8.Festival.2

"That's outrageous." Kakuuzu said.

The clerk at the desk didn't react, but Kakuuzu noticed that the man's pupils were dilated slightly. So, he was good enough to keep his face under control but he was still reacting to Kakuuzu's killing intent.

"Why do you always have to be such a cheapass?" Hidan said, lounging against the desk. He was getting bored of listening to his partner complain about how high the prices were.

The clerk swallowed. "It's really busy for the festival. If you want a room and you don't have reservations, then it's going to be at least this expensive anywhere you go."

Kakuuzu growled. What he really wanted to do was lunge out and kill the man with one punch, but that would blow their cover.

"Just shell over the cash already." Hidan whined. "I'm sick of this shit."

Kakuuzu grunted. "60. That's final."

The clerk frowned. It was reasonable, but he didn't want to let two guys like this stay in his inn. Still, they hadn't done anything obviously illegal, and discrimination was against the law in the Snow Country. So he was obligated to let them stay. "65." He said. Driving them off by not backing down on price was the best option.

Kakuuzu frowned, the space between his eyebrows scrunching fiercely.

"Fine. Whatever, we'll pay it." Hidan said. "Sheesh."

Kakuuzu turned to look at his partner. "Shut it, you."

The clerk cleared his throat. "Well, I could give you a room for 60, but it's a single. If you don't mind sharing, then…"

"Oh Hell no." Hidan said. "We'll pay the damned 65 and we'll take the double. God dammit, Kakuuzu, why are you always such a tightwad?"

Kakuuzu scowled, and began carefully counting out bills to the clerk. He didn't want to share with Hidan any more than he had to.

Dammit, it was getting late; it was almost dark already. They needed a place for the night and roughing it would be too conspicuous, and Kakuuzu didn't think he could stand a whole night of Hidan's griping.

Just to spite the clerk, he paid with as many small bills and change as he could dig out of his pockets.

I I I

The Pine Glades Spring was a tier of three pools fed by a single hot spring. Pine trees grew right up to the very edge of each pool. Because they were old and thickly grown, they were impossible to move through with normal Leaf Village tree-jumping, and too dense to allow for fast movement between them. In short, it was difficult to approach or leave quickly without making a lot of noise, and it was impossible to know what was going on without being right on top of the spring because it was so secluded.

It was the ideal place to have a sensitive meeting between powerful ninjas, Motoko decided, which was why she was sitting on a tree overlooking and frowning down at it in the moonlight. With all the shadows, she had a difficult time discerning what was where. The problem was the two groups could meet in any of the three pools, and Motoko would have no way of knowing which before they showed up and chose.

So all three had to be watched. Some variation of the Toad henge would be best, but only Gamakichi and Gamatatsu were trustworthy: that wasn't enough, even if they were willing to do it. Motoko knew a Kage Bunshin would be able to last long enough, but not if it was using too much of a disguise jutsu. A Kage Bunshin under henge to look like anything other than a person wouldn't last nearly as long as it needed to.

The first order of business was leveraging one pool as being the one they would definitely be using. Motoko had a pretty good idea of how to do that; she would just leave a group of Kage Bunshin henged to look like a group in one of the end pools. It would be best to make it two or three guys, probably napping, drunk, or some combination thereof. They had to obviously be in no condition to spy on the group, so unconscious would probably be best. If they were at one end, the group would naturally meet at the other end. And if they were naked guys, then the kunoichi would be reluctant to approach them, no matter how ninja bad-ass they were.

Okay, she would drive them to stay in the upper pool with a trio of guys sleeping off hangovers in the lowest pool.

Motoko sighed. Now that she could definitely control where they would meet, how to listen in?

I I I

Kisame and Itachi are both early risers. It is just one of the many things they have in common; part of why they have the least friction of any team in Akatsuki is because they simply do things the same way.

They both go to bed early, just a few hours after sunset, and they both wake up at or before sunrise.

It might seem odd that ninjas would be so rigorous about going to bed early, but that's just they way they are. Neither is terribly introspective.

At any rate, that explains why the two of them have already eaten breakfast (it is, after all, the most important meal of the day) and are now beginning to scout around for the loud brat.

Kisame sinks down lower into the water, trying to make himself less conspicuous. He is not succeeding; he self-consciously adjusts the washcloth that is sitting on his head.

"Itachi," he whispered, "everyone is STARING."

"That," Itachi says, "is irrelevant." He glances around, the Sharingan instantly categorizing everyone around them. Mostly they are old people, the only sort that are up as early as the two missing-nin and not out working somewhere.

Itachi is dead on the inside. It doesn't bother him that he's permanently burning the image of naked old people into his memory.

There is a gaggle of housewives congregated around a rock. They titter when Itachi's eye sweeps over them, but they have very weak chakra. To the Uchiha, they're about as interesting as the rock.

Kisame has better hearing than Itachi. He can hear what those housewives are whispering to each other.

"…that dark-haired one is so cute…"

"…I would take the blue one home, too…."

"…don't bother, they're clearly together…"

Kisame fidgets, and tries to lower himself a little further into the water. He misses Samehadama already, but he promised Itachi he'd leave his weapon behind; it's just too obvious. It's not fair that Itachi gets to use his Sharingan.

"This is a waste of time." Itachi says to Kisame. "Let's go."

