Disclaimer:


Naruto world and characters (c) the guy who owns Naruto whose name I forgot again.

Haruka, Masuyo (c) me, Zopponde, useage only welcome with advance permission and a link to the finished piece. Oh! And Misaki gets mentioned. She's mine too.

Certain events may or may not be probably improbable or possibly impossible. Tough cookies.



Author's notes:

At the bottom there's a section marked "Mockery 1". Why? Yes, why...I think I was half-asleep when I wrote it. It's pretty much a crackier bit that really does nothing for the plot so I tried to seperate it. And there shouldn't be anything wrong with that because, let's face it, Naruto is hardly the most serious anime in the world. I mean, how many battles/missions have been determined won or lost based entirely on Naruto farting?

And please note that I have some SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND WORDS on this story. I'm not taking forever posting it because I have writer's block or anything like that, I'm not posting it because nobody will look at it anyway! So comment and you'll see so much more!

And I'd say that I'm accepting OC's, but I'm not sure what I'd do with them, and it would take FOREVER to get to the point where they show up.






Motion
Chapter 5

Haruka was really tired the next morning. She had used a useful little trick, based off of the subsitution jutsu, to get herself back into her clone’s shoes speedily, but it had still been late at night when she reached a range that she could use it at.

She yawned widely, thinking of the memories she received after she disspelled the clone. At first she was irritated that the clone had spilled her secrets, but she soon realized that it had been precautious and hadn’t confessed until Itachi told her what he had done.

As they settled for breakfast, Haruka couldn’t help wondering what would happen next.

It wasn’t such an easy topic to bring up, apparently. She found herself shifting nervously instead of saying anything. Finally, she sighed and blurted, “So, what happens next?”

Itachi and Kisame both turned to look at her, and she suddenly wasn’t so sure. “What do you mean?” Itachi asked.

“Oh, well, it’s just,” Haruka realized that she really would have been better off just waiting, “I don’t think we can just stay here, you know? It’s not a permanent residence, is it?”

Itachi and Kisame shared a look. Itachi turned back to Haruka and said, “I suppose we never did fully explain much about ourselves. We both are members in a certain organization, which has certain goals that are being achieved by a means that requires us to move about a lot. We probably wouldn’t have found you if it wasn’t for this.

“After a brief conscultation with the leader,” Itachi went on, “we have decided that we may be able to give you a role in this organization.”

Haruka felt some triumph from this statement. Things are starting to look up a bit.

“However,” Itachi continued, squinting slightly as he told Haruka, “do not be fooled. You are not being considered a full member.”

Kisame rolled his eyes and growled, “Just the next-best thing.”

This put a slight damper on Haruka’s spirits, but not much of one. She still had something to do. “So what do I need to do?”

Kisame glared at her. “Itachi did all the work for you. All we have to do now is show up at the base and keep the place clean with Misaki.”

Haruka’s heart sank. Cleaning? Did they just take me in as a maid?

Itachi noticed the look on her face. “I think she’ll be getting out more now that she has a partner.”

Kisame groaned. “Now she’s getting a partner? Really, what’s the difference between ‘honorary spy’ or whatever we call her and a full-blown member?”

Itachi turned to glare at Kisame. “She made that robe herself and only got the nail polish because you left it out. The only thing different about her is that she lives in the base, and since we can’t find anything for her to do, she spends most of it cleaning the base.”

