Chapter 124: Encounter with the Akatsuki

"Hachiro-sama, we've gathered together a group of people we don't really know how to deal with."

"Huh..."

Hachiro looked down with interest at the crowd of frozen ice statues. He noticed that, a couple of them were quite familiar, such as Chojuro, the future sixth Mizukage or Ao, a shinobi with a byakugan.

Hiashi seemed to be glaring at the latter with a hint of malice. Probably, itching to destroy the byakugan and remove the stain on their honour from the world.

One man, he didn't recognise, but seemed to be rather important was an elderly individual with even more pronounced wrinkles than the old Hokage, Hiruzen.

Observing his luxurious and opulent clothing, as well as the lack of ice restricting his movement, Hachiro had a good guess as to what he was.

With a faint smile, he asked, "You are?"

The elderly man, reciprocated the expression and attempted to straighten up his back as well as he could for his age.

"I am elder Vaaman of the Mist."

An awkward silence took place. Both men stared at each other, one unsure what to do in his position and the other clueless as to who the other was.

Perhaps understanding Hachiro's plight, Kakashi shifted over to him in a flash and explained.

"He is an esteemed elder, said to have a keen wit and good eye for business opportunities. He has been in power for many years and is rumoured to be older than Ohnoki from Iwagakure."

He nodded and continued to stare at the elderly man blankly.

Before another odd atmosphere lay claim to the area, he turned his head to meet Haku's and asked, "What's the problem?"

Haku looked at him surprised. "Do we still kill him with the same rules for the corrupt?"

Without an ounce of hesitation, he answered, "If he's guilty, sure. Just make sure to get any valuable information from him first."

"Right."

The old elder trembled in fear at the emergence of a vicious and sharp looking icicle.

Vamaan's shifty and sly, eyes dashed around with terror stuck on his face.

His voice shook as much as his body as he spat out trying to convince them to change their minds.

"Ho-Hold on a second! I have equal political power to the Mizukage, I am an extremely influential politician with a massive amount of money! You can have it all! Remember, if you kill me you will only be creating more chaos and a vacuum in power that will give rise to other likewise nasty and manipulative men. If you keep me around at least I will show you all both my hands and the cards I have..."

Hachiro felt an urge to just shut off his ears facing the torrent of persuasion.

He knew himself that this old man wouldn't be allowed to keep his life if he ever got into Obito's way. That or he would be forced into a genjutsu and would simply act as a time bomb if the Cloud decided to spare his life. As for him just not getting in Obito's way? Impossible, if he really had a fifth of the wealth and power he claimed to have had, then he was a perfect target for the emo.

Vamaan heaved and puffed out of breath while looking at him full of hope.

Hachiro shook his head and said, "You misunderstand, we are not killing you. Rather, burdened with old age and the recent attack on his village, elder Vamaan died of a heart attack inside his home."

The old elder, Vamaan started to breathe even heavier, he glared at the liar as despair gradually set in.

No one that could help him now, was going to. He was well aware of that.

Huff! Puff!

The world started to swirl around in his vision, distorting into something incomprehensible.

Damn it! I literally am going to die of a heart attack... wait. Don't tell me this is their doing... It's impossible, a human shouldn't be able to so accurately emulate...

Thud!

The shrivelled up body of Vamaan collapsed to the ground, alerting the nearby Cloud Shinobi of his demise and causing Hachiro to issue a couple of commands.

"Bring the elders body back to read his mind, his brain is intact. Make sure to publicise the actions of the coward who ran away despite his position and try to smoothly transition Terumi Mei into the position of Fifth Mizukage."

Easing his formal tone slightly, Hachiro continued. "Haku, you've showed immense improvement and shall serve as the captain of the Anbu that shall be stationed here. Your first task will be organising our current men into swiftly cleaning up the battlefield and noting down the repairs."

Smiling vibrantly from having his strength acknowledged, Haku exclaimed. "Yes, Hachiro-sama."

In several short moments, everyone was on their feet marching off to complete their issued tasks.

Meanwhile, Hachiro stared off into the distance...

...

...

Along, the shore of the Land of Water.

Mei suppressed the urge to jump out and recklessly attack the Akatsuki standing out in the open.

She murmured angrily, as her back brushed up against the tree.

"He really looks like he's co-operating with those mercenaries..."

Izumi hopped onto the ground beside her, with her blood red eyes examining their opponents.

"Wait. Something seems wrong with the Mizukage."

She frowned and began to doubt her own judgement.

"His chakra pathways are flowing irregularly, in similar way to those under a genjutsu..."

Mei looked at her inquisitively, "But he's a jinchuriki."

"I know."

The Uchiha curtly replied, and tried to fix a few strands of hair that fell over her left eye, with her focus still locked in front of them.

Mei became absent minded and recalled the information she had gathered from the past.

