Inevitable

Suttefani Soule, a twenty year old Kusagakure kunoichi with long purple hair and blue eyes, was taken by surprise as two unknown shinobi had jumped in front of her with no warning. They were in the middle of an abandoned field, about twenty minutes away from her village. Her eyes widened as she recognized their cloaks; the red clouds against the black fabric were a dead giveaway that these ninja were part of the Akatsuki.

Of course, as a kunoichi who was known to have Intel on the criminal organization, she was expecting them to find her eventually, but not this soon. Looking closer at them, she realised she had never heard of the descriptions, let alone names, of these two members before.

"Oh, sorry. Did we hurt you at all?" the female member asked as she offered a hand up. That was when Suttefani noticed she had been pushed to the ground.

"I don't think Pain wants us to be nice to her," the male of the two spoke.

"He said not to kill her so there's no use of being hostile and rude. She might start a fight then," the brunette reasoned with her partner.

"Hn."

The purple haired girl looked closer at the raven and her face grew pink.

"Y-you…" She mumbled before jumping on her feet and attaching herself to the man's arm. "You're super cute! Wanna go out?" The Kusa kunoichi immediately sensed danger and turned to look at the other girl whose concerned gaze turned into a sharp glare and a snarl.

"Get off of him this instant," she growled.

"And why should I do that?"

"Yah," Itachi smirked. "Why should she let go of me? It's not like you're going to attack. You wanted to prevent that, didn't you?" he teased.

"You should make her let go because you're mine," Ameji hissed, glaring even harder at the other girl. The Uchiha was impressed - if his fiancée worked on her glare a bit more, she would fit right into his clan by the standards of the hereditary evil gaze. He also found it amusing that she could get so jealous.

Of course, he would never stoop so low to even give another girl the satisfaction of him flirting with her, but for now he would allow her to cling to his arm, though it did bug him ever so slightly.

"So, you guys are from the Akatsuki, right?" she guessed.

"If you already assumed that, why would you allow yourself to cling to a criminal that could easily kill you?" Itachi responded.

"I've been prepared for one of you guys to assassinate me for a while now, so I'm not too afraid."

"You should be," Ameji was now radiating an extremely bloodthirsty aura. "I don't care if you aren't afraid of the organization, but you better be damn afraid of me!" She ran forward and punched the other kunoichi, who let go of Itachi in surprise and pain and landed on the ground once more. The brunette then gathered chakra in her lungs and started whistling the deadly tune that would tear through any part of the girl's body - she had been training.

Suttefani screamed slightly as cuts appeared on her face and shoulders. Most were extremely shallow cuts, barely scrapes, but the few that weren't scratches ran deep, cutting her lips, ears, nose and were as deep as kunai around her collarbone. "Stay away from my fiancée!" the Ishi spat.

She struggled to get up with the wounds, but managed to stand again. "Fine, I'll leave him alone. I feel bad for the guy, apparently being engaged to you and all."

"Just come with us," Amejisuto snarled before grabbing the other kunoichi's arm and tugging harshly to drag her back to the base. Itachi cast a genjutsu that made it like she was sleepwalking; she could still go with them, she just wouldn't be able to remember anything of the journey as if her eyes were closed the whole time. It would take a while to get back to base at the slow pace. They had just over a week left and would be lucky if they made it on time.

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Deidara groaned as he wandered through the damp depressing land of water. Why Kisame wasn't assigned to capture the Kirigakure ninja that the blonde was on the lookout for, he didn't know.

The bomb enthusiast growled as his hair started puffing up slightly. He wasn't too hair-obsessed or anything; he just didn't want to capture someone who was only weakened due to laughing at a man who looked like he had a giant yellow puffball on his head. Hopefully this 'Jun Hazu' would be captured easily.

"Of course Leader would give the only justifiable capture to the goodie team," he mumbled, used to getting unreasonable and unfair targets. After his three years spent in the Akatsuki (being forced in because Orochimaru defeated him by having more snakes then Deidara had in explosives handy) he should've lost all sense of justice.

It still was unfair to the bluenet he had to capture. Itachi and Amejisuto were the only team who had to go get a real threat to the Akatsuki.

Yes, there were more targets. He thought back to the meeting room where they gathered a few hours after the Konoha duo left. He was assigned first to capture Jun and left, though he knew there were more ninja that the criminals were being sent out to capture but not kill.

Deidara shrugged; he had learned to not bother questioning Pain's motives a long time ago.

