Here's chapter three. Look to chapter two for the disclaimer. Not sure about this chapter…

The next day, I slept in. My first time sleeping in after 18 months of waking up early to train. It felt so strange, yet very comforting. But at least it was a Sunday, and I wouldn't be punished with 100 laps around a pond for being late…by about two seconds. After eating lunch, I went to wander outside. I still kept my eyes sharp, so I noticed the Leaf shinobi before they noticed me. I panicked, wondering what they were doing there, but then remembered sensei's—really, I don't remember which one, just one of them—words, and cleared my mind, focusing on the situation objectively. So I remained calm, and casually walked back to my apartment, intentionally leaving my muscles and shoulders relaxed. Once inside, I rummaged through all my belongings, trying to find something to disguise myself with. In case they were looking for me, I had to be unrecognizable. A black bandanna could cover my hair, I thought as I pulled it out and examined it. Much like what Morino Ibiki, the Chuunin first exam proctor had done to cover all the scars on his scalp.

Then, I wondered about my face. The whisker marks had to be hidden, that was for sure. How? Kakashi's face flashed through my mind, unbidden, and I suddenly remembered a time where Sakura, Sasuke and I had desperately wanted to see Kakashi's face. We had gone through quite a few of those ridiculous plans, continuously trying to get Kakashi to take off his mask. I had been so oblivious then, believing they were my friends and that I could trust them.

Gritting my teeth, I angrily threw a kunai across the room, where it stuck itself into the wall and created cobweb-thin cracks spiraling around the center. "Whoops," I muttered.

But I shook my head. I had remembered Kakashi's face for a reason. I forced down my emotions, and forced myself to think logically, like Takumi-sensei and Noboru-sensei—yes, I think it was those two—had trained me to do. Kakashi-sensei…we had wanted to see what he really looked like—we had never seen his true facial features. Exactly. With one of those masks, it could conceal my mouth, nose, and especially those pesky whisker marks. I set out onto the busy streets again, with the scarf wrapped around my hair. Heading across the street towards the weaponry store facing my apartment complex, I looked both ways, partly for the traffic, and partly to make sure the genin team hadn't suspected me yet.

Inside, I brushed past the weapons section—which was pretty much the majority of the store, considering it was a weaponry store, and went to the section reserved for shinobi only.

After they realized I was a shinobi, judging by my hitai-ate with the typical "water" symbol carved into the metal, the storekeepers allowed me into the room, and then there was the array of gas masks, chakra paper, paper bombs, and—ah, there were the masks. Striding toward them purposefully, I quickly looked through them until I had found the right size and color—seriously, who would even want or need a yellow mask?—and pulled it over my head. Adjusting it a little bit so it fit around my neck and face comfortably, I looked at the small mirror tacked on the wall, and smiled. It covered my whisker marks perfectly, and I couldn't even tell I was smiling. After buying seven of them, I left the store, wearing one of my newly-bought masks. Then, I ran into the Leaf shinobi.

Literally. Well, technically, it was their fault. I was heading the opposite direction of the crowd, as everybody was going home to eat lunch before heading back to school or work, and I was heading towards the working area, which happened to be placed next to the training grounds. But. They were the ones racing around frantically, pushing everybody around and jostling young ones, overall ruining peoples' good days. They toppled over me, and I realized they were only genin. Their jounin leader was nowhere to be seen.

After getting up again and trying to walk off, annoyed, I was confronted by one of the genin.

"Hey!" The girl shoved her way in front of me, and I rocked back onto my heels, wondering if I'd get in trouble if I harmed her in any way, such as breaking one of those stick arms and then tossing her into the sea. Maybe. But then again, maybe not.

Before I could contemplate this any further, one of the boys—did all teams consist of two boys, one girl and their jounin leader in Konoha?—also jumped in front of me, and started blabbing.

"Hey, dude, sorry 'bout knockin' you over like that, but we're on a mission looking for a guy who left the Leaf village a long time ago. He's got blond hair, blue eyes, and whisker marks on his cheeks. And he wears an ugly orange jumpsuit thing…have you seen him? He's called Uzumaki Naruto, by the way. 'Cause everybody's been searchin' all of Fire country, only recently we found out from a ship guy that about two years ago, the guy borrowed a boat and travelled to Water Country. For some reason, he was called a demon, although our sensei straightened the ship guy out after he said that. Anyway, nobody never thought he'd go that way! 'Cause…"

The boy kept on blabbing about the premise of their mission, and I tuned him out in favor of examining the rest of their teammates. The blond girl looked exasperated, and the other carrot-topped boy completely ignored the blabbing boy. Carrot-top was examining me in turn. Suddenly, he stuck out his hand and said, "Hi. Ignore Bolei. I'm Makoto, and the girl's Emi. As Bolei was saying, have you seen the person that fits the description he gave?"

