Let's get this trainwreck moving.
"Did you do anything interesting while you were out?" Temari asked, hearing the door open and close. She was curious where her three friends had departed for, and glad that they'd come back.
"A friend of an old acquaintance asked for a meeting, so I met them," Yuurei replied. Fu watched from one side of the room as the demon's lips curved into a slim smile. Her inhuman, segmented eyes watched him with an emotion that was somewhere between distaste and disdain; there were only so many people who met the qualifier he gave, and she thought she knew who it was, but she didn't know why the blond demon would be so vague about it.
"I don't think any of them liked how it went," Tayuya added. "Seeing them left a pretty bad taste in my mouth, but I tried not to do too much about it."
"That bad, huh?" The Kazekage shook her head, sharing a knowing look with Mei while they sat next to one another. "Guess we don't have to worry about a secret admirer, then." Temari had barely finished speaking before Yugito chuckled derisively, remembering the conversation that she and Tayuya had just finished with Yuurei.
"We have plenty of real issues to worry about," Yuurei replied after a few seconds. He was still mentally processing the events from outside of their viewing booth. Yugito's kiss had thrown him off; the feeling of her lips wasn't wholly foreign to him, but he'd rarely seen her so passionate about anything. Clearly, the promise he'd just made meant more to Yugito than she'd wanted to let on. She was a jealous woman, but not selfish—to ask to take something from someone, to take something from him, especially something that he theoretically had no right to give? It was brazen, enough that it reminded Yuurei of the way she'd behaved when he first marked her with his Fuinjutsu.
What had her father done to earn death by his own daughter's hand? What would make her hold grudges like a vase held flowers, as if it was her purpose? At those questions, Yuurei's mind wandered back to a young man he'd murdered in the desert surrounding Suna. When he and Gaara stood alone against the horde of three major villages, Yugito had briefly entered the fray to save his life when he fought against her cousin. For one reason or another—and the blonde woman had shared several—she was diametrically opposed to her direct family. When they were comrades who served the same village, that hatred had been kept in check, but nearly a year had passed since she'd first unwillingly forsaken that allegiance.
Still, Yuurei reasoned, most humans still held some manner of respect for their parents. Even he, in his limited years as a young citizen of Konoha, had appreciated the gifts and fortune that his parents provided from beyond the grave. He wouldn't ask Yugito what had happened, that was her business alone, but he would give her the chance for the closure she was chasing.
"We have plenty of fake issues to worry about, too, before we start thinking about them again," Tayuya added bitterly, one cheek rising on her face to give her a disgruntled look. She had half a mind to go back and kill three of them, starting with that stupid fucking redhead that Orochimaru had tried to replace her with. Tayuya didn't give a damn if Karin was another Uzumaki, or a woman, or had no real choice in the course of her life as she obeyed the White Snake's orders; left to her own devices, the diminutive woman would willingly murder her counterpart. And then, those other two...they were Chunin at best, albeit quite high-powered for that category. Neither the swordsman nor the Infuin reject posed much of a threat to her, whether separately or together.
"Well then, don't worry about it," Kankuro replied smoothly from his side of the room, his slightly snide remark earning him a few coarse looks. "What? Come on, I'm just saying," the puppeteer added as his gaze darted around the booth. "If it's that much of a pain in the ass, then just keep it out of sight and out of mind. That's what I do, and it's worked every day of my life."
"Kankuro..." Temari groaned in her seat. "...it's worked because your dearly beloved sister is the Kazekage. You know you'd be toast otherwise, right?"
"I am absolutely not above abusing the privileges of my station," the puppeteer replied with a smirk. "Can we skip to the part where you guys just fight him already? All this waiting is keeping me on edge."
"Are you sure that's the question you want to ask?" Yuurei replied with a question of his own, mismatched red eyes now peering into Kankuro's soul. "I don't have an issue with facing him here and now, even if it would reveal my existence to plenty of people who think I'm dead, because that cat can't stay in the bag forever. But you've seen me fight, and you've seen me train, and you've watched me spar with your sister. I want you to ask yourself: are you really sure that engaging a Kage in single combat, with an effectively captive audience that includes you, is something you want me to do?"
Five different women all shouted their disapproval immediately, mostly in unison, while Baki wore a haunted look on his face. Kankuro had the decency to look slightly ashamed of himself, but the look on his face made it clear that it was because he'd been outvoted.
"See, Yuurei, this is what happens when you don't have any male friends. Nobody lets you do anything," the puppeteer said.
"I know the boy who plays with dolls for a living isn't being sexist," Tayuya quipped back as Temari failed to stifle a giggle. "I just know it."
"Excuse you, but I'm a mechanist and an engineer." Kankuro's face remained placid, but his tone underscored the irritation he felt at the smaller redhead's barb. Puppetry was a noble profession and discipline of shinobi arts, with a history in Suna that was several hundreds of years long. He took pride in his skills, even if his greatest abilities were in researching and implementing new techniques and technologies.
"Who plays with dolls alone in his room seven days a week, and twice on Sundays." Tayuya grinned menacingly, intent on driving her verbal barbs deeper, but Yuurei raised a hand in front of her. Immediately, both the redhead and her opponent dropped their argument.
