I'm not late, yet!

I also don't own Naruto or Naruto Shippuden.

NEW P.O.V.: Tish

I snuggled closer to the guy in my bed. I didn't really remember bringing him back home with me, but I figured I must have - after all, these were scary times in my life. It was best to work out some of the fear with a few… distractions.

I breathed deeply and wrinkled my nose. I didn't remember my room smelling this gross yesterday. I groaned and rolled over before sitting up and stretching. Reia's probably going to smell this and make me clean my room. I swear, she's worse than a mom, sometimes. I snorted a laugh out even though I wasn't really amused. Not that I'd know what that's like.

I opened my eyes and stopped removing the covers from me. The room was dark, but I could still see what looked like red paint all over. It clearly wasn't my room - I'd just painted that sucker, no way I'd mess up all that hard work. I turned to the guy that I wasn't sure I'd actually slept with anymore. I disregarded his figure - Not bad… - and glared at the man with oddly silver-white hair.

I reached over and lightly slapped his cheek. "Yo, where am I?" He stirred and rolled over, groaning about needing more sleep after a late-night 'ritual'. I managed to glance down casually and caught a glimpse of myself. Okay, I'm actually in my pj's, so I actually did go to sleep by myself last night… And what does he mean, 'ritual'?

I slapped him a bit harder. "Hey, wake up!" When he didn't respond, I punched him. "Wake the fuck up and tell me where the hell I am!"

Albino guy shot forward. "Ow, what the fuck?!"

I kept up my glare, trying not to look intimidated at the clear view of some seriously defined muscles. "Yo, where the fuck am I? Answer me now before you piss me off!"

He turned to me, glaring irritably. "Don't fucking tell me what the hell to do, bitch!"

"Don't call me a bitch, bitch!" I yelled before punching him right in the kisser.

He yelped again before punching my cheek. Before I knew it, we were on the ground, punching and kicking each other any place we could reach. Fighting him hurt - more than fighting usually did. I was even pulling his hair and biting him to try and end the fight more quickly - a last resort, since I thought those were cheap shots and left playing dirty for the bedroom (if you know what I mean).

We were soon pulled apart by two hands. I twisted around to tell whatever bastard was holding me to put me down, and came face to face with a pair of intimidating green and red eyes. I felt the fight go out of me while Albino started yelling threats at him.

"Put me the fuck down, you fucking miser!" He screamed right in my ear.

"Hidan, how many times do I have to tell you that I don't appreciate your yelling this early in the morning?" The man holding me yelled back at him, shaking him a little as he did so. I turned to glare at Hidan, ready to pay him back for hurting my ears as soon as this guy let me down.

"Hey, Tish." I craned my neck to see Shylah standing in the doorway, yawning tiredly and holding some sort of cloak around her like a blanket. "Nice to know you made it alright."

I stared. "What?" I barely noticed the guy setting me down before turning and punching Hidan.

Shylah shrugged. "Caitlin and I - and now you - were magically transported here from our home in the middle of the night. So… good to know you made it in one piece." Beckoning me to follow, she turned and left.

I jogged forward a bit before I caught up with her, all thought of the two guys I'd just run into gone from my mind. "So, Shylah… What the fuck's going on?"

Shylah glanced at me before turning a corner and opening a door. She turned and took off her cloak, handed it to me, went into the room, and shut said door. I sighed heavily and leaned against the wall next to the door. I crossed my arms and waited, not cool with how she'd just left my question hanging.

After a little while, Shylah came out wearing some odd clothes in a style I'd never seen before. I glared at her. "Shylah, seriously. I'm already pissed - don't make this more difficult than this fucking needs to be." I was having trouble biting back more curse words that were a natural part of my vocabulary. The only reason I wasn't swearing like a drunken sailor was because it would irritate Shylah, and Shylah likes to mess with people when she's irritated.