I shook my head. "No. And I'm Kokuei."

He nodded, but before he could reply, a hand suddenly appeared on his and Bolei's shoulders. "Now, Bolei, haven't I already told you not to go blabbing about your mission to everybody?!"

The man standing there…was Iruka. What? He…he was a jounin? My feelings were jumbled, but confusion and anxiety were the most prominent among them. What if Iruka recognized me? And why wasn't Iruka teaching at the Academy anymore? But of course, everybody's lives could go on without me. I wasn't thinking.

Iruka smiled at me apologetically, and I was relieved and…a little disappointed he hadn't recognized—no, I wasn't going to say that. I hadn't been about to end that sentence with "me". I was only thinking…something else. Something entirely unrelated. I nodded at him, then continued on my way to the training grounds.

Later on, I found out it was Reika and Hokuto who had told the Leaf shinobi where I had gone. Iruka's group had been asking just about any ninja they had come upon, and that was why they had been barreling down the road trying to look for Naruto. They were slightly thrown off by my new look, but recovered and decided to be angry with me that I hadn't told them I had come from Konoha, and of course, the fact that I was a missing-nin. Emori was also watching me, and I found myself, again, faced by accusations from "friends". I didn't want to explain to them, knowing they'd never understand, and left, stopping by Takumi-sensei's house and taking a couple of important scrolls I could learn more wind jutsu from—after getting his permission, of course, on the excuse that I was impatient and wishing to learn more—and headed to my apartment, gathering up my belongings. Which pretty much only consisted of that big scroll I had stored everything inside, actually. I strapped that onto my back, and yet again, henged into a random merchant travelling someplace else, and left out the front entrance. Once I was far away, I borrowed a boat, and the boat expert sailed me to Lightning Country.

"Hello," I nodded to the front entrance guards of Kumogakure, Village Hidden in the Clouds. It wasn't hard to henge into the same merchant that had left Kirigakure, Village Hidden in the Mist. No one ever seemed to suspect me. They took my picture, had me sign in as Suzuki Ichiro, and let me be. My scroll had turned into a cart, and wild pigs had turned into horses. My "horses" neighed and stomped around, and I cracked the whip behind them, forcing them to run inside the village. After making sure nobody was watching me, I henged everything back, and let the pigs escape into the nearby forest. I wouldn't make the mistake of creating an identity that would just cause me trouble in the end; I had to erase all evidence of my being a marketer of some sort.

I still had quite a few ryo left, and bought a couple sticks of teriyaki strips stuck on a kabob, munching slowly and savoring the exotic taste. They didn't have these in Water Country, which was unfortunate. Then, I proceeded to search around for the training grounds, where I could maybe try and steal a couple of jutsu. I only stayed here for two months, because after trading all the goods I had from Water Country, I had no other means of earning money, as I was not a citizen. So I moved again. Stealing jutsu here, trading goods there, and overall just trying to make sure I was never caught.

In Wind Country, in Sunagakure, I had to avoid Gaara and his siblings as best as I could, while also learning as many wind jutsu too. It helped so much more, seeing all the different variety and I wondered if I could acquire a fan, like Temari. But unfortunately, this time, I was caught. I was on the edge of the Village Hidden in the Sand, when I felt many presences surrounding me. I pretended I hadn't noticed, then switched myself out with a shadow clone quickly and quietly, hiding my presence with ninjutsu and then getting out of there as fast as I could. They didn't seem to notice, and I hastened to put everything in my large scroll and stuffing a couple of goods from Wind Country in there before leaving my apartment and trying to escape. I was then suddenly cornered in an alley, with both ends blocked by a couple of Leaf shinobi and other Leaf shinobi on the roofs. How had they found me out?! I always wore my mask and the scarf; were my eyes that big of a dead giveaway? There were plenty of other people with blue eyes, even if they were usually lighter than mine.

"Uzumaki Naruto, we are going to take you back to Konoha because the Hokage has ordered us to. Otherwise, you'd be dead right now."

