Conscious thought began to return to Tobi's mind. All he could feel was his body sore all over from the hard landing from earlier. He had no idea just how he had been out for, but he could tell by the feel in the air that he was no longer located inside of the hideout. Rolling over off his back, he slowly opened his one exposed eye, and was shocked at what he saw.
He was no longer located in the forest that surrounded the cave, but in some strange field in which he had never seen before. The hills around the clearing rose just high enough to nearly block the trees behind them. Looking up, even the sky and the moon seemed different than before; it seemed so much, closer to the ground than normal.
'What is this place?' He thought to himself. Slowly, he stood up on all fours, preparing to get up. Strangely, though, when attempting to get on his legs, it felt very awkward and uncomfortable for his body to do that. Dropping back down on his arms, the feeling felt natural now to stay on all form of his limbs, causing him confusion, 'perhaps my body is exhausted from what ever-' he stopped mid sentence when he glanced down to his arm.
His arm has covered in a brown fur that extended all the way to where his hand should be, but was instead ended in a hard stump on the end. Following up his arm, he saw he still sported the akatsuki black cloak over his back, but glancing back, he saw the rest of his body was changed as well; his legs looked very similar to the condition his arms were in now, and coming out his end was a black tail.
Tobi could not believe what he was seeing; somehow he had been transformed "What is this? Is... Is this some form of Genjutsu?"
"No, it isn't." a familiar voice said from behind.
Turning around, Tobi saw his assistant Zetsu. Or... What looked like Zetsu; walking towards him was a horse wearing an identical cloak to his, whose face was seemingly divided in two from one half being black and the other white. The familiar green venus fly trap came up from the top of the cloak, surrounding the creatures head. Tobi looked curiously at the transformed Zetsu, "So, it appears I am not imagining this."
The white Zetsu half began to speak, "This strange form we have been given is similar to the native species of creatures." his higher pitched voice said. The black half began, it's deeper voice much more sinister, "Whatever happened, it seems to have sent us off our world."
Tobi looked to his side, seeing the other Akatsuki beginning to wake. As he came closer, he realized the seemingly impossible, all of the others had been changed as well. All of them were different colored horses that all wore similar clothing.
The first one to stand up was a large blue horse with gill slits on its cheeks. The creature moaned from pain as he got up, revealing the mouth of sharp teeth."what happened?" Kisame asked as he brought a limb up to his head, but yelled out in panic as he saw the hoof coming to his face, "What the... What is this!?"
To the side, two different forms began to rise as well. Sasori shook his head to try to clear his thoughts, "Uhh... What happened? I thought I-" his voice caught in his throat when he saw the orange horse stand up next to him. But what startled him the most was the blonde mane the horse had, which was styled exactly like his partner's, "D-Deidara?"
Deidara looked up to the direction of the voice, his eyes blurry from waking up, "Ah, my damn- what the hell!" he screamed at the sight he beheld; a red haired and almost pink colored horse stood right next to his face, "what kind of creature are you!?"
"What are you talking about? It's me!" the horse said.
"Sasori?"
Yeah it's me. I don't know what kind of jutsu this is, but somehow we have become animals."
"I can see that, but what-" Deidara caught himself looking at Sasori's forehead, "What is that?"
Sasori lifted his hoof and felt something protruding off of his head. Feeling around, it ft pointed, and was sensitive to his touch, "I don't know, but whatever it is, I can feel it has a large amount of my chakra."
Deidara looked down to his own body to see his change. Lifting his front hooves up, he noticed he still had his extra mouths on the bottom, causing him to grin, "Well, I still have my precious bomb makers, hmm." His eyes the. Went to the strange feeling he had on his back, and nearly fainted, "I-I have wings!"
Another member got up from the ground, her head groggy from the impact. Getting up, she tried to figure out what was going on, but was too shocked at what she saw; her body was now of a horse with a cream colored coat, and behind her sat a small curled tail the same color as her hair. "What kind of power is this?"
Suddenly her mind clicked, making her turn to see another horse of faded gray. Below its orange mane sat a tall horn and many piercings throughout the snout, ears and lips. Realizing who it was, she ran over and knelt by the body, "Pain?"
In an instant, Pain's eyes shot open, revealing the Rinnegan. As if unfazed, he got up from the ground, face still stripped of any form of emotion, "It seems the power of that light has physically transformed us."