Sending me a smirk, Shylah turned and started walking down the hall. "I'd first like to advise you to cover yourself with my cloak." Huffing at Shylah's outdated sense of 'decency', I complied. "Well, as I said before, we seem to have been magically transported to another dimension. You are currently the guest of a man known as 'Pein', the ruler of the nation/village we're in and leader of the criminal organization known as the Akatsuki. You already met Hidan and their treasurer, Kakuzu."

"Bullshit."

"How did your wrestling match with Hidan go?" I subconsciously started rubbing a bruise that was already forming on my stomach and winced as I realized that my rib was probably bruised, if not cracked. "Everyone here has something called chakra running through them, which increases their strength and stamina naturally even if they aren't trained to use it. Hidan is, and was probably going easy on you."

"And that Kakuzu guy is their treasurer?" I would've thought he was more like the muscle of the group. He was fucking ripped!

"Well, he's also an S-ranked missing-nin. Er, criminal ninja. Yes, they're all ninjas. Seriously, and not just the 'cloak and daggers' kind, either. I'd compare their strength to the level of comic book or cartoon super heroes… villains, since they're criminals. Each of them could easily take you out while they're half-asleep and with their hands tied behind their backs."

My shocked mind was taking a bit longer than usual to muddle through Shylah's rambling explanations. For now, I settled for commenting on something safe. "I fucking hate it when you ramble. You start to mutter and it just makes it even harder to understand you."

Shylah shrugged. "It happens." We walked in silence for a little while. "So how are you taking it?"

"We're in a building filled with criminal super-powered ninjas. How do you think I'm taking it?" I rubbed the back of my head where it'd slammed against the floor. "That little shit Hidan hurts like a mother fucker…"

"He's a ninja."

I pushed her a little bit. It was a light shove, but it got the point across. "I fucking know that! You just told me five fucking seconds ago!"

Shylah rolled her eyes, unaffected by my rough way of getting my point across. "It was more like thirty seconds."

I narrowed my eyes. "You really like pissin' me off, don't'cha?"

"It's a favored hobby of mine." She smirked and dodged another shove by hopping forward a few steps. "Don't worry, I'll stop. We're almost at Pein-sama's meeting room office thing. I'll just introduce you really quickly and then you'll be on your way to the village to buy some clothes. I'll make Caitlin go with you because I hate shopping. Hey, if you have any money left over, can you pick me up some dango? Caitlin'll know where the shop is."

I crossed my arms as we stopped in front of two freaking huge double doors. "I'm not making any promises. If I see this 'dango' you're talking about and don't like what I see, I might just take my money and spend it on something else."

Shylah shrugged, still not bothered, and knocked on the door. After a few seconds, she opened them and stepped inside, pulling me with her. I didn't even have time to look around before Shylah hopped up, placed a hand on the back of my head, and used her downward momentum to force me into a stiff bow.

I spent maybe one second in that awkward position before my mind caught up with me. I narrowed my eyes and slapped her hand off my head. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, bitch?!" I aimed a smack for the back of her head, but she dodged - which just made me even more mad.

Shylah turned her amused gaze from me to a guy with orange hair and more piercings than I'd seen on anyone. "Good morning, Pein-sama. Sorry to bother you, but another of my roommates has appeared. It may be too early to say, but I predict that the rest will probably arrive over the next four days. I have seven roommates."

Pein eyed me as I continued to throw enraged punches Shylah's way, only to be dodged, grow angrier, and repeat the process. "Are all of your roommates as active as these two?" I paused a bit before remembering Shylah mentioning Caitlin and smirking at the thought of hanging out with the little spitfire.

"Not really. This is Tish. I'd say she's probably… the most easily-enraged. Caitlin is nearly so, but she lacks the malice Tish employs, and is easier to calm down."

I suddenly remembered that I was mad at Shylah for being a rude little twit. "Oi, bitch! Don't talk about me like I'm not fucking here!" I threw another punch her way, but I was starting to calm down, so I wasn't really trying to hurt her anymore. Not that anyone would need to be worried about her, since she kept dodging me.

