( DAIKI POV )
( 23th May, year 14 AK )
Leaving the Capital, especially with the diversion caused by the riot, had proved itself ridicolously easy, and as soon as we hit one of the secondary roads that splintered from the main one, Itachi and I disappeared through the trees, heading south.
After a few hours, during which we doubled back more times than I cared to count, switching paces from quick walk to full throttle, Itachi led me to a natural depression in the ground, one that seemed almost like the mouth of a carsic cave, with water slowly but surely trickling in by countless brooks and creeks, its wet gurgle against the frail rock covering the faint sound of our steps.
I followed Itachi as he walked without any hesitation whatsoever, following this or that path underground. With a hidden grimace, I kept my chakra tightly coiled around myself, not letting even a slip of it beyond the confines of my body.
The Uchiha had explained in detail the succession of events needed to present me to the Akatsuki, and given what I knew of their members, any communication that happened outside of a Summon's Plane could be intercepted by the white Zetsu.
In a cavern large than any other we crossed up to that point, Itachi stopped walking: "Leader-sama, he's here."
My eyes immediately fell on one well known orange-haired man whose eyes were staring unblinkingly at me. Dull purple and ringed black, while his impassible face was completely covered by pitch black piercings.
Immediately, my attention slid to the side, spotting other three orange haired puppets whose attention seemed fully focused on me, the one to my foremost left started talking: "We're the Akatsuki..."
"Yeah, let me stop you right there," I rose my hand dismissively.
"I don't really care about your reasons or purposes, I simply thought that a group of S-rank nuke-nins sounded interesting to hang around with, and maybe that there would be some task that could offer a worthy challenge waiting for me."
There was no point in trying to conduct myself as some cold hearted killer, the best undercover operations worked off a relative mesure of genuine reactions.
A person couldn't simply feing everything about themselves, not all the time, not convincingly. So, I was left with showcasing my casual disregard for both respect and rules.
Oh there was the nagging suspicion that they already knew about me, but second guessing myself was meaningless at this point, rampant paranoia would kill me faster than my enemies: being relaxed was foundamental while conducting this kind of encounter.
I was avaliable, and interested, but my problems with authority were well known, and hiding them would be both foolish and coutnerproductive.
"Akatsuki isn't something you can dedicate yourself to only partially." The first of the Pain-Puppets spoke.
"Oh, I'm fully committed." I grinned, aware that this was some sort of informal job interview, "But I'd prefer if we ignored the meaningless powerplays: you have something interesting going on, I want in."
There simply weren't enough S-rank nuke-nin around to be anything but eager about having someone of my caliber joining up. Besides, in the shinobi line of work, compartimentalizaion was a given: I would be left with a series of targets, and I wouldn't know their purpose or wider scope until long after the fact. Or at least, that was the theory without considering my metaknowledge.
"Why would you want to join?" the flat voice of Pain rang through the cavern, and I shifted my shoulders in order to keep everyone, Itachi included, in my field of view. After all, I couldn't give away the game by openly showing that I implicitly trusted the Uchiha to not stab me in the back.
"You're joking right?" I guffwaved: "This War is boring, there aren't intersting things left around for me to poke at. Or at least, none on the caliber of your little club."
"And yet you have economical enterprises..." the Pain-Puppet on my right spoke, while the one in the middle went ahead: "And even an apprentice of sorts."
"Everyone has to die in the end," I shrugged, "why wouldn't I train an Uzumaki when she so conveniently fell on my lap? There is a unique form of gratification in raising a kid. I've seen war and death and ruin, but like everyone else, I've also experienced the wonders of chakra, and seeing the kid discover them under my tutelage... it's almost like seeing the world anew once more."
"I could believe you to be thirsty for battle." Pain grumbled in a gravelly tone, "You're not the first to fall to the disgusting apprecietion shinobi share for violence, in this at least, you prove yourself a good substitute for Kisame, your previous interactions prove that much."
He tilted his head towards me, purple ripples in his eyes observing me carefully: "But I'm confused about your economical empire, why build it, if you only enjoy fighting?"
Only my vast experience in never acting upon my actual thoughts kept me from sweating coldly under the merciless gaze of the Rinnegan, so I offered a wide smile, one that I knew showed too many teeth, resembling more a rictus than an actual expression of joy.
"I enjoy the challenge. Since my teammate was left to die on the orders of the Hokage, enabled by Jiraya, I understood that there's no point in following a village."
I shrugged, letting my eyes roam over the rest of the cave, seeing how it could host one of the strange telematic meetings that the Akatsuki seemed so fond of using.
"So I went away, and challenging myself became the only interesting thing left. I've built a corporation of staggering proportions, simply by sheltering those minds too wild to be allowed to live and to express themselves otherwise.
I've thought the rudiments fo chakra to orphans, so that they could better pickpockets while freely advertising one of my companies. It built a somewhat reliable network of information, with time, it will spread on its own in all of the Elemental Nations."
Pain hummed quietly, his eyes staring at me uncompromisingly for almost a minute.
"I'm not here to explain myself." I cracked, feinging disinterest by shrugging, "I thought this group looked interesting, so I thought I' join."
"And yet you did explain yourself with very little prodding on my part." Pain tilted his head sideways, as if he was studying a speciemen he was ready to kill for the outrageous act of staring back.
"I wanted to see your reaction." I almost sweatdropped there, knowing that I made a small misstep, the regular kind of S-ranked nuke-nin wuldn't have explained, even in short, the history of their life. I had focused so much on the necessity of joining Akatsuki that I had let my mouth run a bit too freely.
I could only keep bullshitting: "And you've got one of the best poker faces around, let me tell you. Besides, while I enjoy battle, I wanted to make clear that I'm scary good at large scale organization, and I'm guessing that higher on the totem pole I am, the more interesting things will become."
"You used Orochimaru's attack on Konoha to disappear, and you've protected Hatake, while giving Samehada back to the Mizukage." Pain's voice flatly replied, "For all of your publicy renouncing your home village, you've done very little to damage it, if only for spite."
I wasn't liking where he aiming to with this turn of the meeting: "That was good money." I tried to shrug, but something told me he wouldn't be swayed by simple words at this point. "Attacking Konoha simply didn't come up on my plate."
"Your task is to prove yourself to the Akatsuki." Pain flat voice replied from his far too still puppets: "Jiraya and Danzo have been spotted reasonably close to one another, and the Kyubi Jinchuriki follows his master closely."
I simply rose an eyebrow, already knowing what was going to be asked of me: "Kill Jiraya and Danzo, capture the Jinchuriki, he's young and inexerienced enough to be restrained."
"I have no idea about Danzo's fighting play, but ok." I shrugged, swallowing the bile caused by the sheer hate I elt for what I was about to do: "Jiraya is a hack anyway."
...
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