"I dealt fairly with Itachi already. If he chooses to continue, then I'll deal with him again," the tall demon said. "I expect him to retaliate, but now he knows better than to approach me indirectly."
"I'm gonna be honest," Fu began, her body seeming to vibrate for a brief moment as she felt the mid-day heat. "I'm a little surprised he hasn't already tried to do something. We didn't exactly make a secret of what we did." The Nanabi Jinchuriki could practically feel Itachi's gaze, knowing as well as anyone else that the Hokage sat directly across from them.
"He has his own considerations." Yuurei spoke with a grim smile, remembering the demon who lived inside of Itachi's body. The Hokage might not know it, but every minor exertion would drive the human closer to his spiritual death. Once he was gone, only the Sanjiyan would remain, and it would pilot the man's immortal corpse until it was eventually killed.
If all truths were to be made equal, Yuurei didn't particularly enjoy the idea of a demon roaming the world that wasn't loyal to him. The triclops was a helpful tool, however, and useful for eroding the latest thorn in the Oathkeeper's side. It had time to prove its intentions past ensuring its own survival. That, by itself, was probably more than the other demon had ever asked for.
"Hey, uh...not to be a conspiracy theorist or anything, but does anyone else feel like this intermission has gone on for a bit too long?" Several pairs of eyes looked towards Chojuro as he spoke, and the blue-haired swordsman shrank under their gazes. As those who'd been present for the brief invasion of Konoha thought about their circumstances, though, suspicion and alarm slowly broke across their faces.
"Do you ever wonder why we do the things we do?" An orange-masked man asked his companion, whose body made quiet clicking noises as he shuffled low to the ground. "What makes us, individually, have the behaviors that we do?" His mask was orange, with a whirlpool-like pattern, leaving only one eye visible. The two of them walked down the empty streets of Sunagakure completely unnoticed, which might have been strange if not for the fact that most of the village was watching the Chunin Exams. Those few people who were still out and about, though, seemed not to pay any attention to the strange pair.
"I don't," came the gruff reply from his companion. Despite the size of his body, the other man's voice was relatively light in timbre. "But I do ask myself, sometimes, why you're everything you choose to be."
"That's harsh, Sasori! I'm a good person, and you know it." The masked man's indignant tone came with an ineffective glare.
"There are no good people in this world, Tobi, only useful ones. Haven't you learned that by now, at your age?" Sasori's insult flew without rebuttal as his partner narrowed his visible eye. "Take our situation, for example. The Sandaime Raikage is paying our organization several million ryo just to chase a lead off of unproven information. It's enough money that I'm shocked Kakuzu didn't demand to take this mission himself. He's an idiot, but he's useful."
"That's…a fair point, I suppose." Tobi's enthusiasm seemed to hit its natural boundary as the pair finally stood in front of Sunagakure's massive arena. "And what about me, Sasori? Am I useful?"
"You…" Sasori's head turned, amid more mechanical clicking sounds. The pair stared at one another in silence for several seconds.
"Hey, don't keep me in suspense!" Tobi cried out.
"Personally, you leave a lot to be desired," the shambling man began, causing Tobi's shoulders to slump. "But your skills are sharp, and you have a cockroach's survivability. I have more faith in you than most of our associates."
"As in, you like me more than they like me? Or you like me more than you like them?" Tobi's body language perked up with his voice, and Sasori sighed.
"Yes." The single word was a double-edged sword. Sasori had learned to tolerate Tobi's eccentric nature some time ago, but he had learned to loathe the masked man long before he'd reached acceptance. As Tobi did his best to quietly cheer himself on, Sasori wondered if their leader might eventually find him a fellow artist to work with—or, at least, to debate with. While Tobi's acceptance of Sasori's craft kept him off of the latter's bad side, there was something different about revealing art to another artist. He imagined it was much the same with musicians or authors; those who worked in similar circles would undoubtedly be a better audience for each other's critiques and appreciation.
Perhaps it was a product of the village he'd grown up in, and that he now found himself in again. Perhaps it was the techniques he used, as an artist and a ninja. Either way, art was an enduring existence in Sasori's mind. It was resolute against the test of time, with each piece a permanent fixture even if the medium was changed. Art was the desert's lofty dunes, and the artist's style would shape them, but they would always have peaks and ridges. So, too, would Sasori and his creations endure.
"I'll be sure not to disappoint you, Sasori!" Tobi almost squealed with a joy his partner would never understand, and seemed to have renewed his vigor as he skipped towards the arena's entrance. "Now, we just need to hope that the others did their job."
Sasori stopped rolling his eyes halfway through the act, fixedly staring out of the corner of his eyes and attempting to burn a hole through the stone of the arena's walls. What did he mean, "hope that the others did their job?" That was their leader, and his right hand, that Tobi was talking about. If anyone could be counted on to do their job in this scenario, besides himself, it would be the one at the head of the organization! Sasori bit his tongue though, albeit metaphorically. It was simpler to let the other man live with his delusions. To that end, he followed Tobi into the massive structure, and nobody around them gave any indication that they heard his limbs skittering against the ground.