"I think the most energetic of the bunch would have to be Tracey, but she doesn't have a temper as far as I've witnessed. Mischa is also rather temperamental and energetic, so she'd probably be a problem at a level behind Tish and just above Caitlin." Shylah seemed to have finished, because she remained motionless and silent except to dodge my punches by moving her head or body at awkward angles.

I smirked, finally sick of trying to teach Shylah a lesson with a good smack. "I'm sure your sister would appreciate you calling her a 'problem'."

Shylah shrugged. "She'll get over it. It's not like I meant it as an insult. Granted, she'll probably take it as an insult, regardless of the intent, but she'll forgive me eventually."

Pein seemed uninterested in our conversation. "You may stay here if you like, Tish. Do not start any fights with my members, as you will find the outcome to be unpleasant for you. You may clean along with Shylah and Caitlin to earn your keep for now, although we will be having you come up with other means of supporting yourselves as more people… appear. I will remain in here unless I am called out personally to take care of a problem that has arisen in my country. I trust I will not need to assign a caretaker, despite your argumentative disposition."

I straightened and nodded, completely serious. I had stared down orphanage caretakers, guidance counselors, would-be foster parents, and cops in my short lifetime of twenty-one years. I'm proud to say I neither backed down nor gave them the respect that they thought they deserved without bothering to come off their high horses. But this guy… Something about him made me afraid to even look him in the eyes. There was no way I was going to disobey him, no matter what my rebellious side said.

Pein blinked once, slowly. Shylah bowed beside me before tugging on the cloak of hers that I was wearing, signaling to me that that was our dismissal. She closed the doors after us quietly but quickly before heading back in the direction of her room. I followed, still feeling a bit subdued.

Shylah glanced back at me. "He gave that little rundown to Caitlin, too. She was probably about ready to pee her pants from the force of his gaze."

How can something as simple as a stare be so intimidating? I thought to myself. Out loud, I said, "Only you would use the word 'gaze' in a casual sentence."

"Tiamat has used the word 'gaze'. And it's not my fault I like to switch up what I say with a few unappreciated words that should probably be in everyone's vocabulary." Shylah sent me a deprecating stare before breaking it with a derisive smirk. In a sarcastic voice, she continued, "People these days are so uncultured."

I rolled my eyes, not interested in sarcastic musings with Shylah. "Tiamat doesn't count - she's super old-fashioned. Do you think Tiamat will come here?"

"Yes, because she's going to come to our house, fall asleep in one of our beds, and wake up in the bed of a random Akatsuki member. While I won't necessarily be surprised if someone other than our roommates is targeted for this random, cross-dimensional journey in the night, it thus far seems highly unlikely." Shylah turned another corner and knocked on a door immediately after her little rant-thing.

There was a muffled thump and curse from the other side of the door. We both waited as there was a pause before the noises resumed in the form of shuffling that slowly came closer to the door. I tensed a bit, ready for a fight when whichever Akatsuki member Shylah was probably trying to introduce me to revealed himself. Finally, the door opened, and Caitlin stepped out in pajamas made in the same style as Shylah's strange outfit.

Caitlin yawned and rubbed her eyes before they widened when she saw me. "Heya, Tish. When'd you get here?"

"This morning." I scowled at the memory.

Shylah smirked. "She woke up with Hidan. They got into a little wrestling match that Kakuzu had to break up."

"Oh," Caitlin mumbled. "Did he behead him again?"

"Wait, what?" I asked, my eyes widening.

Shylah shrugged. "He didn't. Caitlin will explain it to you when you go out to get some clothes. Caitlin, get dressed and get yourself and Tish some breakfast. I'm gonna get something to eat and then start cleaning. You should probably take Tish to the village to get some clothes. See ya." With that, Shylah turned and left, waving lazily over her shoulder.

I turned to Caitlin. "So, what the hell was this 'beheading' thing going on?"

