Inevitable
Chapter 25

"Are you sure brotherand Ameji are alright? They've been on this mission for such a long time,"Sasuke asked for the umpteenth time in the past few months, which anyone couldtell was annoying his parents.

"Itachi is anUchiha and Amejisuto is his apprentice. There is only a very slim possibilitythat they are hurt or even dead," Fugaku said without emotion, flipping toa new page in the newspaper he was reading.

Mikoto sighed at herhusband's lack of concern for his eldest son and their future daughter-in-law."I'm sure they're just fine. It's been a few months and they should begetting home soon."

"Seriously, whatare they doing?" The young Uchiha almost whined (but he didn't becauseUchiha's don't whine).

"Sasuke, you havebeen asking the same question since you got back from that one mission. Enoughalready," his father scowled.

He hung his head andstayed quiet, remembering what Shikamaru had said to him before. If it wasreally important, they would tell him. "So, I have this mission I'm goingon with Neji soon," he decided to change the subject.

"What kind ofmission is it?" Mikoto went over to the fridge and pulled out somevegetables and fruits for a healthy afternoon snack, and started to cut themup. She listened half-interested as she arranged the food into an appetizingarrangement. She set the plate down on the table where Sasuke instantly wentfor the tomatoes while continuing on with the mission details. Something abouttracking a prisoner that escaped. Once he finished talking, he starteddevouring the rest of the snack (gracefully, as Uchihas do,) and his motherdrifted into her own thoughts, once again directed toward the subject of hereldest son and his bride-to-be.

She worried andthought about them a lot, and it was aggravating that she didn't know how theywere doing. They could be locked up, tortured or even dead for all she wouldknow, and yet she was at home unable to do anything, with a husband that justdidn't care and a son that would go on a rampage and get killed if he knew whatwas going on.

"Mother, is theresomething wrong?" Sasuke broke into her thoughts.

"Why would youask, dear?" she put on a fake smile.

"You're sighing alot."

"Thanks forworrying, but I'm just a bit tired today," she replied. Her youngest soneyed her suspiciously once more and returned to eating, leaving her to wallowin her worries once more.

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"I said I'm fine, Itachi!" Amejisuto said,yanking her arm out of Itachi's hands and wincing slightly. She had justsparred with Tobi, who, to her surprise, could make himself intangible, but heactually bothered to spar fairly with her a bit before she threw a punch thatwould've broken his mask. She passed right through him, but since it caught heroff guard, she didn't remember to soften her fall and landed badly on her arm. Ofcourse, he apologised a million times but Itachi had run over to her and wascurrently checking her arm for any damages.

"I think youmight just have a bad bruise, a fracture at worst. You need to have it wrappedand iced right away," he left but got back quickly carrying a few rolls ofbandages and an ice pack. He tended to her limb while she kept quiet and glaredat the ground, knowing it would be best not to protest. It did hurt, but she didn't see the need to be over-caring about it.Ninjas got injured all the time!

All members in thetraining grounds, who were made up of Amejisuto, Itachi, Tobi and Deidara,froze when hearing Pain's voice ringing in their minds, telling them to get tothe main meeting room. They dropped everything they were doing and ran to theroom where the other members were already gathered. "We have decided onwho will go on the hunt for the eight tails," Pain announced.

All membersstraightened up (some with fear, others with excitement) as the pierced manpaused to gather the curiosity of the Akatsuki before smirking. "I will begoing myself, along with Konan, Hidan, Kakuzu and Kisame. The next month willbe filled with training and sparring to get prepared for the capture of one ofthe most powerful jinchuriki."

The listed membersother than Konan and Tobi cheered while the others sighed in relief, though itwas hard to tell if the two had any reaction at all. The members that werestaying at the base rushed to the training grounds and the others could hearbattle cries and clashing weapons almost immediately. In the Akatsuki, it waseasy to tell who the bloodthirsty ones and lovers of fighting were.

Ameji and Itachidecided to avoid the training grounds and instead headed to the kitchen to geta snack. In the past few days, ever since Itachi was forced to make dinner thatone night, he had been appointed official Akatsuki chef for the most part sinceeveryone loved that his cooking wasn't burnt, raw, inedible, disgusting orwould make them cannibals.

He heated up a fewbowls of leftover udon and he and Ameji dug into the food quickly, hungry fromtraining so hard. The brunette was having a bit of trouble since she had to eatwith her left hand since her right hand was most likely fractured and wascurrently wrapped up in a billion bandages.

"Need somehelp?" she looked up and saw Itachi was already finished with his food andputting the bowl in the sink.

"Help?" sherepeated, tilting her head to the side, trying to understand what he meant. Howcould he help her?

He walked over andtook her chopsticks, and before she could protest, he held them in front of hermouth. They were now filled with noodles. "Come on, it's not like Ipoisoned it," he joked when she hesitated.

"No, it's justembarrassing to be treated like a little child," she sighed before givingin and opening her mouth.

"Good girl,"he teased when she had a mouth filled with food. She couldn’t talk back, so shesettled for glaring instead. He fed her in silence like that for a few minutesuntil the bowl was empty. He then took her dishes to the sink while shefinished swallowing her mouthful.

"Thanks,"she mumbled.

"Any time. Nowlet's go to our room so we can get a better look at your arm."

It turned out that herarm was only badly bruised, so she would heal quickly. The Uchiha finallybacked off and started letting her do things by herself again after making itso that she could actually move herarm by taking off the billions of bandages that cushioned it.

They decided it wouldbe best if they took the rest of the day off of training anyways, and maybe thenext day for Amejisuto. Instead, they decided on looking for Konan and askingfor small tasks they could do. It was easier to replace her than they thought itwould be; she was in the main office room, sitting on a couch and lookingthrough a few files.

"Itachi,Amejisuto," she greeted. "What can I do for you?"

"Is there anysmall task we can do while Ameji's arm heals?" Itachi inquired. The bluehaired woman thought for a moment before opening a drawer in a nearby desk.

"Kakuzu has alarge interest in hunting down ninja in the bingo book and turning them in, butsome ninja are not worth it. He's too stubborn to agree to understand, so Isaid I would go through the book and mark down the ones he could capture. Couldyou please go through it and mark down who Zetsu should be sent to replace?" sherequested, handing over a large book with many ninja names and faces in it withlarge sums of money written underneath. The two nodded and Itachi took thebook. "You can complete itwherever, just don't take out any names even if they are your friends."

"Understood,"they said simultaneously before leaving Konan to go back to her work.

---

"Wow, there areso many people in here that I've never even heard of," Amejisuto flippedto another page, intently reading a file abut some Iwagakure missing ninja thatwas worth over five billion ryo. "Usuyo Samokachi, twenty four years old.Listed in the bingo book for killing his own genin squad and then all the othergenin of his village. He was an ANBU captain so he's highly skilled."

"Sounds easyenough," Itachi shrugged. "That type of person would probably stickclose to his home village to hunt down some random genin."

As if summoned by justtheir thoughts, a Zetsu clone appeared. They had already sent out a few; thiswas the fifth, so they weren't surprised at all at his sudden appearance.

"You should gosearch around Iwa for this man," the brunette held up the photo of Usuyo.Just as quickly and silently as the Zetsu clone appeared, he left.

"This is boringbut also interesting at the same time," Ameji said as she looked through afew more files. After a few moments of silence other than the shuffling soundof the papers, she gasped and stared wide-eyed at one of the sheets.

"What'swrong?" Itachi asked, crawling over to where she was and looking at the paper.His eyes grew wide too as he saw a stamp on the sheet marking the person to behunted next.

"Asuma."