"Holy shit," says Obito, as he sags against a nearby rock. He gasps for breath for a few moments, and tries to ignore the sensation of the cold water seeping through the back of his jacket. Oh kami, he missed Konoha so so much. "Holy shit. I – What – How did we – "

He puts a hand to the ground to push himself up, and freezes at the unmistakable feeling of cold, gloppy wet mud. A single adventurous worm made its way slowly up his wrist. "Oh no," he moans. "Okay, that's it. This is seriously the worst day of my life. What the hell."

"Hey, no one likes a whiner!" The orange haired kid from earlier shouts at him. Even as tired to the bone Obito feels, he tries to give the guy the deadliest glare he can manage. To his utter and complete lack of surprise, it had exactly no effect. "Hey, whining guy – your headband – you're from Konoha, aren't you? You and the kid over there."

"Yeah, I am!" He shouts back angrily. Whining guy? Seriously? "My name's Uchiha Obito, and I'm a chunin of Konoha! And that's my baby cousin. I don't know who you are, but –"

"Well, my name's Yahiko! These are my friends, Konan and Nagato. We're from Ame! Do you know someone called Jiraiya? He's our sensei, so we're looking for him."

"J-Jiraiya?" Obito repeats, completely thrown off guard by the Ame weirdo. "Like the Sannin? …Well, duh! Heck, he's my sensei's sensei! Wait…" He squints. "…You guys are his students? Look, no offense, but I have never heard of you in my life."

"Eh, typical Jiraiya-sensei. He probably got distracted from telling his village about us because he found a women's bath house or something. He's done it before."

"T-That… actually does sound like him… Obito could still remember the one – one time, because Minato-sensei was a kind man – his team had been put under Jiraiya-sama's care. He couldn't look at his teammates for a week. Strip poker was quickly added to his list of 'Things I will never, ever do again, ever.' "Hey, then that means – if you're looking for Jiraiya-sama," he says confidently, "Minato-sensei can definitely help you with that! Like I said, Jiraiya-sama was his sensei too. If anyone knows where the guy is, it's my sensei!"

"This sensei of yours… is he in your village?" The blue haired girl – Konan, he thinks? – says.

…He actually had no idea. Minato-sensei was still in Iwa territory, last he remembered, but so was he, so it wasn't like his memories were particularly accurate… But then, this was probably his best chance of making it back home in one piece from fricking Ame. "Yeah, yeah he is. You can't miss him! He's –" Obito suddenly remembers that there's an Iwa kid standing right behind him and even if the kid was a bit confused, he was pretty sure that any mention of the Yellow Flash, or even blonde hair and blue eyes, was a really bad idea under the circumstances. "He's unmistakable," he finishes lamely.

"I'm still not sure what the hell is going on," says the blue shark guy.

"Yeah, good idea, blue shark guy," says Yahiko. "Now that there's no freaky plant things coming after all of us, we should probably figure out what's going on. I don't know any of you people, and my best friend's like, ten years younger than he should be. It's freaking me out."

"Freaky plant things?" Itachi pipes up.

"My name is Kisame, what is with you people?" asks the blue shark guy, the same time as Obito blurts out, "Holy shit, I thought I was the only one!"

He exchanges a high-five with Yahiko. Forget what he said about Ame weirdos. This guy was the best.

Deidara glances at his surroundings, as if silently calculating how much of the surrounding foliage and people he could blow up without killing himself.

"…Does anyone know where we were before he –" Konan looks pointedly at Deidara. "Deidara," he says. "Deidara blew it up?"

Everyone shakes their heads. "It was obviously Ame," says Yahiko. "But the building was definitely new. What do you think, Nagato?"

The little red haired kid freezes like a deer who had accidentally wandered in front of a Katon fireball on the training grounds. "I-I don't know, I don't remember ever going into the village itself –"

"It's alright," the orange haired boy says quickly, and then whispers to himself, "…It's going to take me awhile to get used to this, huh?"

"Then," she continues, "Does anyone have an idea of how we got there? …Or how all of us are connected? Yahiko and Nagato are my friends, but I haven't seen any of you before."

