucet.

"Done," he said and stood up.

Dusting herself off, Elyse gazed around suspiciously to try and determine if the ground was going to shake again. "What the hell was that? A five second earthquake?"

Diane jumped up to her feet, chain in hand, ready to be lashed out at anyone who dared attack her. "Could be an enemy. It felt like an explosion."

"It did feel like an explosion," Ryuu agreed as he stood up and looked out the window. "And there is definitely a fire in that direction."

"Is that so?" Elyse asked catching Isamu's eye. That was in the direction of the Akatsuki hideout they had rigged up just a few days earlier.

.