I'M BACK, BABY! I don't know why, but I got the sudden urge to pick up this story again and it's kinda fun. Remember to leave a review. And I would like to thank kage-kitsune9001 for inspiring me as well.

RWBY Notes:

Author's notes: I'd like to apologize for not fixing all of the errors and inconsistencies in the last chapter. Had a lot of trouble with docs and the website and I had no idea what I was looking for. However, if enough of you would like me to rewrite the chapter, just leave a review.

Tensions

While Itachi and Kisame were recruiting the Faunus, Zabuza and Haku were about to start a war between the Vale Mafia and the White Fang. If they were successful, they would look like heroes when those two start killing each other in broad daylight and the Akatsuki kill them without harming innocent people. Bloody, but effective. That and stealing that many guns will do wonders for their already massive arsenal.

Zabuza looked down at the seven dead White Operatives with pride. He killed all of them in three seconds. But he knew he could stand around. After using a body disposal jutsu, he created six transformed water clones and did a transformation himself. 'Nothing says betrayal like a bullet to the head.'

Zabuza and clones walked out the cash ready but had no intention of giving it to them. He looked at the Mafia members. "Hand over the arms and we'll hand over the cash."

The leader seemed to give the okay as they unloaded all the crates onto his side.

"Now hand over the cash."

"Thanks, but no thanks. Shoot 'em."

His clones opened fire before they could do anything and killed them all. After dropping some White Fang equipment and masks. Zabuza smirked. 'That should solve a few problems.'

Three days later, the Akatsuki met to discuss the results of their missions.

Nagato observed the physical and ghostly forms of his friends. Only Nagato failed but no one had it easy either. "Everyone is here, good. I have good news and bad news but I'll start with the bad news. We were unable to capture the three-tails and the White Fang-Mafia War has already started. We need to stop them before more people die."

Itachi narrowed his eyes. "I have an idea but it's risky and bloody. That being said, at what point is the body count not worth it?"

"As long as the citizens are kept free from harm, it's worth it. Tell us." Replied Nagato.

"When those two start fighting, the police and huntsmen will jump in to try and stop it but will inevitably fail. When they arrive, we will jump in and attack the White Fang as well. We'll create a 1v1v2v2 that will end with us as the victors."

Zabuza narrowed his eyes as well. "That many bodies could cause a problem but if the citizens are fine, it will make the police and huntsmen look incompitant and we'll look like heroes by stopping the bloodshed. If we play our cards right, we can force Ozpin to come out of his tower and discuss terms before his citizens rise up against him."

Sasori spoke up. "Bullying Ozpin is a bad idea. He'll start the next great war just to find us. If we tell him the truth...maybe fill him in on our plan, he'll be more likely to at least stay out of our way."

Nagato nodded. "I agree. Itachi and Kisame will stop the fighting and negotiate with Ozpin." He stretches his hands a little. "On our next order of business, how's the formation of our kingdom coming along?"

Kakuzu grunted. "Well enough. We have the weapons but we also need building materials. Something we don't have. Approaching the AirScan Private Military company might not be a bad idea."

"Thank you for volunteering. You will be taking Zabuza instead of Hidan. Go now." Zabuza and Kakuzu left the meeting to complete their assignment. "How are the faunus doing?"

"They're doing well. All the humans in the Hidden Dawn don't care about what species they are. We still don't have enough to make a large army but if we were to recreate the ANBU and their divisions and a small army, we would have plenty." Said Deidara.

Nagato agreed. "Deidara's right. You and Sasori will start the recruiting process now. You may go." The Artistic Duo left the meeting. "Haku. Get in touch with our spies in Beacon. We haven't heard from them lately and I want to know if we've been made. The rest of us are going to convert this place from our main hideout to an outpost and move everything to the village. After that, we'll get started on the walls once Kakuzu and Zabuza get back. Dismissed."

Ren and Nora sat nervously in their room. Ozpin had gotten suspicious but had no evidence to prove it. However, Ozpin is smart enough to bug their room. That being said, they searched high and low. Under the beds, in their beds, in their shoes, in the door, even in Nora's hair brush. They found it in one of their bedposts but didn't dare turn it off.

