Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Edit 6-29-17: I fixed a few errors.
Instinctively, the Akatsuki pulled out the strongest jutsus in their arsenal as Naruto walked in—attempting to take the jinchuuriki's life out of pure muscle memory. By the time they had realized their mistake, it was far too late to fully retract the jutsus.
The best Nagato could do for the greater good—and, of course, for his own entertainment—was repel their attacks right back into their faces.
Once again, the hideout fell into chaos as the criminals were forced to put on an impromptu, abstract show filled with fireballs, tsunami-title-worthy waves, flurries of deadly origami birds, lightning strikes, eerily hanging puppets being launched into walls, and one huge blast that took another inch off of Deidara's hair.
Nagato gave them an insincere, apologetic smile.
The Akatsuki, if they survived through the day, were going to go on a strict, no-justu regime.
The ragtag group anxiously turned to face Naruto, attempting to go about their dreaded confrontation as if they hadn't just almost died for the third time that day. (With that being said, dying probably wouldn't have affected them too much anyways. Based on their history, they'd most likely end up being revived to take more Ls regardless.) This kid was the key to them being accepted back into modern society.
As the blond's eyebrows furrowed together at the chaos, they began to pray to every damned deity in the universe. If Kami had even the slightest bit of mercy for the somewhat reformed criminals, the brat would be daft enough to not have noticed that the attacks they had just tanked for his sake were originally launched with the goal of killing him in mind.
Their prayers worked a little too well.
"What the hell are you guys doing?!" Naruto shouted, and all of them were certain they would return to their graves in no more than a few seconds. Then he continued.
"You all might be criminals, but seppuku isn't the way you guys should leave this world!" he exclaimed, tears welling up in his eyes. "It's a permanent solution to a temporary problem!"
The Akatsuki blanched.
"Seppuku is when you slit your belly to regain honor," Sasori informed, refusing to play along with an even more idiotic narrative than the Seidara one had been. "Our attacks just backfired on—"
"You're completely correct, Naruto," Nagato interrupted Sasori before his obstinate pride could result in all of them being dragged down with him. "You may have just quoted something that has most likely been crocheted into an infinite number of pillows, but I absolutely agree."
For a brief moment, Konan debated whether or not her loyalty to Nagato was worth her discarding her dignity.
She let out one last sigh before she followed his example.
"You're so intelligent!" she gasped, slowly turning her head and deliberately long-lasting eye contact with the rest of her comrades to ensure that everyone caught on. "So smart, in fact, that you could definitely become the next Hokage!"
If she were to be truthful to herself, she had long since had faith in Naruto—this hope having been carried over all the way back from her first round of life—but this Naruto wasn't the one she had encountered all those decades ago. This was one that she had to befriend without Nagato giving his life to revive an entire goddamn village. Figuratively kissing the ground that he walked on seemed to be their only viable option if they wanted to survive for much longer this time.
Thankfully, everyone got the hint from her death-stare.
"Your philosophical outlook is a wonder to observe, Naruto," Itachi nodded approvingly—only for the sake of using this movement to disguise his gritted teeth. Despite how desperately he wanted to live, he was still disgusted with himself for going along with the Akatsuki's half-baked plan.
"Incredible," Kakuzu shook his head in disbelief, though no one really knew whether that reaction was a feigned one for their Naruto issue, or a real one from witnessing Itachi Uchiha give a compliment.
"Y-Yes! It's so amazing that it makes me want to abandon my criminal lifestyle, un!" Deidara stuttered, doing the absolute most to avoid Konan's wrath. Astonishingly enough, his rashly spoken words pried open the gate to retribution for their scraggly group.
Naruto blushed at the kind words he was receiving, throwing all efforts made at keeping his guard up out the window. He scratched the back of his head sheepishly, and gave the Akatsuki a shy glance that made them want to puke.
"R-Really? You think so? If you guys are gonna be so nice, Konoha would probably love to—" He managed to stop himself mid-sentence. His eye twitched as he realized he had gone off course. "Hey! Don't change the subject! Give Gaara back to us, or else I'll kick your asses."
The Akatsuki highly doubted he could do much with all of them there, but they had no intentions of finding out the full extent of his ability. They had learned the dangers that came along with doubting Konoha's tenacity.
Nagato tiredly smiled in faux relief, brushing nonexistent debris off of him as he moved towards Naruto. "Thank Kami you're here. We just finished battling against Seidara, Deidara's evil twin brother who is the actual kidnapper. I'm so glad… we managed to save him."
The sentence sounded ridiculously unreal—even to the one speaking it. To the ears of the Akatsuki, it solidified the fact that they were definitely going to be exposed now.
But against all rational thought, Naruto bought it.
With his eyes bulging, he gasped and pointed to Deidara. "Your twin brother? How evil, that bastard! Where is he? Does he still have Gaara? I'll beat him to a pulp!"
Nagato hurriedly waved his hands to defuse the situation. "No, no, no. Seidara was taken care of by us, and Gaara? He's right over here."
Everyone's eyes drifted towards the general area where Nagato was confidently pointing.
Nagato blinked.
Naruto blinked.
The rest of the Akatsuki blinked.
Kisame, especially, blinked.
Kami, Allah, Buddha—whoever the fuck was orchestrating this shitshow—blinked.
Out of all the damned people in the world, though, there was one individual who didn't blink.
Gaara.
