Reborn!

49: Tobi Against the World

"Welcome to the Akatsuki, Uchiha Sasuke and Taka," said the Deva Path, or Yahiko's body.

Sasuke stared in shock at the assembled members of the Akatsuki.

He did not have such a grand welcome before.

On Pain's (Sasuke decided to call Nagato's puppets that for simplicity) left was Konan, and on his right was Uchiha Akihiko. Sasuke was... relatively sure that the Sharingan-bearing brunet was Naruto's clone. These three donned Amegakure hitai-ate -- indicating that none of them was a missing-nin. Sasuke numbly wondered, which of the major hidden villages did Naruto not have citizenship status in? He had seen Naruto's Kiri and Suna headbands before. Did that mean there were only Kumo and Iwa left?

At either side were the rest of the Akatsuki distributed. Konan's left had Deidara, Zetsu and Tobi. Akihiko's right had Itachi, Kisame and Hidan. From what Sasuke knew, Konan was Pain's partner, Akihiko had gotten Tobi, so Zetsu and Deidara had to be partners, Itachi was with Kisame, and Hidan... Well, his information stopped there. Was he to be paired with Hidan? That was a scary thought. Sasuke wondered why he kept being stuck with psychos -- first a research maniac and now a religious zealot.

As for the three remaining members of Taka, Sasuke did not consider them. After all, they were just a separate organisation (if four people could be regarded as an organisation) temporarily allied with the Akatsuki. He had no idea why Pain bothered to include Taka in his greeting. In the previous timeline, no one cared about Taka much -- other than Sasuke himself.

Sure enough, Pain's following words supported his assumption.

"Uchiha Sasuke, your partner is Hidan. Take this seal."

A ring with a seal identical to Kakuzu's old one was tossed over.

Sasuke was tempted to not catch it, allowing it to tumble to the ground, but he still had some semblance of a reputation to uphold here.

"Understood," said Sasuke, grabbing the dark-green ring and wearing it on his left middle finger.

Hidan looked askance at him with some disdain, and Sasuke was sorely tempted to stick the said finger up at him.

He took a deep breath.

He had to stay sober. His brother was here. Even if Sasuke did not care how others viewed him, Itachi's opinion of him would always matter.

"Bro-con."

When Sasuke heard Naruto's voice, he almost looked behind him -- he was certain that the blond had to be watching this scene. Or at least he was until he noticed the slight curve of Akihiko's lips. That proved that his sneaky teammate arranged this whole situation, going as far as hijacking an identity established by his clone for a first-class view of the show.

Looking at Akihiko directly also meant noticing the expression of disappointment on Itachi's face, seeing as his brother stood next to the fake Uchiha.

Sasuke winced.

"Should we give Uchiha Sasuke some time for his long-awaited reunion with Uchiha Itachi?" suggested Akihiko, prompting the whole group to disperse.

They were gone before Sasuke could count to ten.

Sasuke could not help but feel that this whole gig was orchestrated in advance...

"My foolish little otōto, why have you come to this dangerous place?" asked Itachi, pretences of evil discarded -- he knew that Naruto would have told his companion everything even if Sasuke failed to learn the truth in the previous timeline.