When a spy finds a bug, the last thing he does is turn it off. A bug means one of your enemies wants to listen in on your conversation. So if someone wants to listen so badly, then give them something to listen to.

Nora sighed with fake happiness. "What a day. I thought school would never end!"

Ren pretended to chastise her. "Now, now. School is important. How else will we learn how to penetrate a grimm's armor?"

"BABFTTTH! Bigass blunt force trauma to the head!"

Ren sighed. "There will come a time when blunt force trauma isn't enough and that's when you need skill and technique. Learning them will prove invaluable in the long run."

Nora sighed this time. "I know, I know." She fake yawned. "Alright, Time for bed." She shut off the light and crawled into bed even though she was in her uniform.

Ren started making ANBU hand signs. "Have we been made?"

Nora shook her head and responded the same way. "No, not yet. We need to get out before we are."

"Ozpin is suspicious. How long?"

"A week. We need to leave soon."

Suddenly, they both felt their rings pulsing on their fingers, telling them that the Akatsuki really wanted to talk. Knowing they couldn't talk in the room, they snuck off to the bathrooms where there were no listening devices.

Ren made the ram sign. "Is everything okay?"

Haku raised a brow behind her mask. "You two went completely dark and we had no idea if you'd been not do that again please." Her tone was sarcastic and slightly condescending but she was also joking.

Ren nodded. "Sorry."

Nora went straight to business. "We need to get out and soon. We'll get caught if we wait any longer."

Konan spoke up. "Ask to join RWBY so you guys can get out during the chaos."

"I see. Where do we go after?" Asked Nora.

Nagato shook his head. "Nowhere. You'll fight with us at the docks but do not hold back. We'll pull you out when the smoke starts to clear. That is all. Dismissed." They all signed off one by one.

Three days later

Pain pulled Sasori and Deidara from their current mission and told them to join Itachi and Kisame to target the White Fang while Itachi and Kisame made sure Ren and Nora made it out alive. With four Akatsuki members on the job, nothing short of Ozpin himself could make things go too horribly wrong. Not to say it couldn't happen, just that it probably won't. They split into two groups, one to cause trouble and another to wait for Ren and Nora to show rest were off doing other things. So while Itachi and Kisame waited on some random shipping container from a safe distance, Sasori and Deidara waited behind another shipping container much closer to the unloading center and where the White Fang would be most likely to land. The most likely spot was right on the docks themselves to make unloading and loading easier.

The hidden Akatsuki members saw the carriers before they heard them. The White Fang landed right where they thought they would but the Akatsuki stayed their hand. If they attacked too early, the White Fang would cut their losses and move on. So they waited, but all four of them shared the same thought. 'Well, shit. That looks like the Adam guy Roman was talking about.' Sasori whispered into his wireless mic. "Change of plans. Everyone change rolls."

Itachi and Kisame agreed with that. A battle between Adam, Sasori, and Deidara would be….messy. The Akatsuki would win, no doubt but there would be a lot of collateral damage. The strongest duo made their way down to the temporary staging area and Kisame took his sword off his back. "I'll take care of Adam if you deal with his friends." Kisame smirked evilly. "And I believe our friends from Beacon just showed up as well.

Itachi nodded and stopped whispering. In fact, he wanted everyone to hear him. "Alright, me first." Itachi went slower than normal because he wanted the people watching this to see what he was capable of when he used a fraction of his power. Regardless, he was ruthless, efficient, and left no one alive. He proved to the world once again what the difference is between an S-ranked huntsman and an S-ranked criminal. An S-ranked criminal is someone who has committed and/or attempted a high, high crime and escaped regardless of skill. In fact, the White Fang had lots of "S-ranked killers".