Itachi stands. His towel snags on a rock and is pulled off. Everyone freezes; the spring goes dead silent. Itachi looks down; calmly, he plucks the towel of the surface of the water and wraps it back around his waist, and begins to walk to the exit. It is like nothing has happened.

Kisame, miserable, follows as discretely as he can. He is hating every minute of this.

"…I would be hunched over too if I had to take that in the…"

Kisame stumbles. He would really, really like to have Samehadama with him.

His pants, too.

I I I

Ursura cracked her knuckles. She was pumped, excited. Someone with less self-assurance would be nervous about something going wrong. But Ursura didn't attain the pinnacle of the Stone village with weakness or doubt.

Although, admittedly, going in literally naked was a little much.

Okute was out keeping watch over Sharingan Kakashi. He would know, but that was good, too. He would be worried about being under surveillance, so he'd be less concerned with reconnaissance. Rather, even if he knew they were covering something up, it wasn't like he could spare the manpower to figure out what.

Tetsuko had set up a guard point at the west end of the pool; the Stone delegation coming from the west and the Cloud from the east had been a convenient bit of symbolism. Regardless of that, Tetsuko was probably still super-angry that she had insisted on going in alone.

Chigaku was underground somewhere.

Ursura smirked, and lowered herself into the top pool at precisely 9:55 AM. It was time.

I I I

"Hi Iruka!" Shizune said, smiling. She looked up from the missions she was organizing, reading through requests that had been forwarded from the customer office for assignment to teams.

Tsunade grumbled, sorting through more sensitive documents. Technically she should be reading them while secreted away, but if Shizune wasn't supervising they wouldn't be read.

"Good morning." Iruka said. He paused, debating whether to mention what a nice surprise it was to see Tsunade this morning. He decided it wasn't worth his neck.

"Something wrong?" The Hokage growled.

"Oh no," Iruka said. "I just suddenly wondered how Naruto was doing." It's better to dodge an attack than block it. Basic taijutsu, he taught it every day.

The Hokage sighed. "That boy," she said, and it was both warm and exasperated, "has probably forgotten all about his job and made friends with the enemy."

Shizune giggled. "That would be just like him, wouldn't it?" She grinned. "Since they're all kunoichi, I wouldn't be surprised if one fell in love with him."

Iruka sighed. "I don't even know what to say." He stepped forward, and began picking through the folders, finally stopping at the one he needed, skimming as he nodded. He needed some numbers on mission availability for when he inevitably got asked by nin that 'just happened to be passing by' about what the good missions were. Preparation was half the battle: another taijutsu lesson he pounded into kids' heads.

"Are you doing anything for lunch?" Shizune said, a study in casual.

"Hm?" Iruka said, looking up. "Ah, yes, actually. I guess I'm going on a date with Anko."

"You guess?" Tsunade said, looking up. If Iruka hurt Shizune, Tsunade would break his knees.

Iruka nodded uncomfortably, sensing the danger. "Yeah. We've been meeting for lunch the last few days." Iruka's innate kindness was endangering him; he wasn't quite willing to paint Anko as a kidnapper. "It's casual, but… well, they're dates, I suppose."

Shizune nodded. "I see."

"Well, if that's everything, I'll see you later." Tsunade said.

Iruka, sensing the dismissal for what it was, fled.

The master and disciple read through the scrolls a little more.

"You okay?" Tsunade finally asked. "With Anko getting him, I mean?"

Shizune nodded. "Well… it's not like I have a right to be angry." She paused, setting the scroll aside for a moment. "Even then, Anko was the first to go after him."

"It's not always the first person that wins." Tsunade offered, thinking of Dan.

"That's true." Shizune nodded. "But…" She paused. "I think Anko was more serious about it than we were. Kurenai was just getting sick of Asuma not making a move, I think."

"And you?" Tsunade said, once it became apparent Shizune wouldn't add more.

"I guess I was just interested in a guy that would attract even Anko's attention. He really is a great guy." Shizune said.

"Are you okay with that?" Tsunade said.

Shizune shrugged, and picked up the scroll again. "Well… Anko deserves the chance, I guess."

"Mm." Tsunade said. The two got back to work.

Finally Tsuande broke the silence again. "There's always Genma."

Shizune's answering snort would have been very hurtful to him had Genma been there to hear it.

I I I

Reiko closed her eyes, concentrating as she channeled chakra through her arms and into her bracers. Kirema watched silently as she used this new "flux" technique, while Yugito stood at her flank, trying not to fidget. Whatever Reiko was doing was making the Nekomata restless and irritable.

Kamome was up on one of her smaller cranes keeping watch from the air. Three men involved with the noodle business (from what she could overhear) had been drinking in the Pine Glade spring since she began surveying at eight, and had drunk themselves into a stupor by 9:30. No one else had entered or exited the area since she had started her flyovers.

Reiko opened here eyes, and grinned. "There's the three in the low spring pool to the south, one at the west end of the zone, one just entered the north pool. Also, there's another moving underground, I suspect that one's Chigaku."

Kirema raised an eyebrow.

Reiko smiled. "My newest technique is for information-gathering."

"Not annihilation?" Kirema asked dryly.