"Well," Obito says thoughtfully, "the only person I know here is my baby cousin Itachi… but he's older than I remember. Why's everyone from different villages, anyways? I mean, you guys know Jiraiya-sama, so that makes some sense… But Deidara and blue shark guy here…"

"Hey, don't look at me," says blue shark guy defensively, and motions to Itachi beside him. "I'm just with this kid here. We woke up in the same room, so I'm guessin' there's a reason for that."

"I ended up in the same room as Deidara here… Hey, do you think whoever brought us all here did it for a reason? Like, what if we can't get more than a mile from each other without us exploding, or something like that." Obito swallows. He didn't want to explode – but he had a feeling that hanging around that kid psycho would end with grievous bodily injury.

"...Please don't test it," says the little red haired kid – Nagato, he thinks – after a brief hesitation.

"Okay, yeah, I completely agree," the Uchiha says quickly. He wasn't sure how he got here or why, but there was no way he was going to die here – not when his team was waiting for him. "But, uh, that means we should all be heading toward the same place. I vote Konoha?"

"The three of us do as well," says Konan, after a moment of thought. "We need to find Jiraiya-sensei."

"…Yeah, what she said," Yahiko adds, grin on his face. "Besides, did he really think he could leave us behind?"

"I'll go with Obito-nii," Itachi says quietly.

Blue shark guy next to him swears. "Well, shit," he says blandly. "…Doesn't look like I have a choice, do I? Not unless I want to try getting back to my village alone… And Konoha and Kiri does have a treaty. Fine."

All eyes turn to the single Iwa blonde kid. "All of you are fucking weirdos, un." Deidara scowls. "…Fine. Same as what he –" He points at blue shark guy. "- said.

"Alright!" Obito cheers, praising any and all deities he knew of. "Konoha it is! …But we still don't know how we got here, and why… I just don't get it. Why -"

"I think," Itachi says slowly, "we have all been taken from different points of times in our lives and put into some unknown future. The reason we're connected is because of something in this time, not something any of us remember."

"Yeah, I –"He stops, and then turns to stare. "Wait, what? What?"

"It makes sense," Konan says thoughtfully. "The Nagato that Yahiko and I know is our age. And your cousin mentioned that he remembered you as being much older than he remembered, correct?"

"Correct," says Itachi seriously. "With that in mind… I suggest that we first investigate what kind of future we are in, by visiting a merchant village and getting access to information there. After that –"

The rest of the group could only stare blankly as the two engaged in a conversation that could only be described as incomprehensible.

"I don't understand what's going on," Yahiko complains to Obito in a stage whisper.

"…Me neither," he admits, and sighs in disappointment, watching Konan and Itachi – an eight year old kid! – hatch out delicate plans for their whole trip back to Konoha. And for a brief moment, he actually thought that he was the leader here.

"They got away."

"Well. Obviously."

"We'll go after them, right? I'm missing Tobi already! …I wonder how he's doing? It's been so long since he looked so small and cute! I don't think I've ever seen him without his scars."

"This organization is indispensable to our plans. We will. We must."

[A/N: After some thought, this will take place after Kakuzu and Hidan's defeat, because even though I really like the assorted headcanons you guys had for them, I was already having trouble with the amount of characters I had already have in this fic. Also, I needed Konoha to be somewhat aware of Akatsuki and their members - also (I have no idea how the exact timeline goes but) it should be sometime when Jiraiya could have already started looking into Ame and his former students. This means that Sasori, Kakuzu, and Hidan will (probably) not appear in this fic, and definitely not as kids. I'm sorry for any disappointment, but I hope the rest of this fic can make up for it!

Also, slight spoilers but if you want some explanation for what's going on and what will happen in the fic:

Itachi's actually incorrect in his assumption, which he made because he assumed that Obito is dead. In reality, the adult Akatsuki members were deaged physically and mentally because of [spoilers] which is connected to their rings and Black Zetsu. Yahiko was brought back because his body was still animated by a life force (though it wasn't his own) and IIRC 'he' (that is, Pein) wore an Akatsuki ring. Of course, that means that if the deaging is ever reversed for him (cough, which the Zetsus are after because they need the Akatsuki pawns)... he be dead for real now.

Please let me know of any situations you guys want to see with the Akatsukids, before or after they reach Konoha!]