I raised an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah? So full of yourselves, aren't you, Leaf shinobi?"

They rushed me, and I jumped up, fighting my way through the Leaf shinobi quickly, my katana slicing through their soft skin with blood spraying in an arc behind it and incapacitating them so they couldn't come after me. I proceeded to jump from the rooftops, and then jumped into the crowd and created a henge. I was a random old merchant, hobbling my way to the front entrance, and they seemed surprised that they had lost me so easily. Ha. They should know I had experience with henge. But yet again I was cornered when crossing the border from Wind Country into Fire Country. And this time, they had larger numbers. I couldn't defeat all of them—there were 20 jounin and chuunin, and I was sure more were hidden in the trees. I ducked and whirled through them, drawing water from the moist ground and catching a couple jounin into a sphere.

"I'll crush them if you come any closer," I warned, although I hadn't killed anybody before, and I wasn't planning to anytime soon. I wasn't a killer, and the thought of ending someone's life just like that, with a flick of kunai—or with a squeeze of my hand—well…was scary. I didn't know if I could bring myself to do it.

They hesitated, and minutes ticked by with no movement on either side—until one of them, a chuunin, came rushing at me. My hand impulsively squeezed together, causing the water pressure to suddenly rise and crush most of the men inside, their bodies exploding with blood and tissue and bone. Watching this happen because all I had done was make my hand into a fist, I wanted to throw up, punch myself, or do something to get rid of the horrible scarring image. The chuunin that had rushed at me cried out, immediately changing direction and heading toward the group of mangled men, crying out, "Sensei!"

There were also other cries of disbelief and fear among some of them, but before they could charge at me and try to get revenge on their dead or injured friends, a tornado suddenly appeared between them and me, and an Akatsuki cloak, along with the man wearing it, appeared. He shifted into a defensive stance, causing some of the gold-lined red clouds to wobble around on the dusty dark cloak.

"Naruto. Go. I will handle this."

I wanted to protest, but swallowed down the words and used shunshin to get away. I had traveled about 50 km, and rested for a moment, letting my heartbeat slow down, while still staying on guard. For all I knew, they could be having all the shinobi stationed near the border, watching and waiting for me. My heart pounded sluggishly in my ears, and the nauseous feeling wouldn't go away. My hands were shaking even as my knuckles turned white from my hands gripping the branch I was perched on so hard, and I couldn't get that image out of my head, of the stricken looks on some of the jounin, and that bright burst of blood—the tornado appeared again.

It was Itachi. "Itachi?!" I paused, unsure what to say or do.

"Hello, Naruto," he said, as if we were just randomly meeting up someplace and having tea.

"What…"

Seeing the probably distant and revolted look I had on my face, he tilted his head and asked, "First kills?"

I nodded, swallowing, trying to keep the contents of my stomach inside and fisting my hand, scratching it on the rough bark of the tree.

He sighed. "Although it's always going to be a little difficult, you'll get used to it. Eventually. It gets numbing after a while."

I stared at him. Really, why wasn't he attacking me? He noticed my look, and explained, "Right now, since I'm not travelling with Kisame, the capturing of the nine-tailed demon fox will be put on hold, Naruto. And why have you left the village, after saving Sasuke? Thank you for that, by the way."

I shook my head. "It's actually Kamikaze Kokuei, now. I left the village for a number of reasons. But what are you doing here? And what are you doing saving me, when I thought Akatsuki was trying to capture all the tailed demons?"

I had done my research, travelling through the red light districts and stealing documents from different places, finding information about the jinchuuriki—it, to say the least, surprised me—I had no idea I wasn't the only one, besides Gaara—and finding out that Akatsuki had pursued them and captured some of them. Some other interesting news I had found from Leaf Village—I had to steal something from them, and stealing important files right from under Tsunade's nose was pretty funny. They didn't check on them much, so by the time they could even go through those Very Important documents again, I had already placed them back.

Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime, had been married to Uzumaki Kushina, a red-haired girl from the now abandoned and destroyed Uzushiogakure, a small shinobi village that used to occupy Land of the Waves. They had had a son, who was immediately orphaned when they died by sacrificing themselves for the Leaf village during the Kyuubi attack. Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto. The revelation had surprised me, to say the least, and I had been terribly distracted and angry until a couple shinobi from Kirigakure had come after me, jolting me back to reality. I had pushed it to the back of my mind until now.