"I'm disappointed too." Reiko said without missing a beat. "Anyway, all living things generate an electromagnetic field. There are a couple kinds of animals, sharks mostly, that can actually detect them." Reiko held up her gauntlets. "With these, charged full of my electric-type chakra, I can detect reactions from people's fields." She smiled. "I have yet to meet a shinobi that has even thought of hiding their electromagnetic presence, let alone actually accomplish it." Reiko paused. "Also I can always tell which way is north."

"A basically unblockable range-finding jutsu. That's… very good." Kirema said.

Reiko grunted. "Right now, it's high A-grade difficulty. Getting the response is easy, but understanding it is really hard. The data is very delicate, so it requires a deep understanding of what you're doing. I think it's beyond anyone not me."

Kirema closed her eyes. "It would be nice to give to our hunters, but on the other hand, at least it's nearly impossible for someone else to use against us, too."

Yugito cleared her throat.

"Time, eh." Kirema mused. "Very well." She faced Yugito. "Stay at the east point with Reiko, I don't want them to see you off by yourself."

"Yes. Kirema-sama." Yugito murmured, her face a mask as the leader of the group went of to the meeting.

Reiko sat down, and pulled out her book. She stared at the cover for a minute before sighing. She set the book down for now.

Yugito looked up.

"Hey." Reiko said. "What was that stuff the other night about."

Yugito crossed her arms, and raised an eyebrow.

Reiko grimaced. Seeing Kirema's signature "brow arching" on someone else was still unnerving. Yugito probably didn't even know where she'd copied that from, to boot.

"You know what I'm talking about." Reiko said. "That 'how do you know if you like someone' business. You never struck me to get sidetracked by a guy, so what the hell was he doin' that-"

"She." Yugito snipped. "Her name was Motoko and she was nice to me."

Reiko paused, and then cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Ah. Ok. Well, carpet and hardwood are both floors so it's ok, I guess, but still, what the hell?"

Yugito blinked. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"Ah geeze." Reiko said. "Allright, so if you like a guy, then that's hardwood, but if you like girls, well, then it's more like carpet, cuz, well, you know."

Yugito sat still for a moment, and then color bloomed across her cheeks. "That's… no! That's not it at all!" She stopped, and visibly took control of herself. "Motoko was nice to me and called me a friend." Yugito paused, before continuing, quieter. "So… what's friendship?"

Reiko sighed. "You know, Kirema doesn't even think you feel emotions like that." Reiko paused. "To be honest, she's too optimistic like that."

Yugito didn't move.

Reiko grunted, gathering her thoughts. "You… you exist only to be the handle for the sword called Nekomata. History shows that extraneous things like feelings are weaknesses for jinchuuriki like you. It would be best if you erased this feeling, okay?" Reiko grimaced. "It's tough for a shinobi, too, but 'killing the heart' is absolutely vital for a jinchuuriki. So put aside those kinds of emotions."

"Yes, Reiko-san." Yugito said heavily.

"It's easy once you're used to it." Reiko advised. Her voice was inflected with an odd heaviness, the result of a lifetime as an excellent shinobi, who had already fully mastered setting aside the self's desires for the sake of the mission.

Yugito couldn't tell. Her own heart was already filled with its own heaviness, the result of a vague and bitter feeling, black and increasingly hot.

I I I

With a glance to the south end, where three men they couldn't see where sleeping off hangovers, Kirema gracefully stepped down into the hot spring.

"So we meet at last." The other woman said. Her appearance was as feral as the rumors said, and the pictures that Cloud had of her didn't quite capture the aura of potential violence this woman seemed to project.

"The Tsuchikage, Ursura of Five Bears, I presume?" Kirema said in response.

"And you would be Death Fog Kirema, representing your husband, the famous Raikage, so-called Strongest of Hidden Cloud." The Tsuchikage replied, a smirk tugging at her lips even as her voice responded evenly.

"Some would say Strongest." Kirema shot back. The lack of any qualifier was the point.

"Since the Leaf's Yondaime died, I might even be one of those 'some,' eh?" Ursura responded, chuckling. "Strongest of any hidden village. But," Ursura said, wagging a finger, "maybe not strongest ninja."

Kirema raised an eyebrow. "Are you perhaps talking about missing-nin?"

Ursura smiled. "Yeah. Continuing with Hidden Leaf, there's a guy named Uchiha Itachi."

"The S-Class missing nin." Kirema said. "Who appeared in the Leaf Bingo Book rated as 'extreme danger, do not engage' about the same time the Uchiha clan disappeared."

"Killing off that whole family, feared above all others." There were continual dark rumors that the Uchiha had practiced some sort of ritual fratricide, back when there were Uchiha. Itachi was the bogeyman of the Leaf Bingo Book, rated as even more dangerous than the legendary Orochimaru. Ursura said. "A full-blown murder machine. Wonder what he's up to."

"I don't know either." Kirema said. "First the Kyuubi, then the Uchiha disappearance, and finally that Sound/Sand invasion… Leaf is the weakest they've been in over sixty years."

"No better time to invade, huh?" Ursura said. "You been hearing that a lot? It's true. We could crush them into nothing. Then there would be a big power vacuum in the middle of the continent. Lots of war and chaos and most of all, opportunity."

"For you there is another condition." Kirema said. "The Fire Lord, it seems, is himself acting to protect Those that Hide in the Leaves. Yumi-dono from his court is betrothed to Dotoi-dono, the Stone Lord's son."