Itachi hated that. These pieces of trash were and still are unworthy of that title. What separates the criminals from the skilled is just that; skill. It doesn't matter what an S-ranked criminal does because 99% of the time, his crime is done using the skill he is best at and maybe second best. But S-ranked killers were better because even though they had a specialty, they could do it all. Kisame, a kenjutsu specialist but can still use genjutsu if needed. Deidara uses his bloodline most of the time but can still kick a hunter's ass up and down the docks with his bare hands. Nagato, who has the Elemental Nation's most powerful bloodline doesn't have to use it because he can still beat the tar out of a hunter any day of the week with his own skills. That is the difference between an infamous criminal and the cut above the rest. `Itachi beheaded his last opponent. "They called you the Charging Ox and labeled you an S-ranked killer. Pathetic."

Meanwhile, Kisame

Once Itachi went Uchiha Massacre: White Fang mode, all hell broke loose. Kisame used the chaos in an attempt to finish the bull faunus quickly but was unsuccessful. He did, however, take a small chunk out of his aura. "You are Adam. Our contact gave us a first name but not a last. Please enlighten me."

"Taurus. Adam Taurus." Said the bull faunus.

Surprisingly, Kisame had to put in a little bit of effort. His adversary was worthy of high A-rank for that reason alone. But Kisame and Itachi agreed that the difference between a high criminal and monster is how skilled you are in other areas. Kisame knocked Adam's sword way off to the side. "Let's see if you are worthy of the S-Ranked title." The taijutsu battle was short and one sided but not pathetic. By Remnant's standards, this guy was invincible. Still, Kisame didn't kill him. "I have chakra, you have aura. Let's see what you can do." Kisame's water ninjutsu gave Adam one hell of a time and almost killed him multiple times but he used his remaining aura very efficiently to block and even reflect the lesser one's back at Kisame. However, he soon ran out and four water bullets hit his torso in different but still lethal areas. Kisame approached Adam. "You, Adam Taurus are worthy of the S-ranked title. Though swords are your specialty, you are not helpless without it and can even go on the offensive. Though you are dying, know that you have made it to the less than 1%." Kisame killed him with a kunai to the heart and dumped the body in the water.

With RWBY and JNPR

The students of Beacon Academy watched in horror as one person decimated a small army of White Fang and another mopped the floor with another S-ranked criminal. Ruby shook herself out of her funk. "I never thought I'd say this, but let's save the White Fang."

The Schnee heiress looked appalled. "Are you serious?! Even if I agreed with you, which I don't, we would be arrested for helping a terrorist organization!"

Ruby was about to argue back when she heard a voice she never wanted to hear again. "The Schnee heiress is right. In fact, you might even be executed. But that's not why we're here. Ren, Nora. How's the weather?"

"The weather was perfect." Said Ren who immediately took Pyrrha by surprise and knocked her out with a few well placed punches while Nora jumped away from Jeane. Team Ruby, unable to get over the shock of betrayal, stood there and didn't even try to stop Kakuzu, Sasori, Nora, and Ren from fleeing. They just stood there as the Akatsuki member's walked away. Or at least, most of them did. Yang attacked Sasori like a raging bull, her eyes red and hair glowing brighter than normal. However, Kakuzu stabbed her with a kunai in the gut and then put it back. Based on what he knew about aura, someone like her would be fine in a few days with medical attention and a week without but it would suck.

This seemed to wake the others from lala land as they glared at the retreating members. Ruby formed a plan quickly. "We can't beat them, but we can stall them. I'll take Yang to a hospital while you guys buy me time." Ruby didn't wait for confirmation. She picked up her step-sister and ran for the nearest medical center.

Jeane prepared himself for combat but still hesitated. "Guys, wait. The Akatsuki have dealt a blow to the White Fang and extracted two of their spies from Beacon. As easy as it was for them, I think that's all they came for."

Deidara raised one eyebrow. "Impressive. You are quite smart for your age. Yes, we've done what we needed to do and we got what we came for. We offer a deal: leave and we will not pursue. But should you choose to pursue us, we won't hesitate to turn you into art. Do we have a deal?"

