A little shorter than my last chapter, and a little later than promised, but still, I'm happy with this! This chapter our villainous heroes arrive at somewhere important!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor do I own any of it's characters. I do not own the wizard of oz. I make no money from this writing.

'Take that Itachi,' Sasori thought to himself smugly, 'you aren't the only one around here that can use fire.' He was still in full congratulatory mode after being the hero in the poppy field. It hadn't taken long to eradicate the poison laden flowers, despite the little incident where he'd almost singed Kakuzu's straw. After giving the three unconscious terrorists a little of one of his own antidotes, they'd come to rather quickly. Naturally Deidara raved about how intelligent his Danna was, and the redheaded one couldn't quite bring himself to abuse his partner into silence.

A relatively short walk later, a new obstacle in their path began to rise on the horizon. The band of five stared at it, still walking, the shape becoming more and more defined as they approached.

"Is that entire city painted green?" Kakuzu asked, slightly unsure if he was the only one seeing it.

"I'd say it's more jade really," Deidara offered, as some sort of explanation.

"Does it really fucking matter what colour it is?" Hidan asked the blonde, rolling his eyes as he did so.

"Don't be ridiculous, of course it matters," Sasori cut in with his own opinion, "and Deidara it's painfully obvious that that is viridian, not jade,"

"What! Whoever heard of something as retarded as a Viridian City, yeah?" came the response. Somewhere in the back of Kakuzu's mind a memory flickered at that comment. He was a natural collector, and something within him said he was missing one hundred and fifty of something.

"Maybe lime?"

"Nah it's much darker, almost fern,"

"Looking at it now it's more teal, Danna, like your nail polish,"

"Don't be absurd brat, my nail polish is 'emerald envy' and you know it,"

"Only because you made us trek around all those boutiques to damn well find it, yeah. What was wrong with my 'black magic' I'll never know,"

"You know, emerald is probably about right," Kakuzu muttered. They'd arrived at the immense gates to the oddly coloured city, and he was growing bored of the artsy talk. To think it had descended into talks of nail polish. Why the pair couldn't just pick straightforward colours like green, or red or purple bothered him.

"So what the hell do we do now?" Hidan interrupted the miser's train of thought. It was a fairly good question, even coming from Hidan's mouth. The yellow brick road had ended several feet behind them and the group of Akatsuki were now stood upon a large stone step.

Itachi shook his head. The only visible solution for the group was to enter the city, did any of them realise that? Rather than waiting from them he padded up the great gates of the emerald city and slipped through its bars.

It had taken the other four half an hour to realise that Itachi had gone on ahead of them. Luckily, he wasn't that hard to find. All of the walking they had done had made the Uchiha rather hungry, sure they'd rested a little, but not really eaten. It was the way of the world that most things came easily to Itachi, as soon after he'd entered the city, he'd come across a rather fantastical looking patisserie.

The people owning the little shop were altogether too jolly for his tastes. Then again many of the native inhabitants of this universe were a little on the enthusiastic side of cheerful. And then there was the little matter that everything in this strange metropolis was vivid green, including many of the delicacies of this eatery. Still, food was food. Now there was just the matter of procuring said food in his canine state.

Most dogs would have whined and whined, making faces that emphasised their large eyes, and continually done so until food was offered. The stout woman serving instead found a small black terrier staring up at her intently. The dog had unusual hair that flopped in front of its eyes, which were more intelligent and intense than on any dog she had ever seen. Moreover, the strange little animal was completely silent, content to sit and watch her as she worked.

Wiping her hands on the front of a frilly, bottle green apron she walked over to the animal and bent to its level.

"Hello my little man," she spoke kindly, and gave Itachi a comforting scratch behind the ears "and how can I help you today?"

It was there that Deidara and Sasori found Itachi later. He had been seated atop his own table, and was surrounded by half eaten petits fours. Itachi was one happy dog.

"There you are!" the blonde exclaimed, scooping the stuffed dog into his arms.

"It was rather selfish of you to come and eat without us Itachi," Sasori scowled.

"Oh like you eat anyway, un" Deidara bit at him, which only served to make the tin puppet master even sourer. The explosives expert was about to speak again when he the pair noticed something large and green headed their way. She had greying hair curling into tight buns, and a frilly apron on. The clothing she wore underneath that reminded Deidara of a stereotypical yodeller. He cringed.

"Oh what a lovely couple," The patisserie worker cooed, "I take it this little fellow is your pet?"

"We aren't a couple," Deidara grumbled annoyed at being mistaken for a female yet again.

"Why yes, he is, thank you for looking after him for us. We were so worried we'd never find him," Sasori spoke over him, turning on the charm for the woman. "Weren't we dear?"

When Deidara glared at Sasori, unwilling to respond, Itachi bit him. The bomber perked up immediately, flashing the woman a smile.

"Oh yes, thank you!" he spoke in a terribly effeminate voice, "but we really must be moving on, people to see, yeah," he grabbed at Sasori's hand and made to walk off hurriedly.

"Oh I expect you have an audience with the wizard then?" The woman smiled pleasantly, would you mind doing me a favour my dears and deliver this for me?" She procured a large basket of delights from behind her counter. Sasori and Deidara spun back around, and all three akatsuki stared at her.

"Wizard?" they asked in unison.