He raised his eyebrows. "Hmm…well, to answer your first question, I had found out you had left your village, and I have been looking for you—you can be pretty slippery when you want to be."

He coughed, then continued. "There is a group…a new group that has surfaced. An organization, if you will. It has started doing activities that even the Akatsuki would like to try and prevent from happening."

"Like what?"

"I'm getting to that. Although you have been rapidly getting better, if I am to judge your performance with the shinobi recently, it is not good enough if you want to thwart their plans. Others will go after you if Leaf fails to do so.

"This means…well, I have an acquaintance. He and his group will meet every six months in Grass Country, and the next meeting will be in about two weeks. If you want to defeat them, be there. Otherwise, you will be cut down sooner or later."

Immediately after that little monologue, he disappeared in a swirl of leaves. "Argh!" I punched the bark in frustration, wishing I could've milked more information from him before he left. Why was Itachi helping me? And even if there was such a group that was doing who-knows-what, well…what exactly were they doing to cause Itachi come and warn me, not even capturing me?! What was up with that guy, anyway?!

A rustling of leaves and shouts from nearby warned me the Leaf shinobi were catching up again. I had to leave.

I wandered around, unsure where exactly the meeting was. Out here in Kusagakure, Village Hidden in the Grass, I could see many rivers and forests of bamboo lining the edge of the village, altogether giving it a very peaceful look. The people were pretty much the opposite of that, however. They drove pretty hard bargains on dumplings, as far as I knew.

The couple of people that I had…killed two weeks ago were still lingering in my mind. I didn't even have any idea how many of them had died by my hand, and I was afraid that this would become such a common occurrence—what if I ended up altogether losing count of how many people's blood stained my hands just because of the sheer number of people I slaughtered? It terrified me. I didn't want to think about itIdidn'twanttoIdidn'twanttoIdidn'twantto—a hand clapped down on my shoulder.

I whirled around immediately, drawing out a kunai and pressing it against their throat with my other arm wrapped around their neck from behind. All of this happened in less than a second, but the man only laughed and said, "Calm down, Naruto. Or is it Kokuei? I am S, the leader of the organization Itachi has told you about."

He laughed again at my surprised expression. "Don't look like much, do I? Come, I will bring you to our meeting."

He lead me to a small, burbling stream of water, the water so clear I could see the multi-colored rocks settled down at the bottom of it. He walked a little ways up the river, studying the ground until crouching and putting his hand in the soft grass. What was he doing? He stood up again, then held up his hands and created a quick hand sign, muttering something I couldn't hear. The water suddenly started whooshing around, and a hole appeared in it. A literal hole, kind of like a tunnel with a dead end, appeared in the river, and the piece of ground below the hole started crumbling into dust. I blinked, and then he was suddenly shoving me inside, following soon after. I stumbled out of the way, and he landed next to me, the ground powdery from the dust that had fallen in earlier. The hole in the roof closed up again, and I could hear the water rushing back into place.

"Who's the kid?" a woman dressed in black with strange red bandages on her forearms and calves crossed her arms and frowned at me. Now that I noticed though, everybody in the room had the same outfit; besides the clothes being fitted for the correct gender and size, they were the exact same. Even S, actually. He closed the door, activated the privacy seals again, then announced, "Hey, everybody, this is Uzumaki Naruto!"

I growled at him. "I already told you, it's Kamikaze Kokuei."

They laughed. "Hey, show some respect to him, kid. He's the leader, and if you want to join, then you better behave yourself."

A tall, lean man smirked at me, his light orange hair flopping into his honey eyes. I counted them. There were seven of them total, including S. S had brown eyes and a shock of red hair, which was a strange combination. There was that man that had lectured me on behaving myself—I scowled at him—and that woman that had asked who I was when we first entered. She had light blue eyes and silver hair, and standing next to her was another woman with blonde hair and green eyes. A man with dark eyes and purple hair stood in a corner, keeping to himself, and as I studied his stance and figure, I could tell he was a swordsman, judging first by the long katana sheath strapped on his hip, and then on the way he kept his gloved hand on the handle of his katana. Another two men stood next to each other, chattering away, and were total opposites. One had silver eyes and black hair, while the other had dark eyes and silver hair. Strange.

S cleared his throat, and everybody turned their full attention on us for the first time since we had entered. "Well anyway, since I already introduced him, I'm going to introduce all of you. And of course, please be polite."