The students looked enraged but Jeane stopped them. "We accept. Farewell." Sasori and Deidara's body flickered out of the area along with Kisame and Itachi.

Jeane stumbled backwards and fell over. "It's over…thank Oum."

Wiess screamed. "Gone! Without a trace! Every time, they show up, kill lots of people, then vanish into thin air!"

Jeane didn't get up from the ground. "Now is not the time. This is going to be all over the news tomorrow and we need to give Ozpin time to prepare a cover story." He got up and started to lead everyone back to Beacon but a question from Blake made him stop.

"How did you know what their objective was?" Asked Blake.

"I analyzed the things they've done in the past and compared it to what they were doing at the moment and then I thought about what their goals might be. I don't know why they did what they did, but through observation I was able to tell that they had accomplished their mission and that sticking around would be bad for all parties." The remaining students glared at him and he glared back. "So, I took a gamble but I had everything to gain and nothing to lose." He raised his hand to stop them from talking. "If I didn't take that chance we would have fought to the bitter end and Ruby and Yang would be tonight's only survivors but if I do succeed, we all make it home. If I fail then we would all die anyway. You're welcome." No one said anything the rest of the way back.

Akatsuki home base: outside of the Village, one day later

Every Akatsuki member was there except for Kakuzu and Zabuza because they were going to the AirScan Private Military company and were unable to join even with their rings. Sasori and co made it back in one piece and even killed the potential leader of the White Fang and came back with their spies. Sasori was the first to talk. "Mission accomplished. There were no problems on this mission."

Nagato was pleased by this. "Good work. I've decided that Itachi and Kisame will take charge of recruiting. You will separate into genin, chunin, jounin, ANBU, and hunters as well as work on the Academy curriculum. I'll leave that up to you. The rest of you will move everything out of here and into our village and destroy this place. It's getting a little cramped for our plans.

Kakuzu and Zabuza

Kakuzu and Zabuza were dressed in their Akastuki cloak and straw hat when they walked in the building and they brought a lot of attention to themselves. It was okay because they were able to skip the line and get whatever they wanted. Kakuzu was in charge of the money and Zabuza was in charge of giving the where and how. The man at the desk was clearly the bored bureaucrat because he showed no reaction. He simply gave them a list of contractors to see and sent them on their way.

Zabuza scoffed. "I've never seen anyone act like that before. He looked like he didn't care about anything." No one said anything and they went to another building across the street to find the contractors they were looking for.

Time skip: after acquiring four private construction contractors, construction site

The four private military construction contractors didn't really understand why. They had to build two walls, one with a 32-mile diameter around the village itself and another with a 64-mile diameter. And it had to be four miles tall as well as embedded weapons and things like that. A project like this was going to take about four years and when the Akatsuki heard that, they brought in a small army of private military construction workers to cut that down to 15 months. Unfortunately, this was still a slight problem because tensions between the four kingdoms were growing and border skirmishes were starting to break out. They might not have 15 months. Not only that, but the Hidden Dawn sat on Vale's side of the border and hadn't been discovered yet because of Itachi's large-scale genjutsu. Still, they needed to get things up and running. At least the construction was going well. Deforestation was at an all time low and things were moving smoothly. There were no setbacks or problems that needed to be addressed. Kakuzu and Zabuza hoped it would stay that way.

Itachi and Kisame, Hidden Dawn

The Village Hidden in the Dawn was built long before any of this happened. It was actually finished right before the faunus showed up for the Island/Continent of Menagerie in the far southwest. It had both civilian and military sectors including classified ones and training grounds. As of right now, it was around the same size as the Hidden Leaf village and like the hidden leaf, easy to hide. For now.

Itachi and Kisame stood in front of every man, woman, and child in their village in the town square. It was highly unfair to demand the citizens to fight on their behalf so he decided to call everyone together and make a speech. In Remnant, Itachi did a lot more talking but wasn't the kind of person to make a speech. Still, it was better than putting Kisame behind the podium.