Haruka relaxed. Maybe it won’t be so bad, she thought. Well, maybe…

~~~

It took them another day to get to the base. Haruka was bored throughout the whole of it, due to the fact that neither Itachi nor Kisame seemed capable of keeping a conversation alive more than a full minute, if that, and neither of them seemed willing to do so, either.

Finally, they reached the…Haruka suddenly realized that she didn’t even know the name of this organization. She closed her eyes and cursed herself for her idiocy. Let’s run around getting recruited into an organization of criminals that I don’t even know the name of, she thought sarcastically as she observed the entrance to the base.

The moment she saw it, she sighed and amended, Okay. An organization that I don’t even know the name of, consisting pretty much or absolutely entirely of criminals whom I will be trapped with in a hole in the side of a river, blocked in by a giant rock. See and marvel at the awesome intelligence of Niroshi Haruka.

Itachi sighed a narrated, “That’s the entrance to the main base. Inside is where…well, it’s our base. There are no living quarters here, but there are some nearby.”

Haruka was slightly surprised at this. What else was a base for, other than housing for a bunch of people of the same organization? Well, I guess it’s not such a normal sort of organization, she figured.

The sun was already worryingly close to the horizon. Haruka was still tired from her late night out, and the day-long trip hardly helped at all. How far could she go before she just collapsed? Itachi and Kisame apparently had little more need for food as they did for conversation, because they only stopped to eat once, and that was pretty much long enough to take out a snack-like quantity of food that they ate as they went. Haruka was about ready to have a feast of fish, even raw. She felt like she could eat a fish the size of a shark.

She closed her eyes as she tried to stop herself from thinking of eating Kisame. Shark-like as he is, she told herself, he’s still Itachi-niisama’s partner, and if you can’t live with him without eating him, you’ve just lost your chance at a home and set a bunch of criminals against you.

She still found herself eyeing his arm hungrily as she followed him.



Motion Sickness
Mockery 1

The last sliver of the sun was slipping away below the horizon, probably moments from being lost behind the great mass of rock that was the planet, when Itachi, in the lead, began to slow down. Finally, she thought. Please tell me that this is for these living quarters and not to sleep out in the forest again. She was almost surprised to realize that she was missing that ruined old shack that smelled of fish, but it was the best place that she’d slept in since she first tried to kill Masuyo.

The three came to a stop in something of a clearing with a strange moss-covered rock in the approximate center, and Itachi continued his commentary.

“This is,” he began, putting one foot up on the small stone, “a rock.”

Haruka almost fell over at the thought of taking the effort to stop just to see a rock.

“One of the rocks that tells you that you’re near the Akatsuki living quarters,” he added mercifully. “There are three other such rocks, all in a clearing like this, each marking the corner of a square, in the center of which is a small house. That is where you will be staying. And please do not state the obvious about how strange and mossy these rocks are. There are things in this forest that seem to use such obvious statements against us.”

Haruka wondered vaguely what was wrong with mentioning how strange the moss-covered rock was, when she was suddenly struck very hard by a heavy dizzy spell. Due to her hunger and exhaustion in combination with this, she completely lost her balance and fell over ungracefully.

Itachi sighed and helped her up. “You thought about it, didn’t you?”

Haruka nodded, rather breathless, and ended up getting half-carried, half-dragged the rest of the way by Itachi, wondering in awe what person—or thing—was strong enough to know what she thought and capable of making her feel such strong effects just thinking of a rock!

Little did she know, this was only a small sample of the power held by the great deity of Akatsukism, known simply as The Author, and The Author had great power. A very great power indeed…

Haruka heard Kisame trip and fall, and he soon followed, complaining, “Ow, my fourth wall.”


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author's note: Kisame's line is my absolute favorite in the history of the world. I just had to put it in somehow.

And...the moss-covered rock came from a childrens' book that I used to read--"Anasazia and the Strange Moss-Covered Rock", I think. Everyone walks up to the rock, says, "My, what a strange moss-covered rock!" then it goes "KA-PONG!" and they're unconscious, then the spider steals their stuff. And I do point out every moss-covered rock I see, calling them MCRs. "OMG MCR!" it's pretty funny, seeing as I spent the first two weeks of summer in the woods...surrounded by strange, moss-covered rocks (KA-PONG!). The abbreviation is also partially so I can be walking in the woods with a My Chemical Romance fan and I'll go "OMG MCR!" and they'll be, "Where? I want their autograph!" or something. And I'll be like, "I want it too, but how does a rock give you their autograph?"

At least I kept most of my ramblings at the bottom so you wouldn't have to find the end of them to read the story!

And...COMMENT ON MY BABY! The thing stole my soul--no, it is my soul, the least you could do is at least pretend that you have some appreciation for my soul! TT.TT and people wonder why I wear so much black. I'm freaking depressed that's why! And why am I depressed? Because everyone seems to hate my soul!

So COMMENT ON IT or I will WHINE SOME MORE!!!!