"That's pretty true." Ursura said, smiling. It didn't entirely reach her eyes. "It would be pretty embarrassing for the leadership of our country if we started a war." Ursura flapped her hand at the wrist. "But, the Leaf have appointed that notorious super-flake Tsunade to the Tri-Corner Hat. It would be pretty believable to the rest of the world if she started something, and then the mud would be on the Fire Lord's hem, not the Stone Lord's."

Kirema frowned. "I was under the impression that you were more interested in peace, Ursura-dono."

Ursura shrugged. "The Supreme Dictator of the Earth Country, that's someone else who's not me."

Kirema didn't outwardly react. "I understand that the rice tariffs the Fire Nation imposed on the Earth Country following the last Secret War have made finance… difficult. If the envoys representing the Stone Lord bargained from the position of strength, then the Earth budget would be eased."

Ursura grinned. "And Us that Hide in the Dirt, we're the strength that props up Stones."

"The faction of the late Gashir is pushing to acquire the Byakugan." Kirema said. "The strategy office has already accepted some mission proposals for evaluation. They were rejected in the planning phase, but it's already been tabled as an objective again."

"And I've still got people that want blood for Bellflower pass." Ursura said.

"Including your number two, right?" Kirema prodded.

Ursura smiled again. It was very sharp and not welcoming at all. "What kinda old hens are we turning in to, gossiping on like that, eh?" Ursura leaned back, closing her eyes. "Anyway, I'll commit to an alliance with the Cloud. A mutual defense pact."

"So if we go to war you have no choice but to get dragged in, huh?" Kirema said. "And if a certain Cloud faction antagonizes the Hyuuga again we might have a war on our hands. Then you have to get dragged in, even if you protest you don't want to, because of poor Yumi-dono."

Ursura grunted sourly. "For what it's worth, if I had been Raikage, I would have had Gashir executed. Going off half-cocked on his own like that and then his party had the gall to call diplomatic immunity." Ursura shook her head.

Kirema sighed. "It was a very tense time. The various feudal courts were almost unanimously aligned against us. If the Third Hokage had called for war… well, the Mist was looking for something to pull their country back together and they had no hatred for the Leaf, bloodlines aside. And our own satellite countries began to make condemning noises." Kirema shook her head. "A tense time indeed."

Ursura leaned back, sighing explosively. "It sounds like we're being dragged towards a war."

Kirema nodded. "If that's the case, the Raikage would prefer to be one of those still standing when it ends."

Ursura chuckled. "Well, that's a philosophy I can get behind, eh? Let's lean on each other a little bit, then."

The two women reached out, and shook hands.

"Alliance." Kirema said.

"Between Cloud and Stone," Ursura said with a grin, "with the Leaf wedged between them, right?" She chuckled a bit. "I guess you could say I represent the rock, and you guys at Cloud are a pretty hard place."

Kirema frowned. "That was a terrible joke."

"Yeah, yeah." Ursura said. "So. The terms should be simple and straightforward, for now. Non-aggression and mutual defense."

"For now." Kirema agreed. "Doubtless the mission offices will have their own terms to bicker over."

"They always do." Urusa sighed. It was something of a joke that ninja treaties were 10 percent blood and 90 percent money. The meaning was, if one page of a treaty between villages concerned their military forces, like border patrols, there would be nine more pages covering numbers and sorts of missions that the other village would be allowed to take in the foreign country.

"Anyway," Ursura continued, "among her other talents Tetsuko is a skilled calligrapher." Calligraphy, in the ninja world, was a science of inks, papers, wordings, and brush strokes designed to impede counterfeiting. Ursura grinned. "You'll understand if I send along a scroll myself labeled 'Raikage's eyes only,' right?"

Kirema grunted sourly. "I suppose I can trust it not to be a blast note."

Ursura chuckled. "Well, whatever. We'll drop by your place with the documents around nine tomorrow morning, okay?" She heaved herself out of the spring, the motion exaggerated in the unique way of the Tsuchikage. The meeting was over.

Kirema climbed out herself, somewhat more sedately. She wondered how Ursura had managed to track them back to their inn, but gave it up; the Tsuchikage wouldn't reveal her ninja's methods so easily, no matter how congenial the woman was.

I I I

"So? Any luck?" Kakuuzu demanded impatiently.

Hidan's eyes snapped open. "God damn it, Kakuuzu, can you shut your damn trap for just a minute or what? Shit…" Hidan grumbled, "I almost traced it down. Anyway yeah, I found the two-tail's chakra but if some bastard hadn't interrupted me in the middle of my search I might know where the bitch was."

Hidan has the best chakra senses of anyone in Akatsukai. His religious jutsu and various rituals have given him the longest and most sensitive range of sensing ability. He can even compete with Zetsu at detecting demonic chakra, but only when he's meditating.

Kakuuzu closed his eyes and counted to ten. Very quickly. "Did you at least get a direction?"

Hidan swore, pulling the pike out of his chest. "Yeah, she's definitely somewhere at the festival, but I'm not sure where exactly. I just felt the double pulse of the two-tailed beast. It's close, that's all I can say. Asshole."

Kakuuzu lunged, slugging his partner so hard his jaw broke. "We're moving out."

Hidan's response was even more venomous than it was garbled.

I I I

The springs are quiet; the surface of the water has stilled. There isn't a sound to be heard except the cry of an occasional bird.

Both teams of ninjas are long since gone.

