A/N: Day twenty-seven. I'm so fucking close, agh!
It's rather surreal, having breakfast with a multitude of highly dangerous and infamous ninja. It's like they're one giant dysfunctional family, with Shion flicking a senbon in Hidan's eye which then makes him recoil back and slap a hand onto his wound. He yells in pain when the senbon inevitably delves deeper into his head.
Shion and Jiraiya laugh together, smacking each other like good old friends as a half-asleep Orochimaru smiles down at his breakfast. Kabuto adjusts his glasses like a bespectacled evil villain, his smile pleased and amused. Kisame too, guffaws and smacks a hand down on the table. It cracks, and surprisingly doesn't destroy the entire table.
Kakuzu grumbles out something akin to 'idiot' and continues to count his money on the table. Then there's Pein and Konan, whom appear to be at ease. Although Pein hasn't stopped staring at Shion and murmuring something about long lost relatives. It's a little disturbing, and Konan thinks so to when the woman eventually slaps him in the back of the head.
Neji and Sai sit on either side of her, with the latter rather unperturbed and the former is understandably disgruntled. He's never been real good with strangers, but then again none of them have. It's just that Neji is more irritable than she and Sai, especially when the strangers are likely insane and threatening.
He also really abhors Shion, and that's a perfectly reasonable since Shion is a pretty abhorrent person. After all, the redheaded woman had decided it would be fun to have a twelve-year-old brought back to life and then killed once more in a brutal psychological torture session.
Sakura doesn't mind all that much. Perhaps she would, if Shion had wanted Kakashi to become the sacrifice in the first place. But because that wasn't her intention, Sakura can let it go as long as Itachi suffers for it. It's more of a surety though, since Shion is relentless enough to have herself revived for the simple reasons of revenge and that it sounded fun.
There's also the part where Kakashi chose to do it himself. A small part of her is… upset, because she had thought he was done with the dead. But she supposes that being told the dead could be revived would make one rethink about things.
When she glances over to the recently revived Uzumaki, her attention is immediately drawn to the active Sharingan that's leisurely spinning in her left eye socket. Apparently it's meant to be draining, but Uzumaki do have impressive reserves and stamina. Sakura's sort of surprised that Shion didn't put in the other one that she tore out from Tobi's head, but she supposes that would be twice as draining and even an Uzumaki would likely run out of steam.
Shion's also been able to mess with people's minds without the Sharingan anyway. It's still a little jarring seeing the woman alive and well, especially when she's naturally just so… unnerving. At least it's easier to get along with her, unlike Itachi.
"What are we to do about our plan of world peace?" Pein abruptly inquires, his voice the kind that just calls for attention and almost immediate answers.
Shion cracks her neck, then her fingers as she leans back. "Scrap it, yeah. Your way is fucked, at least Tobi's was interesting even it was some bullshit. This just isn't a world where conflict can be bred out of existence, you know? Maybe you should just convert your village, maybe ally with Konohagakure or some shit and leave it at that." she replies, making some sort of throaty sound before cracking her back. Must be strange being in a body of her own again.
Konan frowns. "We can achieve it, Shion-san. If we are to gather all the bijuu, then we will be able to start and finish ̶ "
"No." Shion interrupts, her scratchy voice cool as she looks down at her blackened nails. "The fuck kind of plan is that? Peace through subjugation? Don't you know how people fucking work, yeah? Not everyone will be happy that this 'peace' you've brought has been forced upon them. They'll join together, to break free of your control and it just repeats itself in an endless cycle. What you want to do is give people the choice to choose, that way they'll feel like they've chosen whatever of their own free will, yeah."
Pein doesn't twitch, but Konan's frown deepens as she stares at the wood of the table. Kisame scratches the back of his head, frowning up at the ceiling.
"Are you able to execute large area-of-effect genjutsu?" Pein asks then, and Sakura's mostly surprised that Hidan's just taken to scowling at nothing in particular with his one good eye rather than interrupting the conversation with his unwanted commentary.
Shion raises a brow, which is really rather expressive. "You want me to mindfuck people to believe in peace, yeah?" she questions in return, her tone dull. It does sound pretty farfetched, especially when Shion is not all that peaceful of an existence. "You can fuck off with that line of thought, ha! I don't give a shit about changing people to my own interests, but I'm not influencing people to believe in some fucking shit like peace."
The Rinnegan-wielding weirdo does actually twitch this time. "You do not believe in peace?"
Sakura feels a chill crawl up her spine, and she shivers as she turns towards Shion once more. The woman smiles, her crazed eyes shining with something indecipherable but definitely unpleasant.
