"Katsu!"

An explosion sounded off the morning. It was going to be a busy week for all of the Akatsuki. 

"G'mornin' Deidei..." a sleepy Tenten muttered. "You're a really good alarm clock, you know?"

Sakura sat up and stretched. As a medic nin, she was pretty used to getting up early. "C'mon, rise and shine Tenten. Stop dreaming about your beloved crazy explosion guy." She smiled a little. She had loved Sasuke too, still did. But Tenten was just in love right now, and she probably thought about Deidara almost every minute. She'd been like that once. 

"Ahhh fine Sakura..." Tenten rolled out of bed, got dressed and put on her Akatsuki cloak. "Let's go make breakfast." 

She wandered into the dining area, summoned breakfast and exploded her own alarm. "C'mon guys, breakfast's ready!"

One by one, the mostly sleepy Akatsuki wandered into the dining area. Deidara was fully awake, as was Sasori as he didn't sleep, but everyone else rubbed at their eyes and slowly began to eat. Each became slightly more energetic. 

"Right then Sakura-chaaaaan~!" Tobi shouted, "Tobi is a good boy, Tobi will teach you today!"

"Hi Tobi-sensei." She waved awkwardly, "Glad you're my sensei, you seem chill."

Tobi fooled around. "Tobi will teach Sakura!"

Tenten looked at Kisame. "Hi, you're my sensei, right?"

"Yes," Kisame said. Itachi glanced at him. "You still don't look so great," Itachi said. "Maybe you should take a break."

Kisame stared at Itachi, "No, I told Konan I would teach her. I have to now. Besides, if I don't teach her, who will?"

"I can't. The only shinobi still at the hideout is on Wednesday, and that's Deidara. See if you can teach her for this week, if you feel really bad then the two of you can come back and you can hand her to Deidara."

"Hey, what?!" Deidara said, "You can't just shovel extra work on me like that, hm. That's my free week, you know!"

"I'm just saying, in case that Kisame can't teach her, you're here." Itachi responded, then said, "Besides, you two seem to get along quite well."

Tenten went quite red, but Deidara seemed to have no reaction. 

"Anyway," Kisame said, "This is Samehada, my sword."

Tenten got visibly excited, "The sword from one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist?? You have it???"

Kisame was taken aback for a second, as he hadn't expected Tenten to be so excited about Samehada. "Yes! That is indeed my Samehada. Samehada's very sensitive about who touches her, so please don't touch her hilt or blade because she might eat all your chakra or hurt you, though. Just to warn you before Hidan gets all stuffy and hurt that his precious little pupil was hurt."

"Kisame-sensei! Please can I see Samehada without the bandages on? That would be so cool!" Tenten said energetically, "I swear I won't touch Samehada but I really really really wanna see!"

Kisame shifted uncomfortably. It was difficult to find someone as weapon-passionate as Tenten, but if Tenten got hurt, he'd have to deal with Hidan. Hidan glanced at Kisame.

"Well? Show the bitch what she wants. It's her fault if she gets hurt."

"Yeah  but what if Konan and you get on my back about it?" Kisame muttered. 

"Just show her the sword, hm. Can't really harm." Deidara added. "C'mon, man."

Kisame shifted again, hesitated, then said, "Fine. If you get to close, it's your fault." He took all the bandages off. Tenten rushed forwards, and she couldn't believe that was actually Samehada. 

"OhmyJashinthat'ssuchabeautifulandpowerfulswordiwishicoulduseherinbattlethat'dbesoawesomeandoverpoweredican'twaitnodon'tworrykisame-sensei,iwon'tuseSamehadawithoutyourpermissionbutdearJashinisthatabeautifulsword!" She blurted out, without thinking. 

"Yeah, pretty cool sword, right?" Kisame smiled for the first time that Tenten had ever seen. 

"Yeah!"

"But you still can't use her," Kisame warned. 

"Uh-huh," Tenten agreed, still admiring Samehada. 

"Right then," Deidara said, sounding somewhat annoyed, "Shouldn't you two go admire Samehada somewhere else?"

"Tobi must go too! Tobi and Sakura have a mission!" Tobi flailed around again, happy. Kisame, Tenten and Sakura agreed. 

***

Tenten asked Kisame, "Hey, what's our mission by the way? I never asked, I was too busy gawking at Samehada..." Tenten said, embarrassed. 

"It's just your average kidnapping, don't worry about it." Kisame said. 

"Your average kidnapping? In the Akatsuki?" Tenten looked skeptical. "Who are we kidnapping?"

"This guy... I don't remember his name. You'll be fine, though. He takes after Sasori, I remember. From Suna?"

"Oh... I think I might know him. Can I leave him to you, then?"