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Kisame Hoshigaki, most ruthless killer from a previously ruthless and blood-thirsty village, had finally captured Aika Tsugoi with difficulty. At a point in their fight, he was questioning if she was actually the eight-tails jinchuriki, but Samehada had assured him that she wasn't.

'Maybe I'm just getting old,' he thought as he picked the unconscious Kumogakure girl up with slight difficulty. He chuckled to himself. 'Nah.'

He started walking back to the Akatsuki base with a slight limp. Unlike Deidara, he didn't feel guilty at all for capturing an innocent person that had nothing to do with anything. Actually, he didn't really care. The Akatsuki was where he fit in; living with killers and criminals like himself was not quite satisfying but not uninteresting. It was now his family, and he had even accepted Itachi and Amejisuto into it already. He inwardly grimaced at what a softie he could be sometimes.

He focused his attention back to the girl he was capturing. She was already coming back to consciousness, and he didn't feel like fighting her anymore. He dropped her, giving her more bruises, and took out his spiky sword to take almost all of her chakra. Of course, Pain would do the same when he got back, but whatever.

The reason they were even capturing these people was a mystery to him that he barely cared about. Of course he was curious, but he just knew it either wasn't too important or Pain would tell them later.

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Orochimaru grinned evilly as one of his snakes slithered up to the Iwagakure kunoichi and bit her on the left thigh, getting its poison into her bloodstream as quickly as possible. She jumped up, screaming in pain as the venom burned through her blood.

The snake master was hiding in the bushes, watching Heiwana Tsuku twist, gasp and cry out. What a great coincidence for him that she was alone; if anyone had been around they would've helped her and found him.

"Such innocent but powerful blood needs to be harnessed for the collection of Akatsuki hostages," he hissed, walking to her. She looked at him in horror and let out one last cry, and fell quiet with a choked gasp. "Don't worry, the poison won't kill you," he set out a scroll and transported her to headquarters. If his timing was correct, she would get there when most other hostages did.

He knew of the plans Pain had made and was excited for it. Bloodshed was always fun to watch and battles were great opportunities to find and 'collect' special kekkei genkai.

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Dekkusu Yutakana was going about his day, feeling like he was being watched. Though it wasn't unusual to be watched due to being in a high-classed clan in Sunagakure, this was different. It wasn't stares of jealousy or respect… It felt evil and bloodthirsty. He was immediately ready to battle but didn't give it away as he pulled out a special kunai and looked at it, pretending he was just mesmerised by the design.

He could feel the person's malicious chakra to the left.

Of course, Dekkusu didn't want to start a battle in his precious village. Due to the large amount of chakra his soon-to-be opponent had, he doubted he would even stand a chance, but he had some hope that he might be able to win and pull it off without alerting anyone else and putting them in danger.

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Madara watched the boy with interest. 'He knows I'm here,' he thought, amused that the orange haired teenager was obviously leading him out into the desert and away from Suna. 'This is going to be a decent battle. Not too easy, but I'll win in the end.'

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"Leader, I brought the ninja you requested," Deidara bowed, presenting a spiky blue haired boy with bright green eyes - so bright they practically glowed. His headband marking was one of Kirigakure.

"Good. Now go rest," Pain ordered.

The blonde left, only to be replaced a few minutes later by Kisame. "I brought the kid," he shoved a gray haired and eyed girl with a Kumogakure headband into the meeting room and left without being dismissed; not that the Akatsuki 'leader' cared.

Within the next hour, he also received an Iwa kunoichi with short black hair and unusual dark pink eyes, a young boy from Suna with orange hair and black eyes and the woman from Kusa with purple hair and blue eyes. She seemed more outwardly injured than the others, having cuts instead of just bruises. The orange haired man shrugged.

If Pain could count on anything from his criminal organisation, it was punctuation, though it was odd that he got the Kusa kunoichi last even though he sent that team out first. He sat down and sighed, not really giving a damn, instead running through the upcoming events in his mind once more.

After a few minutes, he approached the captured ninja from the great villages, taking all chakra except what was necessary to keep them alive. He then tied them up and transported them to the hideout's dungeon that only he, Konan and Madara knew about. Not even Orochimaru, the man who built most of the hideout with his snakes, knew it existed.

He didn't need to take ninja from Amegakure, Konohagakure or Otogakure; he and Orochimaru were the leaders of two of those listed villages and they already had their hostage from Konoha in their grasp.

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