Caitlin turned around and walked back into her room. "Kakuzu beheaded Hidan at lunch yesterday." She began rifling through her drawers. "Can you come in and shut the door so I can change?"

I did, taking the liberty of locking it just in case. "So the big guy with red and green eyes beheaded the albino? And the albino is currently doing something in this base, still alive, because he's fucking immortal? I've said it before, and I'll say it again: bullshit."

Caitlin looked over her shoulder at me from where she was changing, horror in her eyes. "I was there. I saw it happen, and he kept yelling after his head hit the floor."

"He kept yelling?" I thought back to my wakeup confrontation with him. "Never mind, I fucking believe it."

Nodding, Caitlin headed to the door and held it open. "Let's get you some clothes before lunch. If you don't want to skip breakfast, that's fine with me, but I'm okay with either way. Shylah makes lunch and dinner, so we won't have to cook as long as we get back in time to eat before everyone eats everything." We both headed out in what I was pretty sure was the direction of the exit. "After lunch we have to clean, though, which sucks."

"How the hell did they get Shylah to cook?" I was actually kind of worried. In the two years I'd known her, she hadn't cooked group meals once. She probably wasn't any good, if only because she was out of practice.

Caitlin shrugged, turning a corner and taking some stairs. "Apparently Shylah borrowed some money from Kakuzu for clothes when she got here, and cooking was the agreed-upon form of payment. So did you wanna eat breakfast, or are we skipping?"

"What's life without missing a few fucking meals? I'm game if you are, bitch." I nudged Caitlin forward a few steps, grabbing the back of her shirt when she started to fall forward.

She glared back at me before giving me a light punch on the shoulder, her glare morphing into a playful grin. "Watch it, Tish. You may be from the 'hood, but I'm from a long line of drunken brawlers."

"Your ancestors ain't got shit on me. I don't see any pub beer for you to get your drunk on, anyway," I scoffed. Caitlin's joking was different from Shylah's - Shylah's indifference pissed me off, but Caitlin was someone I could mess around with and get mad at without wanting to strangle a bitch.

Caitlin bumped me with her shoulder, which didn't really reach mine since she was four inches shorter than me. "Wait until we get into the village; I'll use my instincts to sniff out all the alcohol in the area." She opened another door, and I was surprised to see the great outdoors, complete with rain and a beautiful cloudy sky.

Yeah, that was sarcasm. "I hate rain." I pulled the hood of Shylah's cloak over my hair, sure that my natural ringlets were going to get frizzed out the second I stepped outside. "Why couldn't we have been magically transported to the tropics? I hear Jamaica is fucking nice this time of year." I didn't know if Jamaica counted as a tropical island, and I didn't care - I just wanted out of this rain.

Caitlin stepped out, waiting for a second to give me a chance to prepare myself before we went on our way. "I know, it sucks for my hair. Can you believe Shylah actually likes this crap?"

"I can believe she'd like anything that fucks with us," I grumbled, my mood immediately going down the shitter.

"Shylah said it rains almost constantly here. Something about Pein using his chakra stuff to control it… I wasn't really listening."

"Well he better fucking knock it off before I shove my foot up his ass. I am not dealing with a constant stream of the sky's piss." I kicked a rock ahead of me, and it landed with a thud against a tree.

Caitlin frowned at me. "The reason Pein controls the rain is because he can use it to see. I don't know if he can hear with the rain, but I wouldn't want to risk pissing him off, if I were you."

I scoffed but didn't say anything else. I still had to keep up my tough rep, but Pein wasn't an enemy I wanted.

The walk to the village was uneventful, with only our playful banter and shoving to pass the time. When we arrived in the village, it looked like something out of those old Japanese paintings Emi had, combined with almost steam punk technology. It was a weird combination of industrial and traditional, and I wasn't sure whether I liked it or not.

