(Disclaimer: Nothing can stop me from fangirling, NOTHING. No wait, I lied. A chocolate-chip cookie dough ice cream can. Naruto is not mine.)
Chapter 18...
"So please, Kakuzu, would you be a dear and explain to me why you gave Zetsu the 'permission'?" Sir Leader was not a happy man. Oh, he was not a happy man at all. Kakuzu scratched the back of his head uneasily. The stitched man's Akatsuki coat was hanging over his shoulders like a lifeless body, the sleeves tied loosely across his chest. He sighed and shifted his eyes away from the Akatsuki leader. Kakuzu did not want to see the anger flaring from the hologram's flaring eyes.
"I gave Zetsu the 'permission'," he started, "because there really was no other alternative besides that. We did our best, honestly." Poor Kakuzu, he was so famished after all the happenings, he couldn't get the more persuasive side of him to come out. Sir Leader glared down at him and crossed his arms impatiently like a mother lecturing her child.
"Don't give me anymore excuses," the hologram snapped, "the fact is, you let one of our best members go on a cannibal-style buffet and EAT the whole population of Harusame village in a single night! Now he has food poisoning and a high fever because one of the villagers he ate had weed-spray somewhere on their body or clothing!" Sir Leader huffed loudly and massaged his temples. He was seriously getting a headache from all this. More paperwork should arrive any minute now, and he wasn't even finished with half the work the Akatsuki artists threw at him (mostly Deidara's fault). Kakuzu's head sank low, his eyes staring at the black stone floor. He remembered vaguely of the long-haired redhead hunter-nin that stood in his and Sasori's way. He remembered how he looked at his disfigured pink brother. He remembered how Hidan, Itachi and Kisame tackled into him, sending him flying toward the gargoyle.
He remembered how Deidara dropped his biggest and baddest bomb he could make right on top of the brothers.
The survivors? Itachi would've used his Sharingan to somehow wipe out the memories of every villager, but he was still recovering from his previous fever. No way in hell did he have that much energy that time. Zetsu just happened to appear out of seemingly nowhere right then. His orange masked assistant claimed that he had forgotten something that he borrowed from Deidara back at the inn.
"I'm hungry...," the plant man said, "and there's dead bodies EVERYWHERE..." While Zetsu drooled at the bloody, yet tempting sight, Kakuzu and Kisame tried to think of an alternative plan to somehow not use the Venus fly-trap and get out of the village as if nothing happened. But every villager saw them. They saw what they did. They loathed them with a passion. The stitched man allowed a tired sigh to escape and, seeing no other option, he gave Zetsu the 'permission'.
To have every living and non-living evidence in his stomach before daybreak.
Now, Kakuzu has to get rid of other evidence, like the very existence of Harusame village and all of their files of the locals and visitors (there were others, but I don't feel like explaining all of them). Leader has to read through all of the paperwork and approve them, and then secretly send them over to some of the highest-ranking governors in the country, along with bribes.
Bye-bye money. Hello homicidal rage.
A dull knock came from the wooden door. It was probably the piles and piles of paperwork. Sir Leader grumbled come in, and the door creaked open shyly.
"H-hello Leader...," Tobi peeked his masked face from the door. "Um...do you want this now?" The shadowy hologram fumed silently and said nothing for a few seconds. Kakuzu shifted his weight and looked at the younger shinobi with bagged eyes. His usual black mask was back on his face, hiding most of the tired expression he wore, but not the dark circles that painted his eyes. Leader's gaze went to Tobi, and the younger man felt an intense heat of anger just shoot at his unseen eyes.
"I...guess I should take that as a yes." Tobi chuckled nervously and disappeared behind the slightly open door. A few seconds later, he reappeared, Itachi following behind him, pulling a large cart filled with paper. The prodigy was holding two other mounds of paper that, apparently, couldn't be stacked on top of the cart. As the two approached, the shark man also appeared, dragging a screeching blond artist in one hand and carrying a sleeping priest in the other. The puppet master, in his larger kugutsu form, crawled closely behind.
"No fair, un!" Deidara yelled, "I was still eating that pie, un!"
"Stuff it, Deidara," Sasori annoyingly said, "your chaotic mess caused all this shit. You are going to pay..."
"Well, it's not my fault that this rookie accidentally broke your perverted doll, un!"