They chuckled in that way that only people who know each other very well can do, then waited for their turn to be introduced. S pointed to the man with light orange hair, that man that I was annoyed at the second I set my eyes on him. "This is Kazuya, and although his name means peace, he is definitely the opposite of that."

Kazuya smirked evilly, if that was even possible.

He pointed at the man in the corner fingering his katana. "That's Naoki, and the two women are Nanami and Amaya, respectively." He pointed at the silver-haired woman, then at the blonde. "They've been friends since they were kids."

S gestured at the two opposites. "And of course, there's Susumu and Shou. They came together, and we still don't know which is which. We usually just refer to them as 'Susumu and Shou.'"

I studied them all. They were at least twenty five years old, if not older. He clapped his hands. "Well, now that we all know each other, let's get to business."

"Wait, wait." I interrupted him, surprised and suspicious. "You just invite me into your little group, and don't even check if I'm the real person? You just randomly let me join, and I haven't even given you my decision yet."

Amaya smiled at me, her green eyes twinkling. "Kid, we already know all about you. At least, a lot. We got a lot of our info from Itachi—including the fact that he told you if you wanted to 'defeat the threat', you'd have to come to our meeting."

I was shocked. "Itachi already came here?! Urgh, why can't I ever catch him on time?!"

"And we have a seal on this room that strips you of any illusions or the like. So, genjutsu couldn't work in here, and a henge wouldn't work either," Kazuya added.

"And I can't ever let you find me, or else that would mean Akatsuki knows I'm associating with this group—after all, a bunch of S-ranked ninja would have to have better tracking skills than you."

I turned. There was Itachi, landing on the ground with Naoki not far behind. I hadn't even noticed the man slip out of the room, but there he was, coming back in. They yet again had to close up the hole letting in daylight and set up privacy seals, and the dim yellow lighting made Itachi appear pale and sickly as he surveyed the room.

"Itachi, I have some questions for you. Why—"

"Not now, Naruto," he murmured and focused on S. "S, I have some new information."

He looked around. "Everybody better pay attention, because this affects all of us."

We all shuffled in a little closer. "Akatsuki has found out that the new group, called Mayonaka—"

I rolled my eyes. Midnight? Seriously? Why did all these organizations of powerful shinobi have to be named after times of day?—as Akatsuki meant dawn, and Akai Yūgure, the name of this organization, meant red dusk.

"—will be attacking Fire Country first. It could happen anytime, but they will be catching them off guard, and Fire Country, once defeated, will be a big advantage for them in insolating all the rest of the villages. Akatsuki doesn't want this, because they only want the shinobi villages destroyed, not the civilians too—they want to rule the five elemental countries someday, as bizarre as that sounds. However, I'm calling upon you guys to help too, because Akatsuki doesn't have enough numbers. What we have in skill, Mayonaka has in numbers, and skills."

"Where are they all coming from?" I demanded, wondering how in the world apparently tons of people could suddenly, out of the blue, form an organization so organized and immediately working.

Itachi gave me a look. "That's what we'd like to know, and so it'll be up to our spies, and maybe you, to figure that out.

"Now, Naruto, I will be leaving, so the rest will be explained to you by S-sama and the others." He exited with a slight whooshing sound, his Akatsuki cloak billowing out behind him as he jumped straight up and out of the reopened hole in the ceiling.

I faced the rest of them, unsure of what I was supposed to say to them.

"N—Kokuei, all of us will be training you at some point or another. We all specialize in different areas, such as ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu, kenjutsu, medical techniques, or fuuinjutsu—actually, none of us are all that great in fuuinjutsu, but we'll help you if you're interested in it. I myself specialize in ninjutsu and taijutsu, although we are all sufficient enough in all categories. Now, come on, we'll be leaving."

The group dispersed, and I was left staring at them, confused. What had I gotten myself into?

Ugh, this chapter seems kind of stupid. I don't know. You guys decide if it is or not. Although—that doesn't mean you can just flat out say it's stupid in any potential reviews…

Thanks to: Orangeblossom Asakura, chuck2012, BlackRose803, bbp2013nbof, and BitchSwerveltsRoselie for reviewing! Really appreciated that, you guys. (You're probably going to get tired of hearing *seeing* me saying that in PMs and in these ANs.)

Gotta get going on my AcDec homework now. Review, fanfiction readers!