After we walked through the village for a little while, I started to feel a little hungry. I leaned against a stall as I waited for Caitlin to finish pick pocketing a really rich-looking dude with a few guards. I had to admit, I was pretty impressed that her skills hadn't grown rusty over the years… Unless she'd been getting in some practice…

Watching Caitlin outmaneuver the guards to cut the fat purse of the rich man, I began to feel a little inspired. I eyed the fruit stand owner, who was watching the stall like a hawk. I glanced around the area before finding my target - a drunk walking unsteadily past the stall. I kicked a sizeable rock underneath his feet, and he tripped on it - right into an old lady. Don't worry, she looked more like a hag than a lady.

In the commotion, I nicked a couple papayas and hid them in my cloak as I left the shelter of the covered stall to meet Caitlin in the street. I waited until we were out of sight of the stand before handing Caitlin a papaya and biting into the other.

Caitlin inspected the papaya before rubbing it on her shirt with a small laugh. "That poor fruit vendor," she mused as she took a bite and inspected the amount of money in the purse. It seriously was a purse - a large, decorated coin purse.

"What?" I asked, biting into my own papaya. I didn't really care all that much - he seemed to have plenty of fruit and business, and I only took the most bruised ones.

"I took one of his papayas yesterday while I was walking with Shylah to go buy myself some clothes. He's probably flipping out about having papaya thieves running around." Caitlin giggled. "Can you imagine a group of thieves that only steals papayas?"

I eyed the papaya I'd been eating, trying to judge if it would be worth it to spend energy stealing only papayas. "What a useless fucking thing to risk your neck stealing. Papayas aren't even that freaking good. If I were only to steal one product for the rest of my life, it'd have to be fucking worth it."

Caitlin shrugged. "Papayas are pretty good, in my opinion. I like them better than most fruits."

We entered the store a few minutes later. I stood by a heater and dried off my bare feet before continuing. Some people hadn't bothered to dry off their shoes, and my mood had hardly improved at the drier conditions before my newly-dried feet hit an uncomfortably cool puddle of water and dirt.

"Ah, shit! Fuck!" I yelled, hopping from foot to foot. A few people stopped to stare, but I ignored them. "When I find whichever mother fucker left this mother fucking puddle of shit, I'm going to fucking shove my foot so far up his bastard ass that he'll be puking shitty water and dirt for the next three weeks! AAAGH!"

Caitlin, meanwhile, was laughing up a storm. "There's rainwater everywhere, what do you expect? You're probably the only one here who isn't wearing any shoes."

"How did you two deal with this shit?" I stared down at the bottom of my foot, not sure whether the brown stuff clinging to it was mud or shit. It smelled like crap, but it was kind of runny… Yuck, I don't even want to fucking know.

Caitlin shrugged as we walked into one of the little stores that sold clothing. "You just deal. I bought shoes first the second we got here, and Shylah said she did the same thing. Most of the shoes here are comfortable and good for keeping out the rain. They're definitely not designer, but I've seen uglier."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not worried. I can pull this shit off no matter what."

I grabbed the first pair of shoes in my size; I really didn't care what they looked like since I didn't plan on staying in this rainy place. Caitlin and I shopped around after I put on the shoes, and I bought my own cloak and a few sets of clothes. Caitlin had me buy even more clothes than that, something about my needing a perfect amount of ten sets. I didn't really care - she was the one who got the money; if she wanted to waste it on clothes I wouldn't take back home with me, that was her decision.

After a while we just walked around that mall-like store and a few others. I had to admit, I was interested in the style of architecture all these buildings had. The steam punk-meets-Ancient Japan style of the materials and aesthetics was both appealing and interesting. I was actually feeling a bit inspired to get to a drawing board and work out the dimensions for a building.

That inspiration in mind, I made my way to a store that looked like it sold some arts and crafts supplies. It wasn't very busy, and it lacked variety, but it still had the basic pencils, erasers, paper, and paints. I passed over the paints, not really sure if they didn't use any lead since this place seemed way less advanced than back home. The pencils seemed to be in good condition, the wood wasn't rotted, and the erasers looked like they… could erase?

