Once More by ItsHardToFindAPenName

Chapter 38: Hashirama's Test

The dark, humongous shape of the Statue of the Outer Path loomed over the walls of the cavern.

"How is the statue?"

"Damaged quite badly. It seems we are not going to store any Tailed Beast into it at least for a month or two."

The Akatsuki members looked at the statue. While still intact, the vessel had suffered quite a lot of damage, thanks to Fuu. There were numerous scratches and chips along the body of the statue, and a huge scorch mark could be seen at the belly of the statue, where Fuu's final attack landed. Even though the statue was repairing itself, it would take quite some time before it could fully recover.

"So, we have suffered another loss. Everything we did, showing ourselves to the world, waging war with two of the Great Villages, only to fail horribly, losing half the force we have, and not only unable to capture any jinchuriki, but also got the vessel damaged," Deidara sneered. "What a way to give the villages a war they would remember, yeah."

The mad bomber didn't speak about anyone exactly, but the implication behind his words were too clear to ignore. Everyone standing in the chamber cringed; surely there's going to be a rage burst from Pain, and the fool would be murdered in a blink of an eye...

But before Pain could do anything...

"Who said that this is a loss?"

Deidara blinked. "This isn't?"

"Even though we failed to extract the Six-Tails completely, we still managed to gather most of its chakra in the Statue," Tobi answered in place of Pain. "The jinchuriki of the Six-Tails is not going to be able to use his Tailed Beast for a while. Moreover, we also managed to cripple two of the Great Villages. The balance between the Great Villages is now lower than ever before. That's an advantage for us to exploit when going for the other Tailed Beasts."

"But that also means we're now the number one enemies of the world," Sasori pointed out. "It would make our activities from now on way more difficult than before. And now with all the other Tailed Beast either dead or in the hand of the Great Villages, what are you planning to do?"

Konan glanced at Tobi. The masked Uchiha, since the assault of the Third Hokage and Jiraiya at Amegakure, had been trying further and further to take over the Akatsuki from Pain's hand. And Konan knew that not only her, but the other members of the Akatsuki also realized that problem.

But the problem is, there was nothing she or anyone could do about that right now. Even though Tobi hadn't shown anything that could be considered dangerous since his appearance except for his teleporting ability, there was still something in him that made everyone wary. Maybe it was his mysteriously alluring, manipulative charisma, or maybe it was his intimidating inner aura that any powerful shinobi could feel standing near him. This was actually the first time anyone raised their voice against him.

"What matters right now is," Tobi was saying, "we need more people. Not the kind of useless cannon fodders; we need skilled people with great power in their possession. Our loss of Kakuzu and Hidan under the hand of the Nine-Tails really took us back a lot. And this mission has shown that it is impossible to fight the Nine-Tails with sheer number alone. We should hold back on Tailed Beast hunting for a while and try to recruit more people first. At least we need to wait until the statue finishes repairing itself," he added seeing the expression of the other members.

"Just do what you think is the best," Pain waved his hand towards Tobi, then turned away and walked out of the chamber without saying anything else.

When the back of Yahiko's body disappeared from her view, Konan knew. It was time for her to do something about Tobi, or if the worst thing happened...