And even if he had coincidentally blinked at that very moment, no one would have noticed anyways. He was, after all, missing.
"Over here? Where?" Naruto asked, confused as to what he was supposed to be looking at.
In the space where Nagato had indicated was where Gaara was, only a puddle of muddied water remained. From it, a quickly evaporating trail of water led to a torrent that would've given the Mississippi River a run for its money. By pure coincidence—and most likely chalked up to their shitty luck too—the wall that Kisame had blasted away, and the wall that Nagato had launched Gaara into, was simply a thin barrier that obscured an even deeper cave system.
It didn't take a genius to figure out where their ticket to winning over Konoha's hearts had gone.
But a genius voiced it anyways.
"Kisame, it seems you've washed away Kazekage-san with your justu," Itachi casually noted.
"How lovely," Nagato mumbled. "This third life was awful while it lasted."
He was standing in the bits of sunlight that had begun to shine through after the Akatsuki's first justu mishap. The expression on his face was one of a completely resigned man—one who had accepted his inevitable demise. If someone were only able to catch a small glimpse of him, they would swear he had reached Nirvana. (If their stare was prolonged, however, they'd notice the aggravated twitching of his eyes.)
Naruto did a doubletake, unsure if he had heard correctly. He focused his attention on Kisame for affirmation.
Kisame looked a little more blue than usual—purple, almost. While Naruto was giving him an inquisitive glance that didn't mean certain death, the Akatsuki members were shooting him daggers that promised a very long and very painful execution if he botched this up. He weighed out his options—it was either what little remained of his self-respect, or avoiding his comrades' wrath in their after-after-afterlife.
"Seidara!" Kisame threw away his cloak in mock anger. "That bastard—he washed away the Kazekage! I won't forgive you for this," he roared, unwrapping Samehada and making a beeline for the newly uncovered caves.
The Akatsuki bid farewell to whatever part of their honor was still intact.
"I'll finally end this cursed bloodline of ours!" Deidara threatened, making no sense whatsoever but doing it anyways for dramatic flair. "We'll destroy you, stupid brother of mine!"
"I can't believe Seidara—Deidara's twin brother who obviously exists and is completely unassociated with us—kidnapped the Kazekage again. It's much like what he did a few nights ago in that incident in Suna that also didn't involve us at all!" Konan recalled, following her fellow fools and conveniently stating their entire cover up story while within Naruto's hearing range.
Naruto—proving once again how much of a dunce he had the potential of being—took their fighting spirit and lit a metaphorical flame within himself. "I'm going to help them hunt Seidara down! Don't panic, Gaara. I'm coming to save you!"
They all rushed in after their blue-skinned friend, determined to stick with their idiotic excuse until the very end.
Well—practically all of them.
There was, however, one man that had stayed behind.
In all his wooden glory, Sasori had chosen to not fully commit to a new life as an idiot willfully. Instead, he had mumbled an excuse to his sprinting comrades about there still being a bone for him to pick and had been left behind to watch for other reinforcements. Where they were all situated had seemed to have slipped the panicking members' minds.
This was where that brat, with the aid of his very own grandmother, had ended his life.
He settled down comfortably on the floor, resolving to greet his would-be killers. He didn't want revenge or anything; he just figured chatting with a few former foes was more appealing than going river fishing with those morons.
And so he waited.
And waited.
And, to no one's surprise, waited even more, until finally—another hole was punched in their already-tattered wall. Was he just decent enough to make use of existing pathways, or did this new generation just enjoy creating their own unconventional entrances?
Once he got over his grievances for flashy shinobi, Sasori plastered on the most realistic shit-eating grin he could muster—a surprisingly hard feat for an ex-murderer to accomplish considering he had already achieved somewhat eternal peace.
The sound of geta sandals scraping against grains of sands echoed through the now nearly empty Akatsuki base, alerting Sasori of someone's presence. Hearing this, he steadied himself into a more threatening stance. He might have had no intentions of fighting the kid, but that didn't necessarily mean the same for her.
From what he could recall, she was rather hot blooded and probably wouldn't care to listen to any plausible excuse he could come up with.
Tensing his shoulders as the dust started to settle and the sound of footprints came closer, he began to feel that a battle was becoming more and more of a viable outcome. It didn't bother him too much. He'd just dodge this time around.
At long last, enough of the dirt had returned to its place on the ground, and Sasori could make out a silhouette.
The person approaching him was blatantly a girl. In fact, it was a little too obvious that it was a girl—had Sakura been that developed when they had initially fought?
The answer, to Sakura's vexation, would have to be no.
Sasori froze before he could start a typical villainous tirade. The kunoichi standing before him was definitely not the silver-tongued, pink haired brat who had put him in his grave a lifetime ago. This one held a more composed air, and her opal eyes stared into his soul.
He suppressed a shiver. Sasori didn't need to see much else to determine who the new kid was.
Hinata Hyuuga—one of Konoha's heirs.
Now he really had to focus on not engaging with the brat. His comrades would have his head if he managed to indict them as both heir-killers and Kage-kidnappers.
This story is literally so enjoyable and easy for me to write! I hope this quicker update makes up for the last one! Hinata shows up instead of Sakura! I wonder which one of the Akatsukis' actions led to that hehe.
Did this chapter make you giggle? If you enjoyed it (or even if you didn't), please review! I'd love to hit 50 after this chapter, and your reviews and feedback are honestly always taken into account.
I love you guys. Have a great day!~