When she thought about it, wasn't Yagura originally, a kind and ambitious, youth aiming to achieve peace and bring happiness to the village? How the heck, did the character of someone change so drastically in such a short period of time with no obvious catalyst in sight.

If he was really in a genjutsu then it would make sense, but only a sharingan could do that leaving the only culprit as... "Itachi Uchiha."

Izumi lost her focus for a moment upon hearing the name, before raising an eyebrow from irritation.

Mei elaborated, "He's the only one who could do something like that. Right?"

Silently, the Anbu ninja shook her head and explained, "Maybe the only one with both motive and ability but he only defected five years ago, and if the start of the bloody mist was the genjutsu's doing then it has been active for well over 10 years now."

With an extra chill in her tone, Mei coldly analysed, "That can only mean another sharingan user has connections to this organisation. I guess it doesn't really matter anyway, they've took Kirigakure as a toy, so I will destroy them no matter what."

Just as they finished their deep discussion, a masked ninja from the Akatsuki started to flail his arms about nervously.

'Tobi', or Obito, started to scream and run around making gestures like a scared toddler.

"L-look, we're being watched! Seniors what should we do?!"

The other Akatsuki members looked at him blankly not losing an ounce of their calmness.

Well aside from Deidara that was.

"Damn it, Tobi! We were waiting for them to approach and now you've ruined our surprise attack!"

The angry, bomb mad man, kicked towards the orange mask covering his face clearly with enough viciousness, that it was hard to believe they weren't great enemies.

That was however, if you didn't consider the man child's ability to phase through attacks.

Tobi pointed towards the trees and shouted, "Senior wait, the enemy is over there!"

Ignoring their antics, a plant like creature emerged from the ground seemingly wrapped exactly half in black ink with white to contrast it.

Black Zetsu glanced towards the other two members of their organisation and proposed.

"I will take Tobi and bring the Three tails back. You two remove our current tail. Itachi, Kisame."

Kisame Hoshigaki, a shark man, got up from the rock he was sitting on and carefully dusted off the sand that had gotten onto Samehada.

"And here I thought I wouldn't have any tiresome work to do."

The duo in the forest, revealed themselves as Mei coldly said, "Really? You know, you shouldn't call women tiresome. Some are quite petty and will take those things to heart. Traitor."

Despite, the cold hearted ninja persona, she was currently adapting, Mei was feeling slightly sentimental.

While, she hadn't pondered over it for long, it seemed that the Mizukage, the one she had judged as her sworn enemy was being manipulated and wasn't the bad person, she took him for.

And Kisame Hoshigaki, who many back in the academy had looked up to was now her opponent. This wasn't a spar either, it was a fight to the death with that former ninja swordsmen of the mist.

With a strange shark smile, Kisame's eyes seemed to grow bigger as he said with interest.

"Mei Terumi. I heard that name brought up by Kakazu, but I seem to have heard it elsewhere as well. So~, who are you?"

Bluntly, she replied. "A former Kiri ninja and the next Mizukage."

The shark burst into a chuckle before restraining himself. "hehaheha-. I'm sorry, I remember you now, you were that unusual genius from the destroyed Terumi clan. I heard you seemed to have destroyed the self esteem of many of your suitors before you were ruled as the demonic shrew, no one wanted to have an engagement with."

The emotionless expression on Mei's face melted away into embarrassment, with her infamous reputation being brought up again in what seemed to be decades.

"You have good memory."

The smile on the mercenary receded.

"I do. I'm a shark, and while we are on this matter, I view this 'betrayal' as you call it as a nice change of pace from that boring, and monotonous sea."

There was an extra emphasis on boring and monotonous as the shark man dragged out the end of the words.

Mei started to approach as she quickly formed some hand seals, and took the initiative to spit out four violent waves from her mouth.

"Time for talk is over! Water Style: Quadruple Rushing Stream!"

With minimal movements, Kisame raised his sword and swung towards the incoming torrent.

The approaching water seemed to gravitate towards the sword and disappear allowing its wielder to avoid the worst of the impact.

As the water lost its momentum and slipped towards the sea, the shark returned to a relaxed stance and asked. "Have you forgotten Samehada's ability?"

His opponent didn't reply. She continued forming a few additional seals, in a weird order he didn't recognise.

Seemingly amused, he spoke. "Is this boil release or lava release? You have them both-"

His speech was interrupted by the sudden appearance of lava leaping up from the ground towards him.

"Hoh? Interesting."

Lava style: Multi Monster Jutsu!

With the intent of solving things with a single slash, Kisame did just that.

However, his pupils dilated as a humanoid shadow appeared behind him...

...

Unlike, their ferocious and land destroying encounter, the other two Uchiha calmly stared at each other.

An invisible tension began to build.

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I'm alive... I think..?