Chapter 76 - 69

Itachi led him to their lair, where the rest of the Akatsuki currently stays. It was a dark and gloomy place covered with rain water. Ten huge fingers were erected in front of them and Hikaru could see the husk of the Ten-Tailed Beast behind the tall pillars of fingers. They were inside of a cave under the village of Ame.

"Do you guys always stay here?" Hikaru asked Itachi, who was right beside him.

Itachi shook his head and explained, "No, we don't stay here all the time. You can call this place our meeting room. We have our own living quarters but it's not that different from this place. We usually don't stay in the village for too long since we have jobs to do, but this is a different occasion."

"What kind of occasion?" Hikaru asked.

Itachi then said with his usual stoic face, "New members are joining us, and two of them at that. 2 and half years ago, two of our members were mysteriously murdered by someone. After digging for some time, we found out that the one who did that goes by the name of Hikaru Hiroaki. Does that ring any bell?" Itachi looked down on Hikaru, who is currently sweating.

They continued walking towards a hallway filled with torches, this somehow reminds Hikaru of Orochimaru's lair.

"Even though I've only known them for a short time, Deidara and Sasori were still my friends. Anyway, don't feel sad about that, in our line of work our chances of dying are always higher than the average shinobi. They would've died later even if they didn't die back then." Itachi continued.

Hikaru felt quite uncomfortable, knowing that he killed the friends of Itachi. He just shook it off and continued walking in the hallway.

"Weird, where are the rest of your teammates?" Hikaru asked, seeing that he couldn't see a single person in here other than Itachi and himself.

"Ah, they must still be out in the village, They are buying things for themselves, since it's quite rare to have a break once in a while." Itachi said with his stoic face still there. Hikaru wonders if he even changes the look on his face.

After a few moments of walking, they finally ended up at the end of the hallway. There were two doors in front of them, Itachi opened them and Hikaru finally saw Pain and Konan.

Unfortunately, it seems like Pain's real body is not here. They must be hiding him somewhere around the village. He was just there, standing on the ground with his back in front of them. He was using Yahiko's body.

He turned around and saw Hikaru.

Then, silence ensued in the room. Konan was sitting on a chair, silently sipping from her tea cup filled with tea.

Konan had short, straight blue hair with a bun, amber eyes with lavender eyeshadow, and a labret piercing. She wore the typical Akatsuki robe.

Pain decided to break the silence and said, "That is unusual, I have seen all the pictures of all Jinchuriki, except for the nine-tailed jinchuriki, but I have never seen this one. Is he the nine-tailed jinchuriki?" Pain seems to be confused because Hikaru is emitting a huge amount of chakra, comparable to that of a tailed beast.

"No, leader-sama. He is someone who just wants to have a talk with you." Itachi explained to Pain stoically.

Pain then narrowed his eyes, directly staring down at Hikaru.

Hikaru seemed to be annoyed by something and said, "You know, I hate people looking down on me, especially someone like you who has an ego as big as the heavens."

Pain(Tendo) then frowned and said, "Your friend seems to have quite the mouth there, Itachi."

Itachi said nothing, knowing things are about to get serious.

"I have not come here for some idle chat, Nagato." Hikaru said in a cold serious voice.

Hikaru suddenly felt that something was behind him and he was not disappointed. All the bodies of Nagato except for Tendo were all behind him, threatening to attack him if he misses his words.

(Note: I'll call Yahiko's body as Tendo from now on)

Tendo walked slowly near him and asked, "Who are you? How do you know my real name?"

Hikaru just smirked and said, "Oh, I know a lot of things about you, Uzumaki Nagato. How you were trained by Jiraiya, how Hanzo betrayed your group and made you kill Yahiko, and how you met 'Madara' and formed Akatsuki under his leadership."

Back with Nagato's real body, shock was evident on his face. Someone with all this knowledge should never exist yet here he is, a child who seems to know everything about him. He kept his cool and calmly decided to ask some questions from this child.

"I'm sure you would like to ask some questions but that can save for later. I just want to talk about your godly 'plan'. Oh, and this five behind me? They're quite the nuisance, so I'll get rid of them." Hikaru said as he looked directly at Tendo's eyes.

Without doing anything, all five of Nagato's bodies exploded out of nowhere.

Seeing this, Konan tried to be cautious before trying to use her jutsu but Itachi appeared behind her faster with a kunai on her neck. After his illness was cured, he can now use 100 percent of his strength and the blindness caused by the mangekyou sharingan was gone without a trace. Previously, he could only use less than 40 percent of his strength due to his illness.

"Y-you traitor." Konan managed to mutter out.

"Move slightly and I'll cut your head off." Itachi ruthlessly said.

"Konan!" Nagato shouted and tried to use Tendo to help her but Hikaru blocked Tendo's path and quickly tied Tendo with some invisible rope, incapacitating him.

"Now, we can talk peacefully. I know this is extremely unnecessary but you have to understand, you might try to call your buddies. By the way, where are the two recruits you said, Itachi?" Hikaru said as he tied Tendo quite tightly.

"I don't know, they might be outside because I cannot sense their chakra. But they may have some kind of technique that can hide their presence, so beware." Itachi replied while keeping the kunai on Konan's neck.

