Once More by ItsHardToFindAPenName

Chapter 20: The Will of Minato Namikaze

"So Orochimaru was killed."

"No shit! That fight was the most wicked thing ever! That humongous snake, that huge Buddha statue, and everything went 'whoosh!' Fire everywhere! Wicked!"

That voice came from the white half of a... well... person wearing a black cloak with red cloud symbol sewn onto it.

The room they were standing in was dark, as if it were a cave. Torches lit up the walls, reflecting the shadows of the nine people in the room, projecting them in a way that made them look like they were doing a strange dance.

"Good riddance, anyway," The man with the blue shark-like skin, Kisame Hoshigaki, laughed with a sneer. "I've never liked that creepy bastard."

"Is it really?" Another person, a hulky figure crawling on the ground in four legs with a scorpion tail on its back, scoffed. "I've worked with him for a while; that sneaky snake won't succumb to death that easily."

"Well, at least this time he will not be able to go after our cute Uchiha's beautiful body, won't he?" The one with the big three-bladed scythe on his back laughed jeeringly, followed by an eruption of laughter coming from the other members of the Akatsuki. Itachi just raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

"Enough," Pain raised his hand. "Enough."

The laughter died at once.

"We will worry about Orochimaru later," the Rinnegan wielder continued. "Zetsu, did you find anything else about the Nine-Tails jinchuriki?"

"He fought, and subdued the One-Tail jinchuriki, with the help of Sasuke Uchiha," This time, the black half of Zetsu answered.

"And how is his ability?"

"He is indeed strong," Black Zetsu replied. "His power is enough to hold back the One-Tail long enough until Sasuke arrived to assist him. He is very adept at the Shadow Clone Jutsu. His speed and power increased considerably when he was using the Beast's chakra."

Pain looked at Itachi. "It's different from what you have reported to me, Itachi."

"Oh?" the Uchiha asked back impassively. "And how is that?"

"You reported that the jinchuriki's power was nothing impressive," Pain said, his Rinnegan drilled straight into Itachi's Sharingan. "And yet, he was able to subdue the One-Tail, and has proven himself to be way more formidable than what you have described. What do you have to say about this?"

Itachi calmly received the gaze of the Akatsuki leader without even a blink.

"Indeed, it is different from what I told you," he answered. "However, that report was of two months ago, before the Chuunin Exam even started. He must have trained a lot during those two monthsin preparation for the exam, so his improvement is understandable. If you still doubt me, you can ask Kisame; he was with me at that time."

"Well, it was kinda true, but..." Kisame scratched his head.

"Furthermore," Itachi continued smoothly, "he didn't do it alone. He got the help of my brother, and he was an Uchiha just like me. You all know what Uchihas can do, right?"

"When you put it that way, it might be true," Pain admitted. "However, the fact that the jinchuriki is growing in such an incredible rate cannot be ignored. Konoha is at the weakest now, having suffered from Orochimaru's invasion. I will go there and take both the jinchuriki of the Nine-Tails and One-Tail before they can recover from the battle. And then we can restrict them until we can start gathering the other beasts. That will make our job much easier in the future."