Azumi stepped onto the field, coughing to clear her throat before addressing the anxious crowd.

"Naruto Uzumaki is not here yet, I will allow him five minutes to show himself!" Azumi announced. "However, if he had not shown himself by then, Gaara will be the winner by default!"

The crowd broke into hushed chatter, many of them worried about Naruto's sudden disappearance. Among these worried folk were his friends from Konoha, the Third Hokage, the villagers he'd met on the street and the orphans he talked to only a few weeks ago.

Azumi remained as collected looking as she could, glancing at her watch before looking over at Gaara. The boy didn't show much of any emotion on his face, but she swore she could see a twinge of concern. Time continued on minutes slowly ticking away until they were only seconds from the five-minute mark. The hand of her watch passed five minutes and Azumi raised a hand, addressing the crowd with a disappointed face.

"Five minutes is now up!" Azumi exclaimed. "Naruto Uzumaki has been disqualified, meaning that the winner of the Chunin Exams is Gaara of Sunagakure!"

Despite his newly announced win, Gaara did not look the slightest bit pleased, and neither was the crowd. Gaara slowly walked over to Azumi, his sea-green eyes staring right at her with an intensity only Gaara could manage.

"Proctor, do you really not know where Naruto is?" Gaara asked.

Azumi shook her head, sighing at the boy. "I'm afraid I don't."

"I see..." Gaara said quietly, then turning around to make his way over to his siblings.

Azumi faced the crowd with a frown. "Everyone wanted Naruto to win this whole thing for Ame, so whatever happened must have been important."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I thought you weren't going to come with us Kaneki," Kana said above the roaring wind as they ran. "Aren't you busy with ANBU stuff?"

"Oh I am plenty busy," Kaneki replied with a groan. "I've just temporarily left my duties to Ume while I'm gone since Pein-sama thought it'd be best if I went with you guys."

"Speaking of Pein-sama," Naruto cut in. "Can you guys tell me why we had to leave in the middle of the Chunin Exams?"

"What do you think Itachi-nii?" Kana asked. "Are we far enough away to tell him?"

"You can tell him in a few minutes," Itachi replied. "We need to create some more distance between us and Amegakure."

"Well the three of us all have increased stamina," Kaneki said. "So if it's alright with you we can increase the pace and then rest afterwards."

"Sounds good," Itachi nodded. "I'll let you set the pace."

"Alright," Kaneki shrugged, quickly speeding up his pace. "Follow me, at this pace we'll be out of the Land of Rain in the next hour or so."

"Can you guys tell me already!?" Naruto whined.

"Not yet," Kaneki grumbled. "Be patient you idiot."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Do you think Orochimaru is seriously going to try something?" Deidara asked, stuffing some clay into the pouch around his waist.

"Who knows," Sasori replied blandly. "He's always been a bit of an unpredictable person, but if his goal was to get to Kana, Naruto, and Kaneki then it's a good thing Pein-sama sent them out of the village."

"So what do you think is going to happen to our teams then?" Kisame asked. "Itachi is supposed to be my partner, but who knows how long he'll be gone."

"Hey, maybe you'll get to team up with me," Zabuza snickered. "Haku isn't quite S-rank yet, so he hasn't officially joined and can't be my partner."

Kisame rolled his eyes. "Lucky me."

"Things sure are getting weird around here," Hidan grumbled. "I mean the boss didn't seem that interested in running a village before and now he's practically handing it over to Kana, who isn't even here."

"Unfortunately, I agree with the idiot," Kakazu sighed. "The Akatsuki is supposed to be a group that isn't allied to any particular nation, but Pein-sama is going around acting like some lord of this village and even made Kaneki, Naruto, and Kana official Ame shinobi."

"I don't like this," Sasori mumbled. "It feels like sooner or later we'll all have to make a decision."

"What decision?" Deidara asked.

Sasori paused for a moment. "What side we're on; are we now Ame shinobi? Rogues? Or the Akatsuki?"

 Dark laughter penetrated the room, the very air swirling into a vortex as an orange mask poked out of the darkness. "A very good question indeed."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Can you guys finally tell me why we had to leave so damn early?" Naruto screeched, clenching his teeth in irritation.

"And while we're at it," Kana added. "How come Pein-sama chose you to come with us?"

"What do you think Itachi?" Kaneki asked. "Think we're far enough away to take a break to chat?"

"The border to the Land of Fire is just up ahead," Itachi replied. "We'll take a break once we reach the forest, stay away from the main road."

