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In the four months since Orochimaru told about the Akatsuki, police nationwide had gone on the offensive against them. The organization was now largely out of business. In addition, most of the women they'd taken were now freed. Unfortunately, Sakura and Ino were among the unlucky ones who had yet to be found.

There were bigger problems, though. Desperate to get the authorities off their backs, the Akatsuki now resorted to terrorism as a means to scare off public opposition. Not a week went by without a business or public building being blown up.

The company where Naruto and Sasuke worked now put the latter in charge of building security, while Naruto took over his old job. Naruto thought office work was somewhat boring when he could be helping keep his coworkers safe, but he realized this wasn't the time to be arguing about that.

Sasuke, meanwhile, was even more bored. Despite Kakashi's concerns, the company had so far been ignored by the Akatsuki. No doubt this was because Itachi wanted to avoid killing his brother if at all possible. He was relieving his boredom with an old Game & Watch he bought from a used game store. He'd played as Mr. Game & Watch in the Super Smash Bros. series, and wanted to see for himself what the old handhelds were like. He wasn't really that impressed.

He soon had to get back to his job, when the postal worked delivered the latest batch of mail. He went through the envelopes and packages checking for any hazards. This time, one of the letters had a white powder on it. This was a possible sign of Anthrax contamination. He was pretty sure that wasn't the case, but it wasn't his call to make. He informed Kakashi, having made sure not to touch the letter.

Kakashi addressed the employees. "May I have your attention?" he said. "I have reason to believe an item contaminated with anthrax has found its way into the building. I need everyone to exit in an orderly fashion."

Naruto waited until nearly everyone was out before leaving himself. He then went over to Sasuke.

"Hey, Sasuke!" he said. "What's the deal?"

"Don't get mad at me," said Sasuke. "I just told Kakashi what I saw."

"So sending us out here was all his idea?"

"I get the feeling you wanted to take a break anyway."

"That's not funny! What if something bad really is in there?"

"I doubt it. I bet it'll soon be found to be harmless, then we go back to business as usual."

True to Sasuke's word, a few days later the powder was shown to have no traces of Anthrax, and everyone was back at work as if nothing happened. That was the only time any such incident occured.

After a while, Naruto and Sasuke switched positions. Sasuke was relieved to have his old job back, while Naruto found out the hard way how unexciting his new job was. Still, he gave it his best effort, not the least of which because he was hoping this was earn him his next big promotion.

Eventually, the Akatsuki's attacked ceased. Naruto figured they either realized their tactics were backfiring, or they no longer had a presense in his area. In any case, while he kept his security position on paper, in fact he was largely back to doing what he did before it all started.

Finally, the work day ended, and Naruto couldn't wait to get home. On the way there, he stopped by one of his ramen shops and had dinner. Once he was home, he turned on the TV and watched some game shows. Few things entertained him more than watching people humiliate themselves in the slim hope of winning some money.

This diversion was interrupted by a special report about the ongoing collapse of the Akatsuki. He continued to watch, though, hoping for some news about Sakura. He was ultimately disappointed. He was glad when the network went back to its regular programming.

Finally, he turned off the TV and went to bed.