"If you didn't steal it in the first place, it would've been safe and sound and in Jiraiya-sama's hands!"
"Hentai Fanboy, un!"
"It's not 'hentai', it's nude art! And nude art is eternal beauty!"
The two Akatsuki artist's fight was escalating the already pissed-off Sir Leader's temper. The hologram raised his hands and curled them into fists. He cracked the knuckles so loudly that in an instant, the whole room fell into heavy silence. Smoke could be detected coming out of Sir Leader's head, expressing hot, boiling, lava-like stress and anger within him, ready to burst at the tiniest offense.
"All of you...," Leader said in a deadly tone, "and I mean ALL of you...will take full responsibility for all this...immature NONSENSE. The complete DESTRUCTION of an entire village...this has to be the most RIDICULOUS and most IDIOTIC stunt anybody has ever pulled off in the history of STUPIDITY." Leader scanned the member's faces. Every one of them, even Itachi's, reminded him of a sad puppy, but just not as cute. He glowered down at them and continued, "From this moment on, I will not tolerate with any more foolish actions and/or behaviors from any one of my subordinates, do you understand?" He heard the members mumble and grumble in agreement. "If I catch any of you, I will personally decapitate you and feed your lamenting body parts to Zetsu, who has yet to hear this same lecture later on after he recovers."
During the lecture, Tobi and Itachi slowly dragged the cart toward Leader's desk. The rather large stone desk was also covered with piles of folders and files, most of them containing Sasori's handwriting and Deidara's signature. The younger masked nin set the cart's handle down next to it while the prodigy dropped his share on top of other unfinished and unsigned paperwork. Leader snapped his holographic head around to face the two shinobis. Tobi jumped and skittered behind Itachi, using him as a sort of meat shield. He buried his masked face into the Uchiha's cloak and waited for his Leader to do something that probably would end his short-lived and pointless ninja life.
But none of that ever came. Rather, Sir Leader walked up to the two and gestured them to join the others. Itachi complied quickly and marched to his partner's side, while the younger shinobi trotted closely behind. Leader's eyes gleamed in the dark room like a candle. He had a plan.
"Gentlemen," he announced, "I have a new assignment for you all."
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Back in his room, Kakuzu allowed Kisame to set the snoring priest down on his bed. Hidan's new room had to be cleaned up before he even sets foot in it, for the stitched man still had to peel off the crushed body of his previous partner off the ceiling and walls.
"You know it reeks more than death and blood in that room," the shark man commented before he left. "It also smells like urine."
"It happens when people don't go before they die," Kakuzu commented back. "It's a shame, I know." He sat on his creaking chair and faced the desk before him. The stitched man pulled out a pen and three blank sheets of paper from a little drawer next to him. as he began to write, he glanced at the sleeping priest and paused his hands for a moment. Hidan mumbled Kakuzu's name and asked him if he wants to join Jashin-sama and him to something like a priest school. The older man chuckled lightly.
"Only in your dreams, Hidan." Kakuzu ruffled the priest's hair. "But that school idea has a nice touch."
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Author: IT'S FINISHED!!!!!! Yaaaaaay! I finished a story! And it took me forever to just upload this last damn chapter!
Kakuzu: Finally! I can sleep now...
Deidara: We didn't get to do too much in this story...un
Tobi: Uh, but Deidara-senpai, you got to destroy an entire village, so isn't that more than enough?
Deidara: What are you talking about, un? I need to destroy a whole COUNTRY to satisfy my need, un!
Zetsu: My stomach hurts...
Zetsu: I told you that it wasn't a good idea to eat that gardener...
Zetsu: But she looked tasty...
Zetsu: Her clothes looked yummy, not her...
Zetsu: She was yellow like a Tweety bird...
Tobi: But I thought you only eat humans, Zetsu-san
Zetsu: Whatever gave you that idea?
Hidan: The fact that you eat humans like a vacuum cleaner gives us that idea...and why the helmet can't I swear?!
Itachi: Well, I guess you'll have to find out in that new story this thing's planning to write...
Hidan: Well hurry up! I'm deprived of profanity!!!
Author: Like that makes any sense...anyway, thank you all for reading this utterly random story! I'm thinking about making a sequel or something after this, but I'm not sure if I'll ever post it...I might eventually. Loves on all you!