Hi. I realize I haven't updated anything in a while. I'm still working on my KH fics. Updating them might be a while though. Currently preoccupied with Naruto.

I'm working on two different Naruto fics currently. This and one that I have currently dubbed Konoha High. Yeah, so original. I'm not sure what I will call it yet, but it will be better than the current title. I know there are so many high school fics out there, but it's fun writing the characters as normal humans and not ninjas with powers.

This is something I came up with and started writing four years ago before I really had a grasp on the Naruto world. My grasp has gotten better, kind of, but I had fun with this. Just an FYI, I'm only in the middle of season 2 of Naruto. I haven't even seen Itachi. But I read up a bit on Itachi on the Naruto wikia. I'm just portraying him the way I read him.

That'll be explained later as well. So, go read on. Have fun.

Oh, and before I forget, Yasore no Sato is my original village. It's up by Kusagakure: the Village Hidden in the Grass. And I've tweaked the Akatsuki ages just a bit as well.

Prologue: Bad Boy

"Daddy!" shouted a small girl, leaping from a low tree branch toward Sasori, happy to see him. Her hazel eyes shined with delight as she fell at him, knowing he would catch her in his arms. She was instantly ricocheted back into the tree as she hit some sort of energy field, her head making contact with the branch.

Charged energy crackled around Sasori, caused by a disturbance in the lightening field that surrounded him.

"Daddy?" the girl breathed from the dirt ground where she flew, tears in her eyes.

Sasori didn't even react. He was unfazed by what had just happened. He didn't even register seeing his youngest daughter.

"Daddy!" the girl cried, tears spilling over her eyelids now. She was too weak to move. More tears blurred her vision and she was slowly blacking out.

A hand reached around the tree and grabbed her. She tried to struggle but it was too much for her little body. She hissed loudly instead.

"Shhhh, Ayame, un," a familiar voice said, hushing the hissing girl.

She stopped instantly upon recognizing the voice. "Dara onii-chan!" she rasped quietly.

"We're here to help you," said another voice.

"Tachi nii-chan," she mewled, wrapping her arms around his neck.

Deidara let go of her, letting Itachi hold her instead.

"Hold her still, please, Itachi," requested a third voice. Ayame spotted Kisame moving toward her, a locket in hand.

Ayame blacked out, her body lying motionless in Itachi's arms, her head lying on his shoulder. A few seconds later, while Kisame was still creeping toward her, her head shot up and she fixed her eyes on Kisame. "Get away from me with that, you ffffffffilthy fffffffish! All you are to me issssss a ssssssnack, Kissssssssame!" she hissed, sounding like a cat that had her eye on dinner.

Kisame recoiled, a wave of fear washing over him.

"Now Kisame! Move faster, un! The locket! You have to put it on her, un!" shouted Deidara, trying to help Itachi keep his hold on a struggling Ayame.

Kisame gulped, moving forward a bit quicker but he wasn't keen on getting kicked on the face by an eight-and-a-half-year-old girl.

"Oh for crying out loud, Kisame, un! Really, un? You're scared of an eight-and-a-half-year-old‽" Deidara exclaimed in exasperation. "You'd think I was the twenty-three-year-old instead of the twelve-year-old, un," he muttered with an exasperated sigh. "Toss me the locket, Kisame, un!"

Itachi watched the exchange between the man and the tween. Watching them squabble like that was embarrassing. As much as he liked and got along with Kisame, he was, at the moment, embarrassed to call the walking shark his partner.

The girl stopped struggling. She had no idea what was going on, but there was some part of her that knew it wasn't good. She couldn't understand why Itachi nii-chan was holding her still as Kisame-san and Deidara onii-chan fought over a locket. "Itachi nii-chan, what's going on?" the girl asked.

Itachi didn't have a good answer to that. He didn't like what was going on, but it was an order given by Akuryuu, one of Pain's second in command. If he were to keep up this act and infiltrate the Akatsuki, this was one order he would have to follow out, even if it meant killing the first person he had come to love since being blackmailed.

Kisame threw the locket at Deidara, squealing as he did so. The thought of getting any closer to Ayame, especially while she was having one of those fits really scared him.