"Peace is an ideal that varies between each person. What peace is to you may be chaos to another, yeah. World peace generally means that there's no fighting, but then even fighting itself is vague. Does that mean there are no arguments, no tension between one person and another? Does peace mean that people will just start accepting the beliefs and actions that contradict theirs? Who the fuck are you to think that you can dominate the whole world and everything will work out? I just don't fucking understand, yeah. Life isn't without conflict or pain, and it isn't life if it is."
"This is some real boner-killing shit, my babe." Jiraiya states with an unnecessary amount of graveness, his head shaking as if disappointed.
Shion smacks him in the arm but cackles nonetheless. "Good. No one wants a stiff Jiraiya, yeah. That's fucking gross."
"Rude." the toad Sannin sniffs, but smiles regardless. She's not the only one who cringes at the table.
She happens upon Kisame when walking down a hall, whom spots her and greets her with a wave. Deciding to be sociable, she smiles and approaches him since it seems like he's in a contemplative mood and could need a second opinion.
Kisame's likely her favourite of the Akatsuki members so far, although Konan isn't all that bad since she and Sai get along well. The peace thing does put the Akatsuki woman lower in the rankings, unfortunately.
"Hey, angelfish." he grins at her, leaning against the wall and so she follows his lead as she stands beside him. "I've just been thinking about some things."
She tilts her head up at him, which will hurt her neck if she keeps it up for too long since he's so tall. "Is it because Shion may have messed with your mind by talking about deep things like peace?" she queries, since it does seem like the kind of thing to contemplate about. Especially when it's rather valid and from someone established to be a horrible person.
He chuckles. "That one's a riot. Definitely not someone I'd like to mess with if I had a choice." he then frowns at the ground, folding his arms across his chest. "Tobi was meant to show me the world he intended to create, but that's been scrapped. Then Pein's whole idea really does seem like too much of a stretch… It really makes me question what the hell life is all about."
Sakura hums, turning to look out the window across from them. It's raining again, as always. "That's quite a question to have. Maybe you should have a one on one with Shion, since she's lived quite a few lives. She'd probably have an answer, although you may not like it."
The giant shark man gives her a perplexed look and she smiles. "I don't know if you've noticed, angelfish, but that chick's straight up insane and I don't ever want to be in a room alone with her. Although she does seem to have some insight on things, which kind of scares me even more."
"She does have a deep understanding of how people work." she agrees, her eyes following a single drop of rain running down the glass. "At least she doesn't want to dominate the world. That'd be horrifying, but I doubt she'd ever want to since she'd get bored of it. She's more likely to destroy it, if anything."
He winces, but at least he understands. "How did you end up the way you did if she's been in your head for so long? She seems like the type to possess someone's body if she's trapped inside of it."
She blinks, glancing up at him. "I don't understand Shion entirely myself, nor am I immune to fearing her but… I suppose you could say that I accept most of the negative traits that she has. She may gain the loyalty of people in a rather shady manner, but at least she herself is loyal to those whom she deems hers. I put my faith in her and she put what little faith she has in me, and it's worked out relatively well so far."
Kisame grunts, turning his gaze back to the glass. "Guess she's the type to take betrayal terribly." he mutters, shuddering a little at whatever thought he's conjured in his mind.
"We're going to find Itachi and well, make him pay for getting Kakashi involved." she answers, with an anticipatory smile.
His eyes gleam with interest. "Oh, ho. That sounds like fun. You think I could get in on that?"
"I don't know, Shion might get everyone in the Akatsuki involved." she replies, but nonetheless she looks forward to it. Perhaps more than she should, but when Kisame grins she finds that it doesn't really matter all that much.
Shion's debating on whether to kill off the Akatsuki or not, and is discussing it with Orochimaru, Kabuto and Jiraiya. Sakura and her brothers are sort of just there, but it doesn't matter all that much. At least Jiraiya's put up a silencing seal so none of the Akatsuki members can overhear such a discussion.
"If they're still intent on this 'peace through world domination shit', then I'm done with them." Shion states as she lies on Orochimaru's lap, who's playing with her hair as his assistant massages one of her feet. Shion's currently holding up one of Jiraiya's porn book, reading through it with an expression that makes it seem like it's particularly dull.
Kabuto had insisted on the whole foot massage since it's apparently a therapeutic activity for him, which makes Sakura wonder if he does it to Orochimaru. For some reason, the thought unsettles her stomach.
Jiraiya sits by them, reading his own porn book. "Just dive into their deranged little brains and get rid of it, then." he suggests, with a casual disregard for the minds of the orphans whom he himself trained. "They'd be better off without it anyway. It's probably because they're virgins and so they have no idea about the greatest activity in life."
"I guess I'll just have to go visit Nagato himself, then Konan. Maybe I can convince the others to be nice without fucking their minds, but I'll do it just in case." Shion replies, turning the page of her book. She sneers then. "Your taste is still fucking horrible, Jesus lord."
