Reaching For A Dream by Noodlehammer

Chapter 16

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Unknown location.

The remaining members of Akatsuki were once again gathered together to discuss their future goals. Pain had deemed it necessary call a full meeting once more, due to a few slight objective changes.

"With Deidara and Sasori dead, along with other developments, we need to make some adjustments to the plan." Pain spoke, bringing everyone's attention to him.

Though 'Tobi' had retrieved Deidara, the explosives expert had still been poisoned and none of them were skilled enough with medical Ninjutsu to cure him of it, not to mention that the poisoning had been in an advanced stage already.

Deidara's death wasn't actually that great a loss. Aside from his ability to fly, which allowed him to cover vast distances with great speed, he was more or less just a grunt...in other words, dumb muscle.

The retrieval had been more about the Akatsuki ring than Deidara's life in all honesty.

Sasori's loss had been a much more severe blow. Aside from being very skilled and intelligent, the puppeteer had also established a wide ranging spy network across the elemental nations. Zetsu was the uncontested best spy in existence, but the amount of information gained by having agents planted everywhere was considerable.

"Hidan and Kakuzu will go after the Nibi in Kumo."

"Nii Yugito has a high bounty on her, I'll collect on it after we seal the Nibi." Kakuzu said in approval, mostly to himself.

"Fucking heathen, the only thing you care about is money." Hidan scoffed in disdain.

"It's better than your religion, money is at least useful." Kakuzu retorted with equal disdain.

"Enough." Pain declared. The command in his distorted voice was clear and nobody dared disobey. Hidan had only needed one demonstration of soul removal to convince him that his immortality could be worked around and Kakuzu had quickly seen that his many destructive Ninjutsu were worse than useless against the Preta Path. Both were pretty much press ganged into the service of Akatsuki, but there was nothing that could be done about it.

They didn't really mind too much, since one got to collect high bounties and the other got to sacrifice people to Jashin on a regular basis.

"We have lost track of the Sanbi, so Zetsu will search the coastlines of Water Country where it was last seen, Tobi will help him."

"Ooh, Tobi gets to help mister Zetsu on his mission! Tobi is so excited!" Tobi exclaimed, but was for the most part ignored completely, only Kisame giving a small, amused smirk at the masked man-child.

"Itachi and Kisame will remain inactive for now. We will gather again once the Nibi is due for extraction."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Xanna lay awake on Naruto's chest, her tails out and swishing through the air lazily. She enjoyed having her tails out like this, it somehow felt much better than keeping them hidden, but often there was no other choice. They were quite simply, in a damn inconvenient spot if she wanted to sit down, or lie on her back for that matter. In a fox body it wouldn't have been an issue, but a human body was structured a bit differently. She had been rather amused by the human habit of using their butts for sitting down at first, until she decided to make a human form body one day and discovered that it really was the only way to get comfortable without lying down. It had been an even stranger experience to get used to lying on her back.

She observed her sleeping lover and mused that it still felt strange to think of him as such. Naruto had truly surprised her with his endless persistence. She had never expected him to actually succeed at getting her to love him, hadn't truly believed herself capable of it the emotion to be honest and yet this stupidly stubborn man had drawn it out of her.