"Tch, Shinra Tensei!" Tendo shouted suddenly and everything in the room was destroyed almost instantly by some kind of jutsu.

But Tendo noticed that the invisible rope binding him is still holding him and even Konan now was tied up by that thing.

He wasn't planning on using his rinnegan in such a small space like this room but he had no choice, either he gets killed or he fights back. Seeing this enemy of his tie him up easily, it must mean that he is very strong, even for a god like him.

Itachi appeared behind Hikaru unscathed, it seems like Itachi is stronger than Pain. right now. At least in their physical ability but between the power of their eyes, Pain is stronger.

"So you've betrayed us, Itachi." Pain said, if you listen closely, his voice was seething in rage.

Itachi shook his head and said,"I didn't betray you for I've always not been a part of this organization. I'm a spy sent by Konoha."

"Itachi!" Pain shouted his name in rage but he couldn't do anything due to him being tied up by Hikaru.

Konan kept quiet, she's trying to think of a plan to get out of here. It was obvious that Pain's powers were no match for that boy. Nagato's real body is currently not able to fight, so the six paths of pain is the only way he could fight his opponents. They were too complacent, the enemy practically walked through the entire base without being hindered.

Hikaru only smiled and sat beside Pain, then he said, "Hmm, do you really think that your plan to capture the tailed-beasts is going to work?"

"Hmph, the only way peace can be obtained is through pain. If we can all share our pain, then everyone would be able to understand us. Only by showing them true pain can our peace exist in this world." Pain said quite stubbornly.

"Do you really think that? Human emotions are much more complicated than that. You should know that, for you are human, too." Hikaru said to Pain.

Pain slanted his eyebrows and said, "Tch, what do you know? You haven't experienced true pain yet!"

"That's true, because I can protect my loved ones better than you." When he said those words, Hikaru basically stepped on Nagato's dignity.

Hikaru knew, talking like this won't solve anything. He wanted to convince Nagato into joining his side along with the rest of Akatsuki but it seems like he just doesn't have the same talent as Azumi that enables her to make her opponents into her allies. He doesn't want to show much of his strength, to see if he could convince Nagato but it seems like it's just not fated to be.

"I don't have anything to talk with you anymore, but mark my words. There will one day be someone who will change the way you think." After finishing his words, Hikaru and Itachi disappeared in thin air.

After that, he released Pain and Konan from his mana rope. There was no use talking to them anymore, if he just always uses his powers to convince anyone to join him, then there will one day be a huge chance that they will betray him. Unless he puts some kind of slave contract into them.

Nagato tried searching for him everywhere but to no avail, it seems like he has already left the village. There's nothing more he can do, Akatsuki cannot reveal themselves to the world right now. Just one more year and they will make their move. They have obtained almost all the Jinchurikis identities except for the nine-tails. The only thing to do now is to earn more finance through various ways.

Hikaru doesn't want to interfere with Azumi's fate and destiny. Unless there's an absolute chance she would die, then he won't do anything. He's already changed so much, the gods of this world are already mad at him. But if they pissed him off, he would slaughter them all. Rules be damned.

A few weeks later…

He and Itachi are now traveling village after village, then they would search for anything that can increase Hikaru's current strength. Hikaru had learned various martial arts throughout this entire nation but none of them were strong enough to suit his taste, maybe after traveling through other worlds, he would be able to learn some strong stuff. Maybe a world with creatures capable of using mana? He'll search for that after he has defeated Chaortos.

Right now, they are traveling to Sunagakure to see the chunin exams. They both wore black robes similar to the Akatsuki's robe but without the red clouds and on top of their head were bamboo hats to keep their appearance a secret because Itachi is still a wanted man while Hikaru is now famous throughout the entire elemental nation due to him destroying countless bandit camps.

They now call him the Bandit Slayer, Hikaru just facepalmed in their naming sense. That sounds like a chuunibyou's name. He wanted a name like, Heavenly Sword Master, or Heavenly Shinobi of Destiny. But now that he thinks about it, that sounds more chuuni than "Bandit Slayer".

This is embarrassing. To think the strongest person in the whole world right now wants a name like that.

As Hikaru suspected, Itachi is really addicted to Poki. I mean, for the last few weeks, Itachi already bought over 10,000 Pokis! Itachi kept them all in his storage seal.

Itachi left Akatsuki even though he had other missions to do there, because of one reason. Hikaru knows everything about the Akatsuki. He no longer had any purpose staying there, since he was just a spy. After all, he wanted Sasuke to kill him and gain his mangekyou sharingan but from Hikaru's words, it seems like Sasuke has changed for the better.

After thinking about the things he did for a long time, he realized that at that time, he should've told Sasuke everything. He regretted not doing that, it could've saved Sasuke much, much earlier.

Maybe Sasuke is present in the chunin exams that's taking place in Suna, right now. He would then find the right time to apologize, or make his appearance for that matter.

As they walked through the endless sand of the desert, they still couldn't see the village. They didn't feel any heat due to Hikaru using his ice magic to cover them in a small icy wind dome. His ice magic is created between wind and water magic and extremely compressed water magic.

As they traveled through the desert, they saw another group of people a kilometre away from them. Hikaru then saw a familiar shade of blonde hair in that group before he rushed towards them almost immediately.