"Finally!" Naruto grinned. "I want some damn answers!"

"You're too impatient..." Kaneki sighed.

Itachi nodded.

"Come on Naruto," Kana chuckled. "I'll race you, first one to reach the forest gets to ask the loser anything they want!"

"You're on!"

The two youngest of the group took off, Kaneki and Itachi continued their relaxed pace, unable to bring themselves to stop Kana and Naruto's childish behaviour.

"I don't know much about you at all now that I think about it," Kaneki said, breaking the silence. "Other than what the rest of the Akatsuki says and the public information that's out on you."

"Same goes for me," Itachi said blandly. "In addition to the various murders you committed in various places, you used to be aligned with Otogakure and are now officially an ANBU captain in Amegakure and an Akatsuki member."

Kaneki only glanced at Itachi for a moment. "If I remember correctly, you were also an ANBU captain in Konohagakure for a while, until you annihilated your entire clan in a single night, only sparing your younger brother. I know you must have had your reasons, but I am curious. Why'd you do it?"

"To test my strength." Itachi replied without hesitation.

"I know that's a lie," Kaneki stated. "I've met a lot of weirdos and murderers, myself included, and I just can't understand why someone like you would do that. Why not kill your whole clan? You left your brother alive, and you even started treating Kana and Naruto like younger siblings."

Itachi continued looking straight ahead, never daring to make eye contact with Kaneki.

"Things are getting bumpy," Kaneki said, glancing at Itachi. "I just need to know if you're someone I can rely on. Someone Kana can rely on. I haven't known her all that long, but our strange circumstances sort of brought us together."

"You can trust me," Itachi whispered as they approached the forest. "I will do everything I can for Kana because I want her life to turn out better than mine."

"Finally!" Kana groaned, leaning against a tree. "You guys took forever!"

"Sorry," Kaneki shrugged. "So who won?"

"It was kind of a tie," Kana chuckled. "So we decided that we'll each get to ask each other a question."

"Anyway," Naruto interrupted. "Are you guys finally going to tell me why we had to leave so early?"

Kaneki nodded. "Orochimaru is in Amegakure, so Pein sent us away to be safe."

"He's in the village right now?!" Naruto exclaimed. "I have friends there, what if he attacks the village while we're gone?"

"The Akatsuki will take care of that," Kaneki answered. "Now pay attention, that wasn't all."

"What else?" Naruto groaned.

"Sasuke is there as well," He replied. "The masked genin Aka is actually Sasuke in disguise."

"We have to go back!" Naruto barked. 

"We can't," Itachi argued, physically blocking Naruto's path. "We have a mission to complete and we were all sent out of the village for our own safety."

"So then why are you in danger?" Kana asked.

"Orochimaru is very interested in the Sharingan," Itachi replied. "He has already tried to take it from me when he was still a member."

"Now I understand why he was so interested in Sasuke," Kana sighed. "But Sasuke can't see that he's in danger."

"That's exactly why we can't just leave Sasuke!" Naruto yelled.

Itachi sighed. "I hate this as much as you do Naruto, but we need to keep moving."

"I think there's a small town not far from here," Kaneki said, his nose twitching slightly. "We should decide if we're going to camp outside or splurge for a couple of rooms at an inn."

"I think it'll be a good idea to blend in for tonight," Itachi decided. "We'll stay at an inn, I'm pretty sure I've been to this town before and it usually has very few shinobi pass through since it borders the Land of Rain, which often gets caught in the middle of other lands wars."

"Yay!" Kana chirped. "A real bed tonight!"

"Stay focused," Kaneki chastised. "We're on a mission after all."

"I haven't forgotten!" Kana huffed. "If we can find this super medic lady she might be able to heal Itachi!"

"Maybe she could fix Lee too," Naruto added. "Who knows, maybe she could even heal my eye and the scars on my face!"

"One thing at a time," Itachi said, beginning to jog towards the village. "Now hurry up, let's go."

Kana, Kaneki, and Naruto were quick to follow.

A/N 

Thank you guys so much for 600 followers! To celebrate here's another chapter! I'm not sure how long it'll be until I have the next one done, but I hope you guys enjoyed this one in the meantime. Other than that, I just wanted to say that I haven't been using the Discord server at all really, but I plan to try and do more stuff on it soon! Including doing a live Q&A, brainstorming session for writing, and we can even play games if you guys want! I know everyone clowns on me for never really playing Roblox, so maybe I'll finally try it out! I'll have more information out on this on my message board, so please join the server if that sounds fun to you! The link is in my bio!