Itachi cleared his throat and told everyone to pay attention. "I'll keep this brief. The Village hidden in the Dawn only has eleven people who are ready and able to defend it and while we're all S-ranked shinobi, it's not enough. We will need soldiers, people to hold down a position that we can't get to, and launch attacks in the upcoming war. We will not force you to fight…but we are begging you to sign up. What you earn will be different based on the mission difficulty and there will be no discrimination against anyone. If you wish to fight, we have multiple signup locations around the village." He paused. 'Now for the bad news.' "I won't lie, a lot of you won't come back from this war and you will lose close friends and family in the heat of battle. Some of you will be captured and tortured for information and others will be outright killed. If you no longer wish to join the armed forces, that is fine. But for those of you who want to defend your home and bring peace to this world, you know where to go. Thank you."

There was silence but after a few seconds, the crowd burst into applause and after a few moments, most of them marched right towards a recruiting station, only half-knowing what they were getting into.

Four months later, Akatsuki Tower

The Akatsuki tower was the new meeting place where all the main members of the Akatsuki would meet to talk about anything they needed to. It was a cross between an office lounge and the Hokage Office and like any kage tower, it only had one way in and one way out to prevent intruders. All the members had nice, comfy chairs to sit on for long meetings about logistics and other boring but important things. Today, however, was very important and certainly not boring. Tensions between the four kingdoms was at an all time high and Sasori's spies in Atlas say that Atlas will invade Vytal and then use it as a staging ground to launch attacks at Vale. Now they had to decide what to do with this information. Vale would be their only ally in this war and they needed them to keep Atlas off their backs while the Hidden Dawn took care of Vacuo.

Sasori started. "Approaching Ozpin would be the best option. We will fight Vacuo head on if they can hold Atlas back for a short time. Vacuo has a large and well supplied army but they lack discipline. Assassinations will go along way in keeping them disorganized and unable to respond to attacks."

Nagato nodded. "Good work. Zabuza will teach the art of assassination. Anything else?"

Itachi stood up. "We have around combat-ready 375,000 with many more working support in one way or another. Most of them are chunin after the last four months of boot camp and that will continue for quite some time. We have around 5,000 jonin, 30 ANBU, and four hunters."

"I see. That means a lot of them are ex/rouge huntsmen and huntresses. That's good. Sasori and Deidara will lead the genin and chunin, Konan and Kisame will lead the jonin and ANBU, and the Hunter-level ninjas will report directly to Haku and Itachi. Train them hard and train them well." Replied the man with the ultimate doujutsu.

Kakuzu had one more question. "Is it time to put troops on the border?"

Nagato shook his head. "No. As of right now, only the people who live and/or work for us know this place even exists. We will reveal ourselves when Vacuo attacks first and then push them back full force. Understood?" Everyone nodded while Hidan kept shouting about sacrifices to jashin. "Good, one more thing. All of us will take turns switching from the frontlines to the shadows, to resting, including myself."

"What will we do with the captured territory?" Asked Haku.

"Keep it. Turn ourselves from a small hidden village to a real kingdom. But that's just Vacuo. Vale can have Atlas." Replied Nagato.

Ren spoke up because he remembered something important. "But at the moment, Mistral is a wild-card and could go any which direction we may or may not be prepared for. Also, what about Nora and I? Where are we going?"

The leader of the Akatsuki put some thought into that. Ren and Nora were ANBU material but not quite strong enough for the hunter division. He looked at them. "You two will go help Ozpin on the Atlas front and I promise you, he won't care. He's been the King of Vale for far too long to bother with something like that. If that is all, dismissed." All of the Akatsuki members left and Nagato knew this war would be the first shinobi-style war Remnant had seen and thus far worse than anything they'd ever seen. The eleven of them alone could wipe a kingdom off the map in two months if they tried hard enough but now that they had a large army, they were near untouchable. Vacuo would put up a fight but after a few major losses and setbacks, they would crumble. He closed his eyes. "Well, it's too late to turn back now."

Only time will tell how the war will play out.

Well? How is it? It's been a while since I've written anything for this story and I think this turned out alright. Please remember to leave a review.