I picked up some pencils, erasers, and paper before setting them on the counter and waiting for Caitlin to pay. At first she'd given me weird looks because I hadn't said anything about buying supplies, but she seemed to realize that I was in an architectural mood and bought my crap for me. I thanked the shopkeeper when I took my stuff and we left.

"So…" Caitlin began. She was leading the way to the exit as I stared around, trying to get last estimates at the dimensions of the building before we left. "Why did you just randomly get a bunch of drawing supplies?"

I rolled my eyes and huffed. "Well, since I am studying to be an architect, I'd think the answer to that would be fucking obvious. I want to make sure I get the dimensions of these buildings right so that when we do finally get back to our home I can design a building to look like these."

"Why would you want to dedicate a building to this place? I think I'd personally just want to be done with it and forget this ever happened."

"It just looks cool. I don't think this kind of style has ever really been done before, and I want my debut building to be just as cool and unique as I am." I glared at Caitlin when she snorted.

Caitlin caught my glare and stopped snickering. "Wait, that wasn't a joke?" She asked as we stepped back out into the streets of Ame.

"No, bitch, that wasn't a fucking joke."

"Eheheh… Oops?" Caitlin gave me a sheepish smile for a few seconds before turning and running to the hideout with me chasing after her. "I regret nothing~!"

When we got back to the base, I was still chasing Caitlin. She was faster than me at first, but my longer legs soon gave me an edge over Caitlin just enough for me to start catching up to her. Just as I was about to grab her flying, pumpkin-colored hair, she ducked through a doorway and slammed the door shut in my face. I heard the lock click shut, and Caitlin yelled at me that she'd reached her room, so she was safe.

Naturally, I tried to kick the door down. It didn't budge, but the terrified, muffled squeak that I managed to hear through the cracks was all the encouragement I needed to keep at it.

I soon learned that the doors and walls in this building were designed to withstand more pressure than I could put on it. I blamed the ninjas and began prowling back and forth in front of the door, waiting for my emotions to calm down. When they finally did, I decided that I should probably put my bags away in a room - my room, when I picked it.

I chose a room next to Caitlin's. Shylah's was on the far end of the hall, as far away from our rooms as possible while still being in view - which she told us was just the way she liked it. I'd just put away my shit and thrown Shylah's cloak onto her bed - I'd changed into my new clothes in the dressing room at the store - when we were called to supper. Apparently we'd somehow managed to shop through lunch even though I finished my shopping in record time.

When I say that we were called to supper, I don't mean to say that Shylah was the one who called us. Oh, no, the bitch could barely speak at a normal, human volume without getting a sore throat, much less yell through the gigantic hideout-type building to get all of our attention. It was actually Caitlin who yelled at us to get our assese down to the kitchen or we'd go to bed without any supper.

I walked down some stairs and took several turns until I realized something - I was completely lost. That I'd managed to lose my way was more disappointing than the fact that I didn't know where to go, since I'd always been proud of my sense of direction. It was also kind of unnerving that I was lost in some random, creepy building where no one could find me for hours or even days.

Turning, I caught sight of a door swinging shut, so I naturally went through it. My eyes seemed to take forever to adjust to the darkness of the room, and I had to stop short when they finally did. Blood covered the walls and floors in strange symbols, and I was suddenly reminded of that albino guy's - Hidan's - room, but without the bedroom furniture. Bodies of people were piled haphazardly against the walls, eyes wide open and expressions of pain and horror plastered across them.

I covered my mouth at the smell and left the room, gagging. I slammed the door after me and leaned against it, gasping for fresh air and hoping I wasn't going to puke. After a little while, I took a deep breath and retraced my steps to my room. "I'm not feeling hungry anymore."

I kind of had a difficult time writing Tish's point of view. She was supposed to be kind of like the anti-Shylah in personality, but she ended up being a bit less emotional than I'd hoped for.

Sorry it's later in the day than when I usually load it up; the fair is in town, so my sister and I spent most of our afternoon there.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading!