Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any characters affiliated therewith. Neither do I own Riku who I am using with the permission of AzNcHiBi. I only own Katsuki.
The Akatsuki leader sat behind the desk in a dark chamber, his ruby eyes surveying the individuals before him. Deidara and Sasori, now out of his puppet, were each standing behind the kunoichi they'd captured two days earlier.
"One more time. Your names are-?"
"Fujiwara no Katsuki, Leader-sama."
"Kiyotake no Riku, sir." Both women's eyes were slightly glazed over, due to the fact that their memories had just been newly erased.
"Good." Leader nodded his head, evidently pleased. "Whom do you work for? Where do your loyalties lie?"
"To the Akatsuki alone and all its members. No other," came Riku's now robotic voice. Leader closed his eyes and sighed contentedly.
"Deidara, Sasori. We still haven't been able to break through the seal that binds their jutsu-specialties. Because of that, I want you to keep these two under watch at all times," Leader said, turning his attention to a small stack of papers beside him.
"Understood, Leader." Said Akatsuki bowed and steered the two girls toward the door.
"Oh, and one other thing…" Deidara and Sasori stopped and looked back at Leader.
"Make sure you talk to them to try and break that damn seal."
Elsewhere:
Kakashi and Genma were leaping through the trees at an incredible pace. Both were physically and mentally exhausted, yet they were reluctant to stop. In their minds they knew every second could be precious to their girlfriends' lives.
"Kakashi, we should take a rest. We don't even know where their hideout is!" Genma shouted, panting heavily.
"I don't care! The sooner we find their hideout, the sooner we…" Kakashi suddenly stopped and stood on a tree limb, panting hard. Genma joined him a few seconds later. The chuunin exam officer gently placed a hand on the copy-ninja's shoulder.
"Think about it: what if we were to come across an Akatsuki now? In our exhausted state, we'd never even last a minute… We still need to rescue them…"
"…You're right, Genma. Let's rest for a little bit." Kakashi pulled away from Genma's grasp, not wanting him to see the tears forming in his eyes. Genma sighed and slipped his knapsack off his shoulders as he sat down beside the copy-ninja.
At the Akatsuki hideout:
The kunoichi were roughly shoved into another dark chamber that served as Sasