Chapter 91 - Because Art...

Uchiha compound

General POV

After Ishizu's clone found the compound, he placed the gems around the compound and dispersed, giving the real Ishizu the information he needed.

"Hey, why are you smirking?" asked Suigetsu as he saw the smile forming on Ishizu's face.

"Just a joke. It is nothing," lied Ishizu without a second of thought.

"Nevermind that, I am a sword user and I don't have a sword. How can I fight?" cried Suigetsu in frustration.

"They don't call me the Strategist for no reason. I have made preparations to have you in the best condition for the team. (Even if you don't really need you) Therefore, I made a small detour and asked an old friend of mine if I could borrow his sword," said Ishizu, smiling, before opening a storage seal on his body where a small scroll was.

He threw it to Suigetsu, who caught it wondering what he should do with it.

Ishizu rolled his eyes. What do you do with a storage scroll? Open it!

"This... How did you get it?" asked Suigetsu with wide eyes and water was flowing out of his mouth as he saw a sword appearing in his hands.

Somewhere in Kirigakure, a famous Shinobi screamed.

"SASAKI! How dare you steal my sword! I don't care how strong you are, but no one takes my sword without my corpse!"

Mei and Ao rushed into the room to find it completely destroyed by a furious-looking Zabuza. Her eyes roamed the room to find a letter laying on the ground. Mei picked it up and read it.

After finishing, she began to chuckle.

"Don't cry Zabuza. He just 'borrowed' it so you can at least sign in relief that he will return in," said Mei mockingly while making quotations marks at the word borrowed.

"The next time I see him, I will gut his intestines."

Back by Sasuke's team, Suigetsu petted the sword as if it was a cat he never wanted to give away.

Sasuke looked at the sword before ignoring the crappy noise the waterman was doing.

Ishizu used a hearing Genjutsu to block the Gollum sound Suigetsu was making.

All factions were moving.

Sasuke's team reached Cat town, Deidara was up to fight either Konoha's team or Sasuke and in Konoha Naruto made a team to search for Itachi to find Sasuke and bring him back.

When Sasuke's team entered the cat town, two cats greeted them. As a present, Sasuke presented them with some catnip.

"It smells good, but not like the one from Sasaki-kun brought," said Hina, the female cat.

All eyes were on Ishizu. Even in the silence, Ishizu knew what the question was.

"What? I am much older than you and there was a time when I visited this place with an Uchiha. Don't think too much about it. Get your stuff and we are leaving."

After all, they gathered the things they needed before leaving.

Inside a forest, the team dispatched before they disappeared.

"Why are you not going?" asked Sasuke, seeing Ishizu sticking close to him.

"I am going to stick to you. The information that you killed Orochimaru should have reached Akatsuki by now, and many did not like the snake and after he left, they wanted him dead since he could snitch. I believe they are coming for you, so I will be your backup. They are always a two-man cell, so it is best if I stick around," explained Ishizu, knowing they could meet Deidara and Tobi.

"Don't get in my way when they attack. I can handle them myself," said Sasuke, a bit prideful, which didn't bother Ishizu at all.

All Uchiha's were prideful in some manner and Ishizu had his fair share of arrogance.

"If they attack you, I won't help. Though it depends on who it is."

'It is good that Obito keeps his Tobi persona up. I hope this fight will be fast, as I will most likely have to deal with happy-go-lucky Tobi. How troublesome.'

Ishizu put on his mask and hid in the shadows.

The time went by, and Ishizu frowned, as he couldn't find Deidara or Tobi.

'By now Konoha's team should look for Sasuke. As long as I stay in a certain range of Sasuke, Karin will have trouble finding him, but if we separate, then they will find him.

Then there is Kabuto. Hard to say if he will approach Naruto and talk with him about Akatsuki. If I think about it, telling them about Akatsuki is good, as both Hidan and Kakuzu are still alive. Watching Naruto on tv is far easier since you see all the important parts, yet I am only one man and can't be at all places. Let's just hope there won't be many changes," Ishizu thought as he followed Sasuke.

On the other side, Kabuto showed himself to Naruto and gave him the book about the Akatsuki.

Sasuke felt the chakra change and turned around.

"I know you are here. Show yourself," demanded Sasuke.

From behind the tree, Tobi revealed himself.

'So Ishizu was right. Akatsuki came after me for killing Orochimaru, but who is this guy. I know about most of them from the snake, but I have never seen him before.'

His distraction was not bad as Sasuke had to dodge the bird from the other one who came from above.

"Deidara-senpai, we did it," shouted Tobi in his annoying voice.

"Of course. No one can escape my bombs."

Sasuke glanced behind him, where he saw Ishizu narrowing his eyes.

"I will take the one with the mask. You take the mad bomber. I will give you a tip; use your Raiton to counter his clay."

To Ishizu's misfortune, Sasuke charged forward and, with his blade, cut through Tobi. The latter fell to the ground, motionless.

"Hn. Weak. And here I thought this one was more dangerous," commented Sasuke while doubting Ishizu's concern about the weakling.

Ishizu only facepalmed at the stupidity of the Uchiha. If Obito was serious, he could have killed Sasuke, but since he was using his Tobi personality, he wouldn't.

Grabbing a seal from his pouch and taking a kunai in his hand, Ishizu appeared in the sky and descended towards Tobi, but instead of hitting him with the placing of the kunai, the latter rolled comically on the ground to avoid the attack.

"Atata, that was close. You saw through my Jutsu! But you'll never catch me!" Tobi laughed, but Ishizu wasn't done.

He went into his panda attack stance and attacked Tobi with quick slashes of his kunai.

Yet all attacks were avoided by Tobi, dodging them without any effort. That did not surprise Ishizu. Obito was by no means weak, but his goal was not to hit Tobi with the kunai.

"Oy, oy! Stop hitting me with those deadly kunais!" Tobi shouted before taking out a wood stick and slamming it into my mask.

I jumped back, making him believe I was processing what he just did with that stick, but instead, I smirked since, during the time he hit me, I managed to place my seal on him.

"Tobi's almighty stick will punish you!"

"Just shut up and fight."

With that, Ishizu made his way to Tobi.

Ishizu's POV

A fight against Obito was going to be nice. I am not sure if he would go all out against me, but I sure would love to see his shocked face behind his mask when I touched him.

I looked at the second seal that would help me cancel out his Kamui, but to my misfortune, it burned away. As a fuinjutsu master, making seals isn't hard and the rate of failure is minimal.

Well, unless you are me who had to make a fuinjutsu that blocks out a special ability from a Mangekyo Sharingan.

Since the seal failed, I had to avoid getting absorbed by his Kamui.

"I believe we had enough of your comedy, Uchiha. I believe right now you are not in the mood to tell some jokes, am I right?"

I could see him glaring at me with his Sharingan eyes.

"You made a big mistake making me an enemy," spoke the masked man with his serious voice.

I smirked and muttered under the mask.

"When I was a kid, I always liked your personality and when you went under a certain health bar, you became like that. The next thing you are going do to is…"

I had no chance to say more because two massive fireballs care rushing at me.

I dodged and immediately threw kunais at Tobi, only for them to pass right through him.

"You will die here."

"Lady Death hasn't called my name yet and with you here, Sasuke will finish Deidara quickly."

We both circled each other, carefully analyzing each other's move.

"I do wonder who you are behind that mask. There are only two Wood Style users and one of them is dead and the other one is somewhere in Konoha. So who are you?" asked Tobi.

I smirked, feeling a sense of superiority over him not knowing me.

"I can ask the same question about you. A Sharingan user who lives after Itachi Uchiha massacred the entire clan except for his little brother, Sasuke. No, wrong. He was not alone. You were there as well. You are stronger and older than Itachi, so either he asked for your help or you did it secretly.

Madara Uchiha is sleeping inside his grave, so you are either a rogue one or someone who is following Madara's will after his death. While I doubt that man would care about descendants, I can't be 100% sure about it so you could also be his spawn," I lied as I was not stupid to tell him I knew who he was.

We fought for a while and Tobi started getting frustrated, as I never let him near me, so he could use Kamui to suck me inside his dimension.

"Your ability is very dangerous, but even with no knowledge, the 4th Hokage Minato Namikaze managed to defeat you with his incredible speed."

I was rewarded with multiple fireballs that I dodged.

"But you are facing an opponent who knows of your ability to phase through objects. Sure, I cannot say I know everything, 'which is a lie', but I know enough to contain you for Sasuke to finish Deidara off. Soon your little group of Akatsuki will fall and only one will stand victorious and it will be me!"

I cringed a bit since the last sentence sounded like a line from an end boss, but from my peripheral version, I saw a giant Deidara growing like a balloon.

'So this is Deidara's C4? I think this chit-chat is over with Obito. He was also testing my powers, but I know that next time we meet, I will make sure to show him just how weak he is.'

Just like me, Obito saw the C4 from Obito and teleported away.

I let him be as I casually made my way to Sasuke, not minding the giant Deidara exploding.

I activated my Rinnegan, but had to shut them as the millions of tiny chakra signatures made my vision blurry.

"Preta Path," I called out to absorb the chakra before those microscopical bombs could reach me.