With a pop, a boulder sitting in the middle of the top spring disappears in a cloud of smoke. There is a rush of water to fill the empty volume, and ripples spread out across the surface of the lake.

With a gasp, Naruto pops up. He is sweating, although he is too wet to tell. He looks down, and grimaces. There is another pop of ninja smoke and it's Motoko again.

Breathing heavily, she heaves herself out of the hot spring, and shakes the water off as best she can. She had used her super-henge to turn into a rock. Naruto had done one of Sasuke's big shurikan, once, in the fight against Zabuza, and it had been very hard to compress his body into a shape so much smaller than him. Bigger was easy, but it got hard past a certain point to sustain a larger form. That big rock had been difficult. Motoko didn't want to think about what would have happened if the jutsu had failed in the middle of that discussion. If her control had been a little bit worse, it probably would have.

Absently, she cancels the Kage Bunshin in the lower spring. They had been drunk, but they were better now; they were clones of Naruto, after all, and possessed his same capacity to sublimate poisons like alcohol. By the time the ninjas had showed up, maybe they could have heard something.

Yeah, they'd been able to hear some of it. Enough to cement it in Motoko's brain, anyway. She slogged out of the spring, already musing over what she'd heard. After swearing to an alliance, they'd agreed to meet up one last time tomorrow, at the inn. That would probably be pretty easy for Motoko to spy on.

I I I

His name is Shisui, just Shisui, and he is watching with some amusement as a stiff-necked man in a pressed suit walks into the bar in a small town on the southern border of the Waterfall country.

Shisui is a grizzled old man who has seen many things in his long life as a ninja, mostly terrible things.

The man who just walked into the bar is almost painfully stereotypical. He is well-dressed, but not too well-dressed. His tie is tight and his shirt is buttoned all the way up to the top. The collar is folded neatly; his suit is clean and neat and conservative. He is carrying a briefcase; it is taunt leather over a metal frame with brass corners.

To top it off, the man is wearing thick glasses and his hear is so neatly parted he must use a ruler.

But he walks in the dirty, dingy bar, glances around absently (his eye, Shisui notes, lingers on only old him, the most dangerous man in the place), and then walks calmly and confidently up to the bar, sits down, and orders something hard from the bartender.

The man slides the bartender a bill, and the bartender looks around, hesitating, before leaning in and speaking quickly to the man, their foreheads almost pressed together, before moving off.

The man finishes two more drinks while doing, of all things, spreadsheets on the bar counter. The next time the bartender brings him a drink, the man speaks to the bartender.

Then the waitress brings him another beer.

"Didn't order that." Shisui says sourly.

The waitress jerks her head towards the man at the counter. "Boss says that guy over there said ta give you another of whatever you're having."

"Hmm." Shisui responds. He doesn't agree, but he knocks back the beer he has been nursing all night anyway. He takes the new one, contemplates it, and then goes to sit down next to the man at the counter.

"I am hiring for a job." The man says, packing spreadsheets into his briefcase.

Shisui smirks. "And you're thinkin' of hiring me?"

The man turns to meet Shisui's eyes for the first time. Shisui is impressed, a little.

"Yes. I am." The man replies.

"Huh." Shisui says, turning away to take a swig of his beer. "And why would that be?"

"Because you are a missing nin who is looking for work." The man says.

Shisui almost gags on his beer. "How do you figure that?"

The man turns, and smiles. "I could go through the whole logical process I followed to reach that conclusion, but that would be too trite." He pauses to knock back his own shot of whatever. Shisui can smell the alcohol in it from here. "My name is Bookie." The man says. "It's not just an alias; I have responded to that moniker for over a year. When I think, I refer to myself as Bookie inside my own head." He pauses. "Just like your name is Shisui."

Shisui grunts sourly. The bartender was a little too free with information, it seems.

"The employer to whom I owe my loyalty is currently incarcerated in a Fire Country jail." The man called Bookie says. "He ran a Yakuza group and was jailed for running a gambling establishment without any licensing."

"And what, you want to bust him out or something?" Shisui says. "That's damn hard."

"Normally it would be." Bookie nodded. "However, the Leaf Village is seriously low on manpower. They are accepting missions at a normal rate to give the appearance of strength in other countries, but that means their normal military duties are suffering. Things like prisons for gamblers and drunks and white collar criminals are very lightly guarded."

"So you think what, you're just gonna waltz in and bust your guy out, no problems?" Shisui says with a sneer.

Bookie shakes his head. "No. I have no ability in ninpou." He pauses, and glances at Shisui. "A strong ninja, however, could free my employer. If that strong ninja didn't kill any guards and we fled immediately across a border, it wouldn't be worth the Leaf's resources to get us back."

"That's pretty ballsy." Shisui says. "But you're putting a lot of faith in this strong ninja, eh?"

Bookie smiles. "Come now, Shisui-san. Could a jinchuuriki really reach old age without being strong?"

Shisui abandons all pretense and turns, glaring at the man.

"No need for such hostility." Bookie murmurs. "And please remember we are just two gentleman conducting business in this kind of bar. In a fight, with this many missing nins around, I would die."

Shisui turns back to the bar, and hunches unhappily over his beer.

"My father was a minor official in the finance ministry of the Mist country." Bookie said blandly. "I was fourteen, and nearly ready for the government employment test when the civil war began." He paused, and glanced down at his empty shot glass.

