Epilogue: Yakushiji Akane

Akane managed to reach a small house at the outskirts of the Leaf nation, somewhere in between the Leaf nation and Grass nation border. It looked like nothing more than a run-down shack in the middle of nowhere, but within it lies an old hideout for the former S-ranked missing-nin known to all as Orochimaru. Like all of his other hideouts, they have been long abandoned, and the Leaf-nins have given up in trying to smoke out all of them, since during his course away from his home village, he seemed to have set up a large number of hideouts, and it was too much effort on the Leaf's part to find them all, considering that Orochimaru has been long defeated and his hideouts pose no threats.

Thus, left abandoned, they were excellent hiding places for missing-nins like Akane. She had not been here in a while, and despite her ties with the 'organisation', they had no idea of the hideout she had here. If anything, this hideout for her was a personal one, not one to be used for work. She cracked her neck, before walking up towards the door, and pushing it open to enter.

The room was empty, with broken furniture lying all over the place, pieces of pottery lying on the ground, as if someone had broken into a frenzy and threw all the cups and plates he or she could lay their hands on. Akane casually walked into the room, moving around in a circle. She knew the trap mechanisms of this place by heart, and the obvious way to avoid them. Reaching to the middle of the room, she knelt down and pressed on the floorboard in front of her.

A trapdoor sprang open, having been well camouflaged onto the ground floor. Peering down inside, the trapdoor lead downwards, into the rocky ground into a man-made tunnel underground. Akane slipped inside, landing on the bottom.

The underground corridor was barely lighted, with only two torches to illuminate the corridor, but Akane was used to this already. She walked down the corridor and kept going straight, since it was a fairly straightforward path. Right at the end of the corridor looked like a brightly lit room. Akane walked towards it.

All of a sudden, when she entered the room, a kunai shot towards her direction all of a sudden. Akane caught it without missing a beat, mainly because she was already expecting it already.

" Oi, oi, oi, is this how a superior treats a subordinate?!" Akane asked, grinning madly.

" I have no need for a subordinate who can't even evade such a pathetic attack," a voice replied. " Besides, you know I hate being interrupted when I take a bath."

Right in front of her, at the end of the room was a fairly large bathtub, and a faint aromatic smell could be tasted floating around the room. In it was a woman, with only her head visible to Akane. She seemed to be relaxing herself in the bathtub, not even bothering to turn around to see, or greet Akane.

" If it troubles you so much, why don't you install a shower curtain to block off the view?"Akane suggested.

" Too lazy…not worth the effort…" the woman replied. " Why don't you do it?"

" Hey, don't order me around like some…"

Akane stopped mid-sentence, before flicking out a senbon in her hand, spinning around before pressing the senbon needle at the base of the neck of the woman who just entered. The woman stopped in her tracks, before giving Akane a smile.

" Hmm, is this how you treat your comrades?" the woman asked.

" Sorry, Kaname, something smelled utterly repulsive in here, I thought it was a bitch," Akane snarled. " You know what, on second thought, I guess I was correct on thinking it was a bitch."

" That's enough," the woman in the bath replied, getting out from the bathtub. Akane could see a massive spiral like tattoo that was etched on her back, covering most of her back and chest. She grabbed a towel and dried herself quickly. " I take it that the preparations are done?"

" Most certainly…" Kaname replied, the Rock missing-nin replied, smiling.

Akane merely gave an irriated noise under her breath, before turning to her boss. " Hey, Maya, you seem to have made the spiral larger. Did you expend it?" she asked.

" Most certainly…" Maya answered coyly, before getting dressed in a second. " Come, we have someone to kill tonight. Better not keep her waiting."

Writer's note: Thus ends the second part of this story. Thanks for reading. Will be working on part 3 as soon as I can.