- Chapter 11 -

Red Clouds

Light piercing through the sealed eyelids. Acute and stinging pricks of pain on the bruised skin which were fading away after a while. A slight twitching of the fingers which showed life. And so, she arises.

The person on the chair coughed dryly and swallowed painfully some shaky breaths. She wanted to lift up her hand and scratch her forehead which was currently bugging her but an invisible force kept it down. Akira was in a daze; she didn't know where she was, what had happened or who she even was. All she needed now was a person besides her, a pain killer and some food.

"I suggest you not to try and move or else you'll fall down and I'll have to patch you up again." Speak of the devil. A person -a man, specifically- was already in the room with the ginger and was obviously taking care of her up to that point. "You're on your own now."

Akira opened her right eye and observed the bright place before eyeing the unknown male who was ready to leave the room. The girl was able to coax out a faint 'wait' and surprisingly, he halted with his hand still on the door. Akira gulped some saliva and opened fully her mouth, only to figure out that her bottom lip had started bleeding again. However, that didn't prohibit her from asking the crucial question which had been displaying in her mind since he had spoken up.

"Who are you?"

The male glanced at her from the corner of his green transparent eyes with his deep brown hair swaying to the side. "Kakuzu", he spelled carefully after the small period of silence. In addition to that, Kakuzu stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him.

When there was nothing but silence in the room, Akira felt a wave of relief and worry washing over her. The few last hours were replayed in her mind and she realized that she had completed the first and most important stage of her mission. Now, all she was left to do was to bear responsibility of her future actions and contain her violence as much as she could. Her instinct was telling her that she would need to save it for later.

The door swung open and a familiar blonde fur poked inside the room. A pair of crystal blue eyes met her brown ones and shared the same surprised emotion.

"Akira-kun!" the deep voice of Deidara exclaimed and the girl raised an eyebrow as a sign of acknowledgement. The bomber stepped in the room and in a flash, he was standing right next to her. A hazardous grin was stretching on his lips as he rested on a chair next to the armchair Akira was placed on. "Welcome to the Akatsuki, man."

Akira could only avoid his continuous stare and instead observe the mattress which was a few meters away from her. What she had gotten herself into, that was the only question which needed to be answered. "Yeah, like I wanted to join", she answered sarcastically and flashed a glare at the bed, no reason hiding behind it.

Deidara surely understood her anger about being unwillingly entered in the Akatsuki but he had no choice. Boss' orders were to force Akira in the gang no matter what due to his well-constructed biography and knowledge of martial arts. Besides, Akira had already beat Hidan in a fight and her previous fight with Kisame wasn't bad. But when it came to sword fighting, Kisame was number one. Deidara had a reason for coming in the room and he had a strong feeling that Akira wasn't going to like what he was ready to announce.

"Akira, un?" the blondie called out and the girl simply huffed as a response. Deidara seemed to be unaffected by her stubborn attitude and proceeded with his announcement. "Hidan will show you the place around and your new-"

"Say what?!" Akira barked and turned her face to Deidara, only to reveal her panicked expression. Hidan had always -well, since she had started high school- been a burden and an annoying religious-crazy boy who didn't know the term 'mature'. And now he was going to give her a tour around the headquarters. Talk about luck.

Deidara simply patted her back and without any further ado, he abandoned her in her own corner of misery. Akira rubbed her temple with her index finger and let out a sigh of exhaustion. Not only she was forced to battle against Kisame and earn some purple bruises which were going to hurt for a while, she was forced to take a tour with her frenemy now. Meanwhile, she considered the option of getting attacked by him. It was his religion to make blood sacrifices in his God in any way, why would he hesitate to attack her and rip her apart? Only the thought of it was making Akira's blood run cold but she mastered up all of her courage and decided to put up with it. Besides, she needed to learn every single piece of information concerning this place and the tour would be better than nothing.

Akira discovered that she could move her fingers and her hand now, even her feet. She had a go at it and in less than a minute, she had managed to sit up on the armchair. Her back was aching like there was no tomorrow but it could be soothed by walking. No sooner had she stood up than the door was pushed open for once more. However, this time, it was almost slammed down on the ground. In the entrance was standing a furious Hidan, wearing only a pair of sweatpants. His feet had no shocks on them and his abdomen was completely naked which was giving a perfect view to his well-built abs. It wasn't something special but it was looking like he was training hardly every day.

The male scowled and murmured profanities under his breath before turning his back to her, "What are you staring at, homo? Get the fuck out and follow me!"

Under no circumstances would Akira obey to his orders yet she had to. Following his instructions, she exited the room and began getting used to walking again. Hidan had shoved his hands in his pockets and had began walking without her. The girl had to walk faster in order to catch up to him.

