The beginning

"Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend."

― Albert Camus

Two years later…

Opening his eyes, Yu sighed as he lay across the tree branch, waiting for Yumi to return from the village hidden by the rain, Amegakure. Clutching his head while shutting his eyes tight he thought, It's been at least a year since I've had flashbacks about the incidents. Why do they appear to me now?

Shaking his head a few times, his attention was brought by a sound that appeared to his left. Not looking up, he asked, "His response?"

"He agrees to work with the others and has started working on the project, just like you have predicted," Yumi replied as she appeared right beside him. "I can't blame his enthusiasm, he has wanted to try his new weapon out."

Chuckling, Yu added, "He always was the most creative out of the nine. I can't blame him for doing so."

Sitting beside him, Yumi stared across the open field, gazing at the passing shinobi. After thinking to herself for a few seconds, she suddenly asked, "So, where are we headed next, now?"

Wondering for a few seconds, Yu finally replied, "I wish to head towards Kumogakure, the land of lightning. There is a sacred sword that is hidden there that will greatly help us as well as working with the other one that I have right now." Noticing Yumi's discomfort, he added, "We do not have to head their right away, given that the past events have greatly affected you…"

But his sentence was disrupted as he turned around, eyes closed as if searching for someone invisible. Noticing his concern, Yumi asked, "What's wrong?"

Pausing for a few seconds, Yu opened his eyes suddenly, stood up and stretched. Looking off into the distance, he uttered, "There is someone watching us, hidden among the ground, merging with the earth. I do not like this…"

Nodding together, they both leapt up, heading towards the east direction, sprinting through the wind as two souls bound together towards the afterlife.

Meanwhile...

In an underground hideout, eleven figures were sitting around a long, wooden table, hidden by the darkness and silence.

"Well, now that we are all here, I wish to discuss future plans with the Akatsuki…" one voice spoke that came from the figure sitting in the middle.

"Whoa, just wait a damn minute!" yelled one voice sitting across the one that had just spoken. "We just got here! Give us a damn minute to catch our breath, bastard!"

"Silence, Hidan." came another voice, gruff and deep. "I will kill you if you speak another word."

"You wanna go, bastard?!" replied the one called Hidan. "It's not my fault that we had to practically walk the entire way here! I'm dead tired from traveling all the way from Taigakure!"

"Calm down, you two." the voice that came from the middle suddenly spoke, silencing the pair. "As I was saying, I wish to address all of you about our future plans on the main plan that we are currently working on."

"Not to be a bummer or anything, but why were we summoned to one of the main hideouts, yeah?" asked one voice. "Shouldn't we be projecting our projections instead of appearing all together like this, leader?"

"I have my personal reasons for that, Deidara. However, I can inform you that one of the main reasons is that this is one of the most important meetings that we will have in a long time." Leader replied, while the others nodded in agreement.

"Now, to start off, because of our major funds that we are retrieving from the missions and the bounties that Kakuzu is mainly bringing in, I have decided that we are able to shift towards the next step of the plan."

But before he could continue, a venus flytrap like figure appeared to phase through the ground. With one side completely black while the other completely white, the figure grimly said, "I'm sorry to disturb this important meeting, but there seem to be two people heading towards our direction. One of them seems to be able to sense my own chakra, although I was positive that I completely concealed myself."

Nodding, Leader turned towards Deidara and a man who was wearing an orange mask with a spiral-pattern, revealing only one eye. "Deidara, Tobi, take care of the intruders and eliminate them."

Sighing, Deidara stood up and left while Tobi simply walked towards the wall and phased through it. After they had left, Kakuzu asked, "Is it wise to send those two after the intruders? I am not doubting their abilities, but you do realize…"

"I have confidence that they will be able to exterminate our intruders. Anyway, let us continue the meeting without any more further interruptions…"

After 10 minutes of running through the fields, Yumi decided to finally ask, "Where did you sense this person? I am not weary of your sensory abilities, however we have been sprinting for a rather long time."

Staying silent, Yu continued to sprint faster, leaving Yumi behind a little bit. Sighing, Yumi wondered how Yu was coping with all the stress that occurred over the past years. Never once did Yumi see Yu show off any emotions except happiness when talking with Yumi herself. She was wondering how she could understand how Yu was doing this when suddenly, Yu stopped and raised his hand, showing a sign to stop.

Confused, she asked, "What's wrong?" when Yu sharpley turned behind them and threw one of his kunais from his belt. Dodging the throw stood two figures wearing straw hats with bindings at their sides and black cloaks with red coloured cloud shaped figures across the cloaks.

Suddenly, one of the figures threw two miniscule objects towards Yu and Yumi. As they dodged the objects with ease, they suddenly exploded, producing a giant smoke cloud to erupt. Giggling in glee, one of the figures cheered in a childish voice, "Wow, senpai! You managed to defeat them in one move!"