"My parents were killed in a jutsu exchange that took out most of our neighborhood. I understand some Mist hunter nin were fighting a mother and daughter who happened to have a bloodline that apparently involved an extraordinary amount of collateral damage." He stopped speaking while the bartender refilled his glass.

"Eventually I managed to immigrate to the Wave country, where I got a job counting taxes collected from desperately poor fisherman." He paused again to knock back the new shot of alcohol in his glass.

"Then I was pressed into the service of the Gatou Corporation. I invested drug money in boats so Gatou could put a whole nation under him. After Gatou died and his corporation imploded, mostly from Board members hiring assassins on each other, I managed to flee to the Fire country. Since I didn't have any paperwork and I was technically a criminal anyway I ended up running the books for a gambler." Bookie turned to smile at Shisui. "After a lifetime of experiences, I imagine we've reached the same conclusion, you and I: humans are the real demons."

Shisui turned to his beer, and finished it off. Finally he said, "So why are you trying to bust your boss out, anyway?"

Bookie shrugged delicately. "Because he is a decent man."

Shisui chuckled, then. "No shit, huh? Alright, how much you payin' me then?"

Bookie turned, and smiled his best business smile while the two got down to haggling price.

I I I

Yugito was milling through the crowd, feeling irritable and drained. She hadn't slept well last night; her dreams had been dominated by phantom memories from the demon sealed inside her. She didn't wake up screaming anymore, though.

Then after a night of poor sleep she'd essentially been on alert for three hours while Kirema-san and the Tsuchikage plotted and planned.

Now she was out by herself. She probably shouldn't be, but she didn't want to be around anyone else from her team right now.

She wished Motoko was around.

Yugito grimaced. Motoko was apparently a kunoichi. And not just any ninja, either; someone from the Hidden Leaf. An enemy. But at least she wasn't here on a mission. If they fought, Yugito would kill her, of course, but she very much didn't want to.

The sound of some drums startled her out of her revere; for a moment she thought they were the huge drums from yesterday, but they weren't. These were lighter, and accompanied by other instruments, playing in a more complicated rhythm.

Curious, Yugito drifted closer to the platform where the music was coming from. In the field adjacent to the band, people were twirling about, dancing. It looked very complicated, but each person's role was simple. It was a dance traditional to the Snow Country, although Yugito couldn't remember the name.

Yugito wished Motoko was here.

"Hey!" Motoko said.

Yugito startled badly as the other girl hung off her shoulder.

"Whatcha doin' here?!" Motoko shouted brightly. "Waiting for your boyfriend?"

"N-no." Yugito said, trying to imperceptibly slide the kunai back into where she had hidden them in the belt of her yukata. It wouldn't do to flash knives in front of the other girl.

"Good!" Motoko said, pulling Yugito forward. "You can dance with me then!"

"But I don't know how." Yugito protested.

"Me neither." Motoko chirped. "But it's okay even if we screw up, as long as we have fun, right? Pretty girls will be forgiven anything!"

Yugito stopped resisting, and let the other girl pull her forward. They began to imitate the other people around them, couples that were dancing to the loud instrumental music.

Motoko grinned. "See! You're doing good, there's nothing to be worried about!"

Yugito smiled back. "I've always been told to do my best at everything."

Motoko laughed as they spun about in a circle. "That's good!"

The music ended; the song was over. Most stood and left, while some stayed where they were, waiting for the next song in the set.

"For as long as I could remember, I always had to do my best. Or else…" Yugito said, trailing off. Or else she would be devoured and replaced by the Two-tailed Cat. Or else she would be replaced by a better host, leaving her a desiccated, chakra-less half-corpse.

Motoko frowned a little. "That's good, isn't it? Why shouldn't you?"

"Sometimes…" Yugito said. "Don't you get tired of it? Of this life?"

Motoko paused, and looked Yugito in the eye. "I'm not the most tactful person around, but you're not talking about dancing anymore, are you?"

Yugito gathered her thoughts, and wet her lips. That had been uncomfortably direct. "Well… I'm… I guess you could say we work in the same industry." It was the easiest way to explain that she was a ninja, and that she knew Motoko was a ninja, too. Seeing the other girl's lack of expression, she hastened to explain.

Huh? Motoko thought. She was still trying to puzzle that one out, but she discarded it to follow what Yugito was going to say next. It probably wasn't too important, anyways, and Motoko didn't think it would be a good idea to ignore what Yugito was saying.

"I'm not happy with my job because it's not something I picked for myself." Yugito paused. "But at the same time, I have to… otherwise I would be worthless." She didn't know what she wanted to say. She didn't know what she meant. But Yugito was sure Motoko would understand.

Motoko couldn't figure out what Yugito meant. At all. But Naruto had a keen ability to detect the loneliness of other people.

"A long time ago," Motoko said, "I decided to walk the path where I would have no regrets." She paused, as images suddenly welled into her head. A waterfall and a friend. An exchange of heated words.

Chidori.

A tail of burning red chakra.

Wings of Darkness.

Chidori and Rasengan.

Rising, yet again. A fiery haze. Two tails. Lashing, swirling, malicious chakra bound into that shape. Despair and horror; since the other had run out of chakra, Naruto had seen himself reflected in two dark eyes before he'd smashed his friend into the ground.

