"What the hell?!" Ryuu screamed as he clutched the bloody carrier scroll in his hands. "Do you know how expensive these are?! And it was my favourite one too... These aren't for you to play with! You think money grows on trees?!" He continued ranting as Shinjo rolled his eyes and continued eating his meal. "Relax," he said lazily, "we can always get more scrolls and more money." "THAT'S NOT THE POINT! These are not playthings!" Ryuu yelled as he set the scroll on fire so as to destroy the body Shinjo had stored in there after his love making session.

Swallowing the last bite of his food, Shinjo stood and began to walk away. The shop owner approached him with his bill but Shinjo casually unsheathed his sword as a warning. The shop owner quickly reversed his tracks. "Now we've gotta go to Konoha to get more." Ryuu stated as Shinjo re-sheathed his sword and fell into step beside him. "Do we have to go to Konoha? Can't you get these things anywhere?" Shinjo complained as he thought about the long journey ahead of them. "I only want the good ones so that means we go to Konoha. So quit your bitching" Ryuu said.

"Glorious!" Ryuu yelled happily as he set another building on fire. Shinjo had taken offence with how the town had treated them and had slaughtered several townsfolk before Ryuu joined in on the destruction. Embers rained down from the sky as the smoke choked the sun and prevented its rays from coming through. The town was wrapped in smoky, hazy darkness that the two criminals took advantage of to wreck maximum havoc.

As Shinjo cut down villager after villager and looted their bodies and homes, Ryuu took his time in burning the town. Flames crackled from his fingertips as he fed chakra into his fire. He gently blew the flames from his fingers towards the thatch roof of the home but before the flames could consume the material he heard a whimper from inside. Curious, he extinguished his flames and entered the home.

He found two bodies laying side by side, holding hands, blood pooling around them. A frightened woman sat on her knees beside the bodies, wailing in her pain. Catching sight of Ryuu she quickly stood up and grasped a rusty kunai in her hand. "Are you going to kill me or give me tetanus?" Ryuu asked calmly. "K-kill you!" She stammered. "Hmmm interesting" he stated boredly and turned to hear the screams as Shinjo carved a bloody path through the town. Begging, pleading, screaming and crying could be heard as he righted the perceived wrong the town had committed against him.

Ryuu's green eyes bored into her violet ones as he waited and watched what she would do. Uncertainty coloured her expression and she lowered the kunai. "You're not a shinobi then?" he asked. She shook her head no and threw the weapon at him which clattered uselessly at his feet. "Just leave me. You've done enough!" she snarled and gnashed her teeth. "Now now, my partner's temper tantrum isn't any reason to be angry with me. I suggest you cool down before you say or do something you regret" Ryuu said with narrowed eyes. Frightened women react in strange ways, sometimes violent, sometimes passive and he had learned throughout his years to be wary around them in general.

She yelled and charged at him, deciding to throw her life away in a vain attempt to avenge her family. His hand reached out to grasp her throat and she clawed at him trying to break free. He lifted her from her feet, slamming her against a wall and smiling a she coughed blood. She desperately swung her foot and it connected with his balls. His eyes went wide, his breath caught in his throat and he let out a strangled cry before releasing her and clutching his throbbing painful testicles before collapsing on the floor. She landed a few more blows on him before a thk was heard and a sword buried itself into her body and pinned her to the wall. A soft smile graced her lips as she finally left this world and joined her loved ones in the next.

Shinjo knelt beside a groaning Ryuu, chuckling at his discomfort. "I wonder about your skills sometimes" he said as Ryuu sat up. "I wonder sometimes too" he replied as he got to his feet slowly. He looked at the dead woman and sighed before turning back to Shinjo, "everyone is dead? You collected the loot?" Shinjo nodded and pulled his sword from her body and wiped the blade clean on her corpse before re-sheathing it and tossing carrier scrolls to Ryuu. He caught them and tucked them into his robe before brushing his hair out of his face. "Let's finish this" he muttered.

Onyx eyes watched as the two men stood above the town. The whole town gone in such a short time. Who are these people?! She tilted her head to catch what they were saying. "...ready? Just use your basic wind jutsu." The purple haired man unleashed a windstorm and the red haired man added fire to it, creating a raging inferno that wiped the town off the map. "Beautiful!" The red haired man said happily as the wind and flames consumed everything in its path. She continued watching as the two men began walking away from the town, talking about making it to Konoha in reasonable time.

She quietly crept away from the scene and soon joined her partner who was rewrapping a large sword. "Are they Pein's targets?" She asked, her sharp teeth glinting as she smiled widely. "Hn" the other woman replied as she quickly wrote a message and attached it to the leg of a crow she had summoned. Wordlessly she got to her feet and began following the two men. Her partner sighed and joined her, "what's the plan?" "Intel gathering. We need to know who these men are and what threat they pose, if any, to the Akatsuki's goals." "Can I kill them? Samehada is getting hungry." "We'll see."

One more person was watching the events unfold. The Aburame clan member whispered to his bug and sent it off to report to the Hokage that murderous criminals were on the way to the Village. He melted back into the foliage and began running from the remnants of the Land of Fire border town, hoping to make it back in time to help organize the Village defence.