"The room in which you were before was Kakuzu's so-called-infirmary. He has patched my ass up a handful of times. He can snatch your money away and he is a goddamn killing machine if anything goes to waste", Hidan explained and Akira could have sworn that she had seen a glint of excitement in his pink eyes. The tour continued with both of them climbing up the stairs and finding themselves in a corridor with closed doors.

Hidan yawned, showing clearly how bored he was, and proceeded in walking down the hallway. He pointed at the first door which was stained with some kind of black material and even had old bloodstains on it. "The room of the living Barbie and the puppet freak. It was a bad decision to put those two together but their rivalry is what makes everything so damn interesting in this hellhole!" While Hidan began ranting by himself, Akira took some time to analyze his words. Rivalry? Bloodstains? Something was telling her that this was going to end up with someone dropping dead.

"Next room is mine and Kakuzu's. Don't enter if you don't wanna die, effing simple." The room across Deidara's and Sasori's was apathetic in Akira's eyes since it was Hidan's. Kakuzu seemed like a nice person yet she had an awful feeling that this organization was nothing but good.

The Jashinist moved down the corridor with his frenemy trailing behind him. The next door was. . . plain and simple. In comparison with the other two, it was like a new arrival in the nearly devastated place. "Itachi and shark week", he mused indifferently and motioned to the door across it, "The twins."

Since he made no special mentions to those ones, they must be the calm spirits of the Akatsuki, Akira assumed in her thoughts and turned her attention on the next door. For some reason, it had a handmade sign out of it which was saying 'The Awesomies'. The ginger raised an eyebrow at the label and wondered who had not ripped this sign apart yet. Hidan smirked mischievously, troubling Akira, and finally opened the door.

"Have a nice stay, fucker", Hidan sang and laughed loudly, seeming to be enjoying this.

The girl stepped inside the room, feeling a bit horrified from Hidan's laughter, and took a peak of everything. The walls were covered with Spongebob and Pokemon posters and some flower stickers. The color wasn't visible due to the posters but she could guess that it was a plain cream color. There were two beds with some space in between them and a nightstand separating them. The bed which was close to the window was already decorated with. . . Spiderman sheets and a teddy bear was laying down on it. Just when she was ready to ask if they were pulling a prank on her, something pulled her down abruptly.

Akira screeched in an unlady-like manner and felt her body colliding with the harsh ground with someone else topping over her. The previous pain on her back returned and she glared at the front where an unpleasant surprise was waiting for her.

"Aki-chan! Welcome! Tobi is veeery happy that he will be able to work with you! We'll eat together, hang out together-"

"Wow, wow, hold it." Akira was extremely confused. On top of her was sitting a male student who was wearing an orange twirly mask and his black hair were so spicky that his face looked like a wrong-colored sun. A single hole was opened in front of his right eye and for some reason, he was waving his hands around like crazy. The ginger recovered from her shock and eyed the person carefully, "Who in the world are you?"

"Name's Tobi! Your roommate and partner! Not to mention new best friend!" the person named Tobi explained and went to hug her. In the last minute, Akira managed to avoid being hugged and rolled to the side.

After standing up, she turned to Hidan who was chocking in his own laughter, "Wait. New partner and roommate? What's the meaning of this?"

The grey male wiped an invisible tear from his eye which only made his smirk grow wider, "You will move in here, if it wasn't obvious enough. And you have to share the room with that fucking psychopath!" And he continued laughing.

A dark aura appeared behind Akira as she covered her face with her hands, ignoring Tobi who was jumping behind her, "I swear I will annihilate you."

Hidan and Akira would have killed each other if it weren't for Tobi who separated them and somehow calmed them down. The tour continued with both of them exiting the room (leaving Tobi inside, of course) and walking in the end of the corridor. Somehow, it looked like an untouched place without any imperfections or damages.

Hidan stopped a meter away from the last door and so did Akira. "This room is Leader-sama's office. You are forbidden to enter. If you do. . . For fuck's sake, not even Itachi knows what will happen to you."

With that, Hidan began walking away, assuming that the tour had finished there. Yet, Akira stood in her place and eyed the door. The source of her problems was behind that door. The key to her freedom was hiding behind that desk. The urge to open the door was bigger than she had expected it to be. Her hand reached up to the handle but she didn't turn it. Instead, she tightened her grip around it and squinted her eyes.

I will hunt you down and eat you alive.

。。。＊ 。。。＊。。。＊。。。

I'm alive! *arises from the dead* It has been a month, huh? It is school's fault, I swear! Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I made a HidAki edit for the shippers on the side >>
All of you got the answer to my question wrong. It is not Kabuto! Did you think I would put such an easy-to-guess character in this story? Hella nah.

Q: Thinking of changing the cover of this story. Do you agree?

Dedicated to Bre2k9 (Sasaui) for helping me out of a small writer's block concerning this story (sue me) and for being an amazing reader and reviewer of this story! Thank you so much :)