That guy didn't get up again. Getting up again, that was something only Naruto could do.

"Sometimes, no matter what, something will happen that we regret." Motoko said. Because of his injuries, Sasuke couldn't consciously remember anything from that day, although he might retain fragments from his sharingan. Tsunade said the Uchiha boy had gotten off lucky with that small amount of brain damage. The injuries had been within the legendary Sannin's ability to heal.

Naruto shook the bad memories off with the ease of practice. Embrace the future; the past is already done.

"So," Motoko said, "the only thing you can do, is what you'll regret the least." Motoko smiled, and it was somewhat bittersweet. "Realizing you'll have regrets, what can you do that you'll look back on as the best choice?"

Yugito frowned. "That's not… very comforting."

Motoko smiled crookedly. "Well, it's that way for everybody, so at least it's an experience you can share with everyone else, right?"

"I'm not the same as everyone else." Yugito said heavily, slowly. "There is something that makes me… different. I'm…" Yugito swallowed. "I'm not supposed to be a human."

'Huh?' Motoko wondered. 'A tool, like Haku?' Then Motoko scoffed, rejecting the idea out of hand. "That's stupid." She waved her hands around, getting worked up. "You have hands and a body and stuff, right? Thoughts and human feelings, right?" Motoko glared fiercely, daring Yugito to disagree.

Yugito nodded, hesitating.

"Whatever foofy words we use, reality isn't dependant on words." Motoko leaned in, and hugged Yugito. "You're definitely a nice person. Even if a thousand people said otherwise, well, that's a thousand wrong opinions, okay? Even if a thousand people said sashimi was better than ramen, that doesn't mean ramen isn't the best food ever."

Motoko released the hug, and smiled.

Yugito smiled back, eyes watery.

"Alright!" Motoko said, roaring loudly enough to startle the twelve other people closest to them. "Let's dance until we pass out from exhaustion!"

I have no idea what we were just talking about, Motoko thought, but at least Yugito seems to be in a better mood.

I I I

The universe, Uchiha Sasuke decided, hated him. He handed over the natto he'd been sent to get.

"Thank you, Sasuke-kun." Cooed the Fire Lady.

"Hn." Sasuke responded, trying to deflect attention away from himself. He looked away meaningfully in another direction, the closest he would allow himself to come to pointing and shouting "what's that over there!", but it made his hair flip dramatically over his forehead. The effect was really cool, and the Fire Lady squealed.

He was a ninja. Not an errand boy for a spoiled noble.

"That will be all for now. Thank you so much!" The Fire Lady said.

The problem was spoiled nobles were rich enough to hire ninjas as errand boys.

Sakura was smirking. Didn't she have a crush on him or something? Sasuke didn't get girls. Motoko didn't care that he didn't understand. She even thought it was cute.

Sasuke disappeared in a shunshin before she could come up with another errand to send him on. He landed on a rooftop beside Kakashi, who was lazing about while watching Sakura and the Fire Lady wander about the festival stalls, looking at the different trinkets on display.

"Good job." Kakishi murmured. He was clearly distracted. He was probably at a good bit. He was about halfway through the book; it was probably the scene where Goichi stumbled across the lesbians and was invited to… join.

Not that Sasuke would know or anything.

"Hn." Sasuke said.

Kakashi sighed. Such a dull boy. He wouldn't appreciate fine literature like Icha Icha at all. "Anyway, why don't you go see what Shikamaru's up to, or something?"

Shikamaru had been dragged off by Temari. Strictly speaking he probably shouldn't be going off with a girl on a mission, but on the other hand, she was a combat-type ninja from an allied village with known enemies in town. Kakashi couldn't in good faith allow an allied ninja to move about alone, just as he couldn't provide Leaf intel to another village, allied or no.

Letting Temari drag off Shikamaru was an excellent compromise: she had an ally in case of a combat situation, and he didn't have to tell her that enemies were in the area.

Sasuke grunted again and vanished.

Kakashi giggled again. With any luck, Sasuke would stumble across an awkward scene.

Even though he was an introverted freak, Kakashi had been young once too. It wouldn't be good if Shikamaru was too friendly with a kunoichi from another village, after all.

This was just another way for him to look after the people under him, that's all.

Even if it was "troublesome."

I I I

Itachi paused. He glanced over at his partner, quirking his eyebrow meaningfully.

Kisame saw the meaning. 'Why did we come here again?'

Kisame grimaced back. 'We couldn't renew at the other place.' Then, he shrugged half-heartedly. 'Someone else had reservations.'

Itachi breathed out louder than normal, the closest he would come to a frustrated huff. 'But why here?'

Kisame just grunted. 'Only place with vacancies.'

Itachi's eyes flicked to the owner, who was currently berating them; Itachi for having such long hair, and Kisame for being blue. 'I can see why.'

"Don't ignore me." The owner of the Hogei inn seethed, shaking her finger vigorously. "Why if you were my children I would box your ears for your impertinence. When your elders speak, you'd do well to listen! Understand!" The old harridan demanded, scowling up at the Uchiha (Kisame was too tall).

Itachi merely closed his eyes.

"Don't you close your eyes when I'm talking to you young man!"

Itachi opened his eyes, Mangekyo Sharingan spinning. "Tsukiyomi." He announced.

With a gasp, the old woman collapsed to a heap on the floor.