The squeal yanked Itachi out of his thoughts. It sounded as if he had been burned.

The locket flew over Deidara's head, diverting his attention away from Itachi and Ayame. Itachi took advantage of the commotion, using it as his chance to release the girl. He loosened his hold on her. "Go, run," he ordered her. "Now's your chance to get away. Be swift."

Ayame, heeding his words, wasted no time in breaking out of his hold. Once she had done that, she ran.

"Damn you, Kisame!" Deidara shouted at the walking shark. "Well, don't just stand there!" he shouted. "Catch her!"

Itachi was faster though. He made sure he was on his feet and after the girl before Deidara and Kisame were.

-x-x-x-x-x-

By the time Itachi caught up to Ayame, the Village Hidden in the Branches had been destroyed and Ayame was nowhere to be seen. Stopping at Itachi's side, Deidara smacked Kisame over the head as the three Akatsuki members gazed around at the smoldering ashes of the tree houses that lay in ruin.

"Why did you freeze, Kisame?" Itachi asked him, curious, even though he knew it would have been the end of Ayame if his partner had been even the slightest bit quicker and less fearful.

"She's just a little girl, for crying out loud," Deidara pointed out to his friend.

Neither of them really ever understood Kisame's fear. It was irrational. Kisame was Kisame. He was a walking shark for crying out loud!

Kisame looked over at Deidara and Itachi, a sheepish look on his face.

Deidara inwardly groaned. That look reminded him of sushi.

"Stop looking at us like that, Kisame," Itachi ordered.

"That look reminds me of sushi, un. You are not sushi, Kisame," Deidara deadpanned.

"But—But—But with her I might as well be!" he exclaimed and then automatically cringed, expecting to be smacked upside his head again.

Deidara rolled his eyes, even though only one of them could be seen.

Itachi shook his head as he rolled his eyes as well. He honestly didn't see what the problem was.

"Are you going to explain what you mean by that or are you just going to continue looking like you expect to blown to bits, un?"

Kisame slowly straightened up and carefully explained the irrational fear, that wasn't actually so irrational after all, to Deidara and Itachi.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Ayame groaned as she woke up. Her head was pounding. She opened her eyes and gasped, shutting them again. The bright light stung and made her headache much worse. She made a quiet noise. It sounded like a quiet mewling moan. "Where am I?" she groaned, eyes still closed against the harshness of the light.

"You're safe, Sweetie. We were walking in a different part of the forest and we felt the trembling of the explosion. We walked toward the disturbance and we found you curled up in a ball on the forest floor. We went up to your village and saw Monika no Mura all in ruin. we didn't think anybody survived, so we gathered you up and brought you with us," said the man.

"What's your name, Sweetie?" asked the woman sitting next to the man.

"Ay—Cheza," she stuttered, catching herself. Ayame thought it was better to give them a bit of misinformation. If Kisame and Deidara ever came looking for her, they'd ask for Ayame and she didn't want to ever see them again. She didn't want anybody to be killed on her behalf either. "What happened?" she asked, opening her eyes slightly, looking at the couple sitting at her bedside. "Is jii-chan okay? What about Mommy and Daddy and Niji nee-chan? Please keep me safe from Dara onii-chan and Kisame-san." Tears started filling the little girl's eyes. "I thought they were friends, but they tried to kill me," she sobbed.

"Dara?" the man repeated, looking at his wife.

"And Kisame," she added.

"Dara?" he asked, this time with a slight bit of recognition. His eyes got wide and he exclaimed, "Deidara!"

"Don't worry, Cheza," the woman reassured her. "You're safe here. We won't let them hurt you. We didn't leave any traces behind. They won't know where you went."

"And we'll find your family, Cheza. I promise."

So, review and tell me what you think. Lack of reviews won't stop me from updating but it's a nice thing to do. It's very welcome as well. Or I could be childish and say R4R. But I'd rather not have to bribe you.

And something fun I learned today just playing around with Google Translate: Set the language as Japanese and have it translate to English. Make sure the "Allow Phonetic Typing" box is checked. Type in Hyuuga and see what it translates out to. Isn't that funny? Not "haha" funny but "odd in an interesting kind of way" funny.

I thought so anyway.