"No. You're in the Akatsuki now, you've betrayed your village so you might as well suck it up and go capture him." Kisame didn't seem so impressed.

"Right." Tenten mumbled. "But we're taking him alive, right? What happens to him after?"

"Well, first we capture him, then we bring him to the Henji Corp."

"Wasn't Sakura against the Henji Corp.?"

"Doesn't matter. We just do the dirty work and get some money. That is the purpose of the Akatsuki, for now anyway. We partner up with whomever wants us. Doesn't matter if we've worked against them before that."

"Oh. Okay." Tenten said. "Oh and by the way, I still need to sacrifice someone to Jashin today."

"You and Sakura are sacrificing a lot more to Jashin than Hidan does...?" Kisame said, letting the end of the sentence rise as a sort of question. 

"Well yeah, of course. Hidan only has to sacrifice, like, what, two or three times a week? We're trainee Jashinists though, and we have to do one a day." Tenten paused. "Weeeeell that's not exactly true. Hidan explained this earlier to us, but basically during our trainee process we start with only sacrificing one every two days. It's almost like a drug, though, because if we skip a day and wait too long, then we start feeling really really awful." Tenten shuddered at the thought, before continuing, "At some point, about four or five or sometimes even six weeks in, we feel the craving on the day right after having sacrificed, and that's when we have to do one a day for 100 days."

"You're on week...?" Kisame asked, uncharacteristically curious. 

"Five, I think. It should be any day now." Tenten smiled happily. 

"Alright then."

***

Meanwhile, Sakura and Tobi had left the hideout. Tobi was weirdly quiet with Sakura and that was freaking her out quite a bit. In the hideout, with all the Akatsuki, he had been a jolly, energetic fool. Now here in the woods, as they left to go to Iwakagure for a spy mission to plant a spy spider from their client, Tobi was silent.

"Why're you silent, Tobi-sensei?" Sakura asked rather fearfully. 

Tobi stopped. "Do you know Uchiha Sasuke?"

"Yes? Why?"

"Do you know Uchiha Obito?"

"Isn't Obito the one that Kakashi was friends with...? He visits his friends' graves almost every day. I tracked him down one day to see why he was always being so late, and that was why-"

"Do not talk about Kakashi." Tobi stated fiercely. "If you talk about him one more time, you are dead. I don't care about Jashin and I don't care about Hidan, don't mention his name one more time." A short pause, then, "How do you know Kakashi?"

"He was my sensei... but I left him. He would never concentrate on me. It was always Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke or Naruto, Naruto, Naruto. Who cares about me, huh? So I left."

"Typical Bakashi, always driving people away..." Tobi muttered so quietly that Sakura could barely hear him. 

"Sorry, what was that?" Sakura asked, surely it couldn't have been what she heard him say. Whoever named Kakashi Bakashi was not going to live long. She smiled wryly at the thought of Kakashi having people call him Bakashi. 

"Nothing." Tobi stopped talking for a moment, then; "You are here to learn. Look into my mask."

Curious, Sakura stared into the orange mask's eye-hole, only to see the Sharingan. It changed shape and form and then, all of a sudden, the two of them were in another dimension. Sakura stared around for a second, then turned back to Tobi's bleeding eye.

"I can see you will be useful. I know what Zetsu has done to you, and I will continue to open that opportunity before it closes completely. Shinobi do not have feelings. Shinobi cannot have feelings. Feelings ruin everything. If you want power, I can give you it. But only if you do not have feelings." Tobi's voice mesmerized Sakura. It was deep, powerful, without a hint of light. It was the voice of a man who had gained an almost unimaginable amount of power. It was the voice of a man without any feelings at all anymore. It was the voice of a man with unimaginable strength, that he could show Sakura.

"Of course," Sakura replied softly. "I'll do anything for power. I trust you, Tobi-sensei. I will do anything and everything you say." 

Tobi continued, "Give your everything to me and I can make you powerful."

What Sakura would do just to keep hearing that voice. It was so deep, so enchanting. "I will do everything and anything." She said, even softer, in a trance of pleasure. That voice had hooked Sakura in. She didn't care about anything anymore, as long as that voice spoke to her.

"Good." Tobi's voice returned to normal, breaking Sakura's trance.

"No!" Sakura yelped before thinking properly. "I wanna hear that voice..."

"Do as I say, and you'll hear it again." Tobi's voice went up a little, and his head dipped a bit to the right and Sakura could tell that Tobi must be smiling underneath that mask. 

"Alright." Sakura said. She could live without anything at all as long as she had that voice. 

"Sakura." Tobi said, in that voice again, and Sakura was instantly both at attention and also lost in a dream world of that voice. 

"Yes...?" She responded, softly again. 

"Let's go do the mission, shall we? Then I will train you in the art of becoming powerful beyond your dreams."