Without missing a beat, Itachi stepped over the insensate geriatric.

"Think she'll be okay?" Kisame wondered.

"I don't care." Itachi honestly responded. He stepped over to the inn register behind the desk and looked down. "The room at the front end of the hall is free. We'll take that one." He penned a name down.

Kisame hefted his sword back onto his shoulder as they moved to the room. "So, what did you do to her, exactly?"

"The usual." Itachi said.

"Ah." Kisame nodded, wincing.

"We have an early day tomorrow." Itachi said.

"Yeah, I'm about bushed, myself." Kisame agreed. "Let's call it a night."

Neither missing-nin questioned the logic of searching a town for a 13 year old boy like Naruto and a lounge lizard like Jiraiya at six in the morning and ending their search to go to bed at nine o'clock sharp.

I I I

AN: Whew! I thought this chapter would never get finished. It's been what, like five months since my last update?! Since it's been so long some people are worried about this story maybe being abandoned. Don't worry; I'll definitely reach the conclusion. There will be a denouement and everything.

Here's some humorous content.

OMAKE: NEW SHOW

"You're probably wondering why you were all called here today."

"Yeah, un." Deidara said.

Pein turned to glare at his subordinate. "That wasn't a question."

"Sorry." Deidara muttered.

"Anyway," Pein said, "what with how our motives have finally been published, and we're actually getting screen time for us as an organization, and just what with how everything after the Time Skip has been going, I think it's time the Akatsukai organization consider diversifying its interests to protect our assets against the, er, canon."

Kakuuzu raised his hand. "Can we do it before the anime airs my fight scene?"

Pein nodded decisively. "Yes. And I definitely want to go through with it before, you know, we find out that the real leader is Madara masquerading as Tobi for some asinine reason."

"Wait, what?" Hidan said, as he was the only one who had not figured it out on his own, since the others where competent.

"Anyway," Pein said, steamrolling over Hidan's question, "The point is, I got us a gig. So, uh, we need to figure out who's going to be which planeteer."

Finally Kisame spoke. "...I dunno if this is such a good idea, boss. I mean-"

"Shut up." Pein snapped. "I don't like this either. But, they control the whole planet from the shadows under the direction of a god using their mystical ring powers. It was either this or those Ring Wraiths in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and frankly, none of us know how to ride horses."

There was an incredulous pause as the elite group of sociopaths took that in.

Itachi spoke up. "I know how to ride hors-"

"Zip it." Pein said.

Itachi began again. "But I-"

"Zip!" Pein shouted.

Itachi began to sulk quietly.

"Good." Pein paused. "Kakuuzu, you're going to use the 'Heart' ring." He paused, waiting for someone to endorse this as a good idea. Nobody made eye contact. "It's because Kakuuzu has five hearts, see, so he should have the heart ring."

"I get it." Kakuuzu grumbled. "Just… we get it."

Pein continued. "Hidan: you're his monkey."

"What! Hell are you talking-"

"I don't want to hear it." Pein said. "These assignments are final."

There was a pause. Finally Zetsu spoke. "Tobi's a good boy-"

"NO." Pein said. "Just, just no."

Hidan began to sulk, although with substantially more grumbling than Itachi. Pein continued, unhindered by the opinions of his subordinates.

"Anyway, Kisame. You get water. Since you know water jutsu and you're a fish man."

Kisame, a little hurt by the type casting, just nodded stiffly. His therapist had explained to him in his last session that he shouldn't let himself be defined by other people who were only familiar with the shallowest parts of him. He was given an exercise: every time someone hurt his feelings by thinking he was just a bloodthirsty shark-man hybrid killing machine (he was so much more), he should think of one thing he liked to do that broke that stereotype. So Kisame thought about baking cookies. Itachi thought his snickerdoodles were especially tasty.

So it looked like Kisame was pouting, even though he actually wasn't. It was his thinking face.

"Itachi, you're that Wheeler kid, who had fire."

Itachi was still sulking so he was giving Pein the silent treatment, but the leader knew he heard.

"Konan, you gotta be wind." He flinched at the venomous look his childhood friend gave him. "Look, we have to have at least one girl in the Planeteers, so you have to join. Plus your origami thing is the closest to wind jutsu we have in the group."

He broke eye contact with his teammate and turned to his most trusted subordinate(s). "Zetsu."

"YES?" "Yeah?"

"The Earth ring." Pein simply responded.

"ACCEPTABLE." "That's fine."

"Just don't eat anyone." Pein admonished. "We're nominally the good guys in this, we can't go around committing cannibalism."

"AWWW." "No fair, boss."

"I still don't want to hear it." Pein firmly returned, ending the argument.

Deidara raised his hand.

"Yes Deidara?" Pein said.

"Uh, what about Captain Planet? I mean, he's blue with green hair, but you already made Kisame water, so…un." Deidara didn't know how to finish what he realized, in retrospect, was a somewhat tactless question. Because of his freakish mouth-hands, he know how much being judged hurt; he would put a note in Kisame's "I'm sorry" jar after the meeting.

"Well, Captain Planet is summoned by the combined power of the rings and possesses dominion over nature, so…" Pein trailed off, looking over his shoulder at the gigantic, open-mouthed nine-eyed statue that dominated the room. It was surprisingly easy to forget it was there, looming in the background.

The only sound was Konan, putting her face in her hand while she groaned.