The Real Me

57

For the past few, no, many months, Naruto had been switched between different teams. Just to check his 'compatibility'.

The worst thing about this was, The Akatsuki didn't really have a hideout.
The purple hair lady and the orange hair man, whose names he had learned were, Konan and Pain (Some of you may call him Pein but let's go with Pain here k?)respectively, seemed to have their own hideout somewhere, but they never really.

At first he got paired with Sasori, who was actually Deidara's partner, but had been 'working' on something previously.
Sasori was ugly. Ugly as hell. He made rackety noises, and old man sounds and was so deformed it made Naruto gag.
But of course he didn't do anything about it. Their partnership lasted only one mission, in which Naruto didn't get to do anything.

"Don't interfere." Sasori had said, before finishing the business.
"Hey! I didn't get to do anything!" Naruto had tried protesting.
"You're new here, so I don't trust your skills." That was all Sasori had said.
This old fart could go eat shit and die.

After a few months, he landed up with Hidan and Kakuzu.
A truly weird pair. Hidan kind of reminded Naruto of Deidara, but...he couldn't really decide which one of them was more stupid.
Of course, both of them were quite skilled and Naruto had never imagined that such weird waysof using chakra existed.

But even the mission with these two didn't go well...
Kakuzu continuously rambled about their low pay, and Hidan cursed at everything around them.

"Why are you so pissed?" Naruto had asked, pretty confused. He didn't understand what had happened, but Hidan ignored him and continued grumbling.
Later when they encountered the wealthy merchant that they were supposed to take down, Kakuzu told him specifically not to do anything and just stay back. "But why?!" Naruto whined, Hidan smirked at him, "Watch amd learn kid."
He then proceeded to whip his huge scythe around and slashed at the merchants arm. He licked his blood, which was kinda gross, but what could Naruto say? He had done something like this on several instances as well...
Hidan's methods were quite interesting and Naruto was quick to make mental notes of it.
It was pretty satisfying to watch Hidan stab himself and the merchant writhing in agony.
As much as he was disliking Hidan's personality, he was actually in awe of his method.

But of course, Hidan wouldn't even talk to him, much less tell him about his tricks.
"Is it because of me?" He asked. It had been a while a they were returning, ad Hidan was still cussing.
But at that question Hidan paused and turned around. His expression was purely pissed. His eyebrows raised more than Naruto had imagined to be possible.

"Is it because of you? OF FUCKING COURSE IT'S BECAUSE OF YOU." Hidan had began yelling. Now it was Naruto's turn to raise his brows.

Kakuzu simply sighed, as Hidan continued ranting.
"IT TOOK ME SO MUCH FUCKING TIME TO PERFECT MY METHOD. I HAD TO BE FUCKING RECRUITED BY THEM. I FUCKING LOST!! AND THAT IS HOW I JOINED! BUT YOU? YOU , JUST A PATHETIC SMALL FRY HAD THE AUDACITY TO COME KNOCKING AT OUR APPARENTLY SUPER SECRET ORGANISATION AND YOU WON??? AGAINST THAT LADY?? AND YOU GOT ACCEPTED??
WHAT?? THE??? ACTUAL?? FUCK??"

Now that Hidan mentioned it, it did make some sense, so Naruto simply decided to back off...no point angering this guy.

And lastly he had been paired with Itachi and Kisame. He had looked forward to this one. He had wanted to have a chat about Sasuke with his brother. And he wanted to know about the massacre. But...things don't always go quite as planned.

This time, they were supposed to be assassinating a rich landlord because another rich landlord wanted this rich landlord's land.
Huh.
The blond had already given up hope of trying to get some action, so he didn't even bother when Kisame went ahead after flashing them a thumbs up. Itachi didn't even bother moving a muscle. So he had stayed back with Itachi in the fields far away from the guy-who-was-about-to-die's house.
Naruto had known why Kisame went alone, it was because the the rich landlord was too dumb to have shinobi guards. Kisame could get over with this in a hour, but knowing these people, they like to take their time with killing.