Starting over

#70 Akatsuki

Naruto POV

Grinning, I threw a small water ball jutsu at Gaara who replied laughing with his sand sweeping my legs from the ground. I laughed as I backflipped, landing on my feet.

"Hey, stop it, we are not here to have fun.", Baki scolded us, even though he himself was smiling. Temari smiled, taking my hand and slowing down a bit, so that we fell back behind Tazuna and his family, who were laughing and talking between themselves. Although I think that they were amused by how we would play tricks on each other.

Smiling, I let go of my girlfriend's hand and put my arm around her waist. Then Baki suddenly waved his hand behind his back two times, immediately putting us on alert, since that was the secret sign that he has felt two chakra signatures ahead.

We continued smiling and laughing, although my hand wandered to my back, towards my sword that was strapped over my shoulder. My other hand slowly went behind Temari and unbuckled the safety strap on her fan. Luckily our clients did not see the sign that Baki gave us and continued to smile and laugh, while we readied ourselves for the upcoming fight. Walking around a corner we saw two people standing on the road, blocking our way. They both had black cloaks that were cover with red clouds. Identifying them as members of the Akatsuki, a group that was composed of high ranking missing ninja, going around and doing the dirty work for everyone that had the necessary change.

We walked on, until we were in hearing distance of the two men, where we stopped and looked at them, waiting for them to tell us what they wanted or to let us through.

"Well, seems the old geezer has hired some protection.", the shorter of the two said. He looked as if he was hunched over. I knew, that he was Sasori, a former shinobi from Suna. The guy next to him had a high ponytail and mouths on his hands, making him easily identifiable as Deidara, a former Iwagakure ninja. I tightened my grip on my sword as Temari and I moved forward, to stand in between our clients and the two shinobi.

Baki took a step forward, putting up his hands readily. "I thought the Akatsuki would be a bit more respectable, not taking some lowly man's mission.", he commented. "He is paying good money.", the smaller one said. "Well, I am glad, that obviously your leader though that this mission would be an easy one and sent the two weakest members. Or am I wrong, Deidara, Sasori?", our leader said, trying to make them angry. Temari slowly opened her fan while I unsheathed my katana. Gaara's sand was already flowing around him, ready to strike.

Deidara's face had turned from happy to outraged from the comment that Baki had made. Sasori's face was still hidden, but his entire body was slightly shaking. It was safe to say, they were pissed.

Then it all happened extremely fast. Gaara, who had apparently been sending sand underground, smiled and before anyone could react he had his sand wrapped around Sasori, before compressing his sand and shattering the body of the former sand shinobi.

Deidara looked on in shock as his partner was attacked, but still managed to evade the attack from Temari and me. Screaming something about art he produced some clay from the mouths on his hands, before molding it into little birds, throwing them at us.

Temari swung her fan and pumped chakra into it, creating a large gust of wind that pushed the clay animals away from us. Turning back at Deidara we saw him smiling. I was confused until I saw the birds in the corner of my eye turn and head back in our direction. Realising that he managed to somehow make them sentient I readied my sword to cut them down one by one, forgetting the fact that his clay was explosive. Temari meanwhile had engaged the blonde man himself and was keeping him occupied with her fan. When the small birds came close to me, I noticed how they started to grow rapidly, remembering that they were explosives I screamed. I threw my kunai, which, like all of my weapons had my own hiraishin seal on it, in a random direction, and tried to teleport to it.

Sasori POV

I watched from the shadows, as the two blonde teammates were fighting Deidara. The redhead and their team leader were protecting the client, while the younger one was sending sand to help his teammates, intercepting slashes from Deidara and shielding the girl from the small explosives he would throw in her face.

Then suddenly a yellow flash cut through the battlefield. It reminded me of the tales told about the fourth Hokage, who was supposed to have been able to teleport around the battlefield, only leaving behind dead bodies and a yellow flash.

Then I remembered that one of the kids from Suna was the son of said Hokage and had moved to the sand after being banished from Konoha. I grew worried and decided not to play around anymore.

Naruto POV

I smiled, as I realized that I finally was fast enough to use the hiraishin proficiently in battle. Temari and Deidara had just jumped away from each other after Gaara's sand had blocked another attack from the explosive user. Raising my sword, I jumped towards the Akatsuki who had his sight still trained on my girlfriend, only to find my sword being blocked by something. Deidara's eyes went wide as he heard the noise and he jumped away from me. I looked down up to see some sort of black sand enveloping my sword. Jumping away and regrouping with Temari and the others I saw Sasori commanding a puppet, that looked an awful lot like the third Kazekage. I wasn't as shocked as the others, since I already knew that Sasori had this puppet from the other timeline, although I was still shocked, since I thought that Gaara would have crushed Sasori, since he was hiding in his other puppet.

"Let's make this quick.", Sasori said, readying for his next attack.