"Heh, too easy!" replied the figure who threw the bombs. Taking off his hat, he sneered and laughed, "These are the intruders!? Don't make me laugh! As if they were any trouble to exterminate, they were only puny shinobi, yeah!"

"... If you're going to keep boasting all day, you will die for sure…"

Turning around sharply with a surprised expression, the figure dodged a swing of Yu's sword, who had just reappeared behind him. As he dodged the swing, Yu still managed to cut his cheek a bit. As he retreated further away from Yu, he wiped the blood off his cheek angrily and yelled, "Hey! That hurt you know, un!"

Sliding the sword back into its sheath, Yu replied, "It is not my fault that you did not pay attention to my attacks…" Turning around suddenly, he added, "Do you not wonder where my partner is, Deidara?"

As his expression turned from confusion to sudden shock, Deidara turned around to notice Yumi pinning the other figure down towards the ground as she held her bow towards his neck. Groaning at his uselessness, Deidara yelled, "Tobi! What the hell are you doing?! Just pass through her like you normally do!"

"It's no use, Senpai!" the one called Tobi whined. "I've already tried several times, but it's impossible! I think she blocked my jutsu or something!"

Turning around to focus on Yu, Deidara quickly thought, How is this possible?! These are the first people I've seen to figure out his "passing through objects" ability! Speaking quickly, Deidara asked, "Who are you people?"

Looking at Deidara straight into the eye, Yu closed his eyes and spoke in a quiet voice, "I can see the secrets that lie within the fog and the truth that is concealed in the darkness. I think I have already proven my ability though, wouldn't you agree, Deidara?" Opening his eyes slightly to reveal a dark glow within his eyes, he added, "Master of explosive style jutsus, member of the explosion corps and bearer of the Iwagakure Kinjutsu, you posses many special gifts, do you not?"

Showing signs of sudden shock, Deidara regained his composure and asked, "H-How do you know all of this? I've never met you in my entire life, un!"

Sighing, he opened the palm of his hand and replied, "I just to you what my ability was and you still question how I am doing this?" Shaking his head as he examined his fingers, he added, "Anyway, I believe it is time to end this."

Leaping into a defensive stance, Deidara reached into his pocket for his explosive clay and yelled, "You think I'm as easy to defeat as Tobi!? I'll blow you up into million of bits, un! That's my form of art, yeah!"

Ignoring his rambling and concentrating on his hand signs, Yu produced the last hand signs of the jutsu and with a nod towards Yumi, who fled with Tobi to a safer location, he ushered, "Fire Style: Volcanic Eruption Beat!"

As Deidara was preparing his own jutsu, he noticed that the ground around him was becoming hotter as it turned to a crimson dark shade of red. There were also many pentagrams that suddenly appeared, as if they arose out of the ground. Looking up, he noticed a shiny object that was approaching to where Deidara was standing. As it approached, it turns out the object was ... a flaming meteorite...

... Oh dear...

With a look of shock and panic, Deidara started fleeing out of the blast radius that the meteorite would produce. As Yu watched Deidara flee, he thought, "It's a shame. I truly thought that he would be a formidable enemy, but I guess I was wrong." Sighing, he turned and started to teleport out of the blast radius when suddenly a hand erupting from the ground, producing a strong hold around his ankle.

Looking down at the figure, it suddenly grew in size, covering an enormous area as it swallowed everything in sight, including Yu himself. While Yu calmly struggled against the figure, the meteorite approached slowly but surely, coming to strike the user of the jutsu. Although Yu strongly lashed out for the figure to release its grip, its grip was as strong as iron. Sighing, he stopped rebelling against the figure and looked up at the now closely meteorite, just a few inches of the ground.

A few miles away, Deidara smirked and laughed as he heard the giant boom sound the meteorite produced, knowing that it would crush the jutsu using and his clay doppelganger. That was too easy! he thought, Can't believe he was that easy to kill Laughing in triumph, he rose up from the tree he was taking cover from and yelled, "You saw that, stranger! That's the true form of art, yeah! If someone like you is that easy to kill, don't even try to compare your art with mine, un!" Folding his blond hair he stood up to go rescue Tobi, thinking of punishing his partner after he would rescue him.

But as Deidara started jumping from tree to tree, a figure lept up and dropped his elbow towards his back, causing both of them to crash towards the ground. As he grunted in pain and looked up at his ambusher, there was Yu, completely unharmed and emotionless while pinning him with both hands.

"H-How did you manage to dodge the explosion?" Deidara stuttered. "There was no way you could have resisted the impact of the blast, un!"

Yu simply just held his hand onto his face, muttering a jutsu under his breath. When he released his hand, he looked upon Deidara with cold, empty eyes. Deidara then found himself to be blacking out into an unconscious state as he heard Yu's final words, "That's a story for another time, But for now, sleep." as his vision grew completely black.

End of chapter 1...

Here's chapter 1, as always, comments, criticism and advice is appreciated.