"So it's finally happening?"
"Hokage-sama is stepping down." Shikaku nodded. "And Tsunade-sama is set to take his place."
"Finally convinced her, huh. I wonder what he bribed her with."
Shikaku gave a sly smile. "Officially, he asked her and she accepted with grace. Unofficially, and completely unrelated of course, Sarutobi-sama recently purchased several bottles of sake. Tsunade's favourite brand."
"Completely unrelated, of course."
He nodded.
"And-"
pulse
I turned to the right.
"Something the matter?"
Well, that's not good.
"Yeah. Akatsuki."
Well, it was about that time...
He sat up straighter.
"I can sense... two of them near Sunagakure. One of them just attacked Gaara."
"You can sense that?"
"Only because of the Ichibi." And also because I'd been paying more attention to him as time went by.
He was the first of the Akatsuki's targets, after all.
"I'll be back later."
"Hello Gaara."
His eyes shot to the side, finding me floating in the air beside him.
There was a pulse of fear from the Ichibi's Heart.
"You... What are you doing here?"
"Oh, nothing much." I looked forwards, staring at Deidara. "I just couldn't help but notice the presence of some certain people."
"People?" He turned back to Deidara. "More than one?"
"Two. The other is... on the outskirts of Sunagakure." What the actual fuck are you doing, Sasori? "Kind of just... standing there."
Gaara frowned. Frowned harder, at any rate.
"You're that thing Leader-sama told us to stay away from, yeah." Deidara interrupted.
Nagato did what?
"Pein told you to stay away from me? Interesting..." I wonder why...
"Doesn't matter, yeah. I'm on a mission." He smirked.
"I can tell you here and now that trying to complete your mission will not end well for you." It really won't. Gaara alone? Yeah, sure, he stood a fairly solid chance. But with me right here, knowing what he had in his little bag of tricks?
Significantly less so.
"You really think you can stop me, yeah?" He shot.
"You really think that I can't?" I returned.
"Sand Burial." Gaara decided to be a little spoil-sport.
Deidara -the bird that Deidara was on- dove to the side, dodging the wave of sand.
I began gathering Darkness, forming it into several tiny spheres that began to hover around my body.
Deidara's clay had a weakness to lightning, didn't it?
He spun around, flicking his arm and launching three small clay birds at us- all three of which I promptly blasted with bolts of lightning, arcing from the spheres surrounding my body.
All three fell down to the ground, breaking into pieces when they hit the hardened sand buildings of Sunagakure.
"Thought so." I nodded. "That clay of yours is Earth-natured. Very vulnerable to lightning. Hint hint, nudge nudge, ninja of Sunagakure." I looked down for a moment, blinking at the gathered Ninja.
"Oh damn." He rose up into the air, moving out of range of all but the longest ranged techniques- simultaneously good and bad for him. Good, because the ninja on the ground wouldn't be able to hit him.
Bad, because both Gaara and I could follow.
Gaara held his arm out, his hand clawed.
Below us, the desert shuddered, columns of sand beginning to rise into the air.
I continued to build up little spheres of Darkness, now having enough that a ring as wide as I was tall orbited me.
The longer he waited to make his move, the more time I had to build up, and the more sand Gaara could prepare.
Come to think of it, this was a really, really bad matchup for Deidara. Both Gaara and I held an effectively infinite supply of 'ammo', while Deidara only had a limited amount of clay, and I was capable of elementally neutralizing that.
I checked on Sasori for a moment- still not doing anything.
I looked back at Deidara, who was appropriately cautious.
"Now, that's inconvenient, yeah." Deidara smirked.
I glanced downwards, looking at the bird he was on.
Now, if I blasted that with lightning, what would happen...
"Errors have been made..." He sighed.
There was a sort of anticipation in Gaara's Heart, his Chakra reacting slightly. He was preparing to launch an attack.
Deidara beat him to it.
He moved suddenly, launching several dozen smoke bombs in the air and detonating them immediately, temporarily obscuring himself in smoke.
I readied myself, preparing to strike at him. Gaara's sand lanced upwards, rushing towards-
Deidara's Heart vanished.
What?!
I spun around, tracing Deidara's Heart to the outskirts of the village, where both he and Sasori were beginning to leave.
Kawarimi.
From such a distance?
I looked closer.
Half of his Chakra was gone.
Several of the sphere orbiting my body merged together, gathering in front of my hand.
How about no.
I aimed, targeting Deidara-
Both of their Hearts suddenly shot forwards, rushing away much faster than before.
Shunshin?
I let my hand drop, the balls of Darkness surrounding me evaporating.
"I guess he was S-Class for a reason." Still, that was highly annoying.
I kept track of Sasori's and Deidara's Hearts, noting that the both of them had stopped.
Good. So long as they stayed around that area, I could go hit them later-
Their Hearts vanished.
...
What.
"So tell me, how bad?"
"Very bad." Jiraiya nodded. "The Akatsuki used this, you said?"
"Yeah."
"Well, it's really, really bad." He frowned. "See here?" He pointed out a portion of the seal on the ground. "This particular portion corresponds to Time-Space Manipulation. I've seen work like this before, and I really, really don't like that."
"I'm going to regret asking why, aren't I?"
"Yeah." He looked up. "Because the only place I've seen work like this is on Minato's Hiraishin Kunai."
Oh.
Oh.
"Over here," He pointed to another portion of the seal. "Is a linker, which can remotely connect seals together. Over here is a Chakra-drainer, and a Chakra-receiver. Here is a Chakra-battery, and, finally, this portion here is the master-control."
He sat up. "I'm not sure... how it works exactly, but if I had to guess, I'd say that it functions as a focal point for a summoning technique. The linker would connect any two of these seals together, and allow instantaneous traversal between them. A fairly ingenious system, honestly, though transporting people would have quite a significant Chakra cost involved."
"But, in turn, you get a way to effectively travel anywhere that these seals are."
"More or less." He shrugged. "Good for making quick, long distance transportations, but it'd take a while to set up. And the Chakra costs, but it's not like the Akatsuki will have any problems with that." He looked to me. "You can't find them, can you?"
"No. I've only met one of them once. The other, I haven't even seen. They're not familiar to me, so I can't track them."
"If I recall correctly, you didn't seem to have any problem detecting a bunch of Shinobi preparing to seal the Sanbi."
"Only because I checked up on him at that moment, Jiraiya." I stressed. "If the conversation hadn't turned to him, then I would have only known after they started. It was a stroke of luck, really."
"Was it also a stroke of luck that you noticed the Akatsuki attack Gaara?"
"He's a Jinchuuriki. That changes things." But no. I had specifically been paying attention to him.
Jiraiya's head tilted to the side.
"Okay, I'll bite. What are you worried about?"
I didn't bother denying it. "That man -Deidara- said that the Akatsuki's leader told them to stay away from me."
One of his eyebrows rose. "Oh?"
"Yeah. And I have no idea why."
Why? Why would Nagato tell them to stay away from me? Did it have anything to do with Tobi?
Neither of them knew the full extent of what I was capable of, so why...
This is going to bother me for a long, long time.