Konan stared at the dull face of the Deva path of Pain, 'It seems Nagato can still control him in this place.' she thought to herself.
"WHAT THE FUCK!!!"
All the akatsuki turned to see a white horse with a gray mane and tail freaking out, "what is this shit!? What did that magic do to me!?"
Hidan did not stop yelling as a brown horse sporting a white and gray mask walked over to him, "Calm yourself, Hidan. Whining about this will not change anything."
Hidan glared at Kakazu with his deep red eyes, "And acting calm is going to make it all better? I'm a god damn horse!"
"We are all horses. We have got to figure this out." another voice said.
Turning to his right, Hidan saw a smoke gray horse walking towards him. When the creature opened its eyes, Hidan immediately recognized the two red sharingans, "Itachi?" he said.
Itachi gave him a cold stare as he walked passed into the main group of other members. Hidan glared as he walked over to his scythe, confused on how to grab it. When he put his hoof on it, he was surprised to feel a grip on the handle despite having any fingers. Trying not to think about it too much, he slung his weapon over his right shoulder and walked with his three other limbs.
Once all ten were together in the clearing, many confused looks were given as they inspected the others standing together. Deidara was the first to speak up, "So, anyone have an idea of what the hell happened? Hmm."
"Is this some sort of Genjutsu?" Kakazu asked.
Itachi looked over, "No. My eyes would be able to detect if there was any form of it placed over me."
"It has something to do with the energy from the Gedo Mazo..." Tobi chimed in, "it must have transported us to another dimension or planet of some sort."
"Speaking of which..." Kisame said, glaring over to Pain and Konan, "what happened? You were supposed to Subdue the jinjuriki before you brought it there."
Konan cast her own sneer his way, "We did stop it. Somehow the seal over it must have broke when we arrived in the cave."
"Well why the hell were we changed then!?" Hidan screamed out.
Tobi looked his direction, "Zetsu has already done scouting around this area, and discovered that some strange form of horses are the native species here. Perhaps sending us here changed us to match the local population."
"Well why are we different from all you?" Sasori asked pointing towards his horn.
Pain looked up as well to the horn which grew from his forehead, "I can feel much of my own chakra focused to this."
The white Zetsu half spoke, "It appears that one kind of horse can perform their own ninjutsu with their horn."
"what about me and Konan with these wings?" Deidara blurted out.
Konan gave a confused look, "Wings?" she looked to her back and noticed the small wings tucked to her side. She never noticed them before.
"Another type of horse here has wings they use to fly with." the black Zetsu half answered.
"Fly?" Deidara gave a smirk, "So I no longer need my bird to travel. Hmm."
"What about our ninjutsu? How do we work it without hand signals?" Kisame questioned, shaking one of his hooves in frustration. Despite learning how to pick up his Samehada without hands, he wanted to know how to work his water style.
"Allow me to demonstrate." Itachi said as he walked to the center of the group. Leaning back on his hind legs, he clasps his front hooves together, "Shadow clone jutsu!"
POOF!
A shadow clone of Itachi appeared out of the puff of smoke. Looking back to the others, he explained how it worked, "When we put our hands together back on our world, we had to imagine the signs we weaved. By doing the same thing here, you can perform all of your standard jutsu."
Kisame laughed out loud, "So by putting our hooves together and imagining the hand signs we need, we can do out techniques? Oh this is surprising."
"Enough." Tobi said, "we need to find a way to return to our world. Now, we have all learned that our powers have stayed with us, so that means I want you to go."
"Go?" Kakazu questioned.
"Go and find any information you can on any large source of power that this world has. I want to find out where we are and how we can return."
"What of the local species that live here?" Itachi asked.
"I do not care what you do to the life forms here. I only care for locating a way to our world. Meet here tomorrow night with what you found."
The others nodded in agreement as they broke off into their usual pairs and began to move through the field in different directions. Zetsu walked over to Tobi, "what Would have me do?"
"continue your recon." Tobi coldly replied.
Zetsu closed the fly trap around himself and began to sink into the ground. After several moments, he was gone, leaving the masked leader alone in the field, "Perhaps I could find information myself as well" he said to himself.
Activating his sharingan, the swirling vortex of energy expanded from the hole in the mask and pulled Tobi into the abyss, leaving the once occupied field empty.