"You just have no taste!" the toad Sannin retorts, dramatically as he holds his book to his chest in a defensive manner.
Neji groans, falling onto her lap in exasperation. She smiles as she looks down at him, automatically beginning run her fingers through his hair. "When do we go home?" he questions her, looking up and meeting her eyes.
"I'm not sure." she answers, looking up in time to see Shion deflect a kunai thrown her way by an offended toad Sannin. "When do we return to Konoha, Shion?"
The woman in question glances at Sakura, then shrugs. "Well, you could go now if you really want. I'll just look for my unruly pet myself, yeah. He'll probably come to me soon anyway, probably to try and appease me by bringing Zetsu in a little scroll that I'd burn to all hell."
"Is this Zetsu an important figure?" Sai queries, as he continues to sketch the scene before him. It's turning out rather well, in Sakura's opinion.
"Pretty sure he's like the secret main antagonist or some shit, yeah. I could've left him be, but he needed Tobi and I already decided to fuck him up so why not go on to fuck Zetsu up too? It's fun seeing people's plan crash and burn, yeah." Shion chuckles, rather cruelly.
"I doubt you thought it fun when Kakashi became the sacrifice." Neji hisses, mostly under his breath but Shion seems to have heard it.
Shion glances at the Hyuuga, whom sits up since laying down isn't a very intimidating position. "Well, no. Itachi wasn't supposed to go against my word, but I guess that his fucking obsession's really warped him. I just didn't have the time to condition him properly, since you know, I was fucking dead, yeah. Shame, really."
It sounds like Shion's more annoyed that Itachi dared to defy her, rather than because he managed to convince Kakashi to kill himself for her revival.
"Once we're done converting the Akatsuki, we can go look for him." Shion remarks, cracking her neck once more.
Sakura realises by the end of the Shion's side mission of mentally traumatising the Akatsuki into submission or something, that her own mission to investigate Amegakure and it's possible involvement with Akatsuki has escalated to one of the most absurd degrees. A lot has happened, including the fact that the impending threat of war from the S-rank terrorist group has been averted.
They'll probably have to return the bijuu they took though, among doing other things in order to appease the other villages. Well, it'd probably include the price of someone's head since they're all missing nin save for Konan and Pein… or Nagato. Whichever.
It's complicated and a little too much to think about at the moment, so she puts it at the back of her mind for the moment. She crouches by Hidan, who's been rocking back and forth and mumbling to himself about 'crazy fucking bitches and their voodoo mind magic' for the past fifteen minutes.
When she pokes him, he shrieks and wildly swings his arm in her direction. She dodges, blinking at him when he gives her a wide-eyed stare before morphing it into a squint.
"You're the nice bitch…" he murmurs, to himself mostly. Then he leans forward and pets her hair. "Nice bitch, yes. Nice bitch won't delve into my mind and fuck it all up, will she?"
Neji's foot comes out of nowhere, kicking away Hidan's hand. She looks up at her brother, who's scowling at the immortal Akatsuki member like he's rotted scum under a shoe. It's rather precious, in her opinion.
"That fucking hurt, cocksucker!" Hidan screeches, then flinches back when Shion pops up from behind the Hyuuga. Neji himself abruptly moves out of the way upon noticing her, even making a sound of distaste and surprise in his throat.
"Maybe I should just seal you, yeah." Shion remarks, her mismatched eyes contemplative as she stares down at the traumatised male. Then she grins. "Guess the hell bitch isn't the best bitch anymore, huh?"
Hidan glares at her, then turns away in defeat. "Fuck you, whore." he spits, and cops a kick to the face in response. He exclaims in pain, but Sakura doesn't think anyone's feeling particularly sorry for him.
"Yep! I don't want you, yeah." Shion pulls out a scroll from one of her many pouches, then rolls it open. After activating it with some of her chakra, chains burst from the surface of the scroll to wrap around Hidan. "Later, babe. Let's never talk again, yeah?"
The Jashinist disappears into the scroll with an enraged scream, then the scroll itself disappears in a flurry of fire. Shion looks down at Sakura, with a light smile.
"So I've convinced the others to be my minions, and now we can go on a weasel hunt. You ready, yeah?" she asks as she cracks her back again.
Sakura nods as she stands, glancing over to Neji who huffs but nods nonetheless. "Yeah," she replies with a matching smile, "let's go."
Chapter Word Count: 2,836
Total Word Count: 87,167
Targeted Word Count: 0
A/N: Poor Hidan, copping all of Shion's shit and then dying a rather anticlimactic death. Oh, well. Then there's Neji, whom just wishes she would burn in the fiery depths of hell already. Nearly done with the story. Only a few more chapters to go.
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