That was, naturally, the surest sign that either Konan or their leader had succeeded in their chosen task. It was a large-scale Genjutsu that covered a wide area, allowing certain marked targets to pass through that area without attracting notice to themselves. Reportedly, it evoked the human brain's natural response to nearby demons that they had evolved in the distant past, back when those demons were alive; that was far before Sasori's time, though, and well outside his purview. His only concern was that the technique would continue to work.
The last thing they needed was for their presence to be noticed while surrounded by several hundreds of shinobi. Sasori was confident in his ability to escape that metaphorical trap, but he didn't enjoy the thought of the price he'd have to pay. So, Sasori did the most appropriate thing he could think to do, which was to believe that the situation would remain normal. Their leader has already arranged everything; the operation was a very simple one, with no need to capture or kill a single person they came across—he and Tobi were going to walk into the stands, look for the Raikage's AWOL niece, and report back to their leader regardless of whether or not they found her. If not for the fact that she was the Nibi Jinchuriki, and thus a dangerous target even for a master of his caliber, Sasori would have preferred to let one of his many thralls do the work.
Tobi may have acted scatterbrained, but Sasori could tell from his actions that the masked man had earned his status in blood. From his age, voice, and general demeanor, the puppeteer could reason that his partner had participated in the Sandai Shinobi Senso nearly twenty years ago. It had likely scarred his face, and left him just a little more mentally broken than most of the other soldiers. War was awkward like that, in all kinds of ways that no recruiter would ever tell prospects or their parents. The human mind was...stressed, unreliable, even fragile. The human body, on the other hand, could endure plenty of trial and trauma. That, in its own way, was art. The two of them slowly clambered up the stairs, believing their target was in a booth at the highest level. A pair of people were waiting for them—their leader stood beside Konan, both garbed in their signature cloaks.
"There are sixteen booths," Konan spoke flatly, her lips barely even moving as her pale eyes stared through Tobi's body. "Each of us will check four of them. If she's not in any of them, we can scan through the crowd below. And, Tobi..."
"Eh? Me?" Tobi pointed at himself, slightly incredulous before Konan's gaze sharpened.
"No fooling around this time." The blue-haired woman's tone could have frozen steam, and her target's one visible eye narrowed in response. For a moment, it looked as if Tobi might actually try to challenge their organization's second in command, but he seemed to rein that impulse back at the last second.
"Understood." Tobi spoke the single word with a sinister tone, only to turn around and walk away. Sasori watched him go, and then turned his head to look in Konan's direction. The silent question was implicit: What the hell?
"He knows better than to disappoint our expectations," Konan said. "Getting him to that understanding took some effort, but it was worth it in the end."
"Even if his facade is irritating, we've dealt with worse," Sasori nodded in understanding, agreeing with the final part of Konan's assessment. "I'll move to the opposite end of this walkway, then." With each step Sasori took in his new direction, following after Tobi and leaving his leaders behind, another quiet click or whir could be heard. He didn't bother looking over his shoulder. Whatever Konan and their leader were up to? it didn't concern him, and he didn't want to get any more involved than he already was. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that Kakuzu should have been the one to take this job. It wasn't like the rest of their group didn't have some level of a spy network; his was more robust, certainly, but that didn't explain why they would send him back to the village he'd forsaken decades ago. What weren't they telling him? Or, more incredulously, could it have been random chance that he was selected?
He moved quickly and quietly, opening a door and scanning its occupants before moving on. After opening the third door, however, something unexpected happened: the room's resident quartet reacted to his presence. He recognized two of them as Orochimaru's agents, allowing him to make a comfortable assumption about the others as he idly wondered about their master. He and Orochimaru had never been the best of friends, but they had been partners, and the White Snake's means to pursue immortality had always interested Sasori.
"My apologies," he said, bowing his head. "I entered the wrong booth by mistake."
"You…have no heartbeat?" A brunette girl observed.
"It's a rare condition," Sasori replied, though he couldn't help questioning her hearing. How on earth could she notice something like that? "Again, my apologies. Please enjoy the rest of your day."
"I don't think we will," the white-haired swordsman said, springing up to stand beside Sasori's hunched-over form. The puppeteer recognized him; he was the younger brother of a former member of the Seven Swordsmen, and one of Orochimaru's subordinates. "First we get pulled out here instead of following after Orochimaru, then I get to sit here and roast in this oven, then that fucking demon shows up with his groupies to fuck with us, and now this? No, man, I'm not enjoying my day. At all."
"Well, I'm sorry to hear that," Sasori said darkly, several ratchets whirring underneath his cloak. This wasn't strictly part of the mission, and he knew that. Knowledge was power, though, and this group of four clearly knew plenty more than he did about certain current events. Plans could be adjusted, and adjustments could be explained. If he could learn what they were hiding, and it was even tangentially useful, then their leader would exonerate him for reaching over the line here. "Because now that you've opened your mouth, it's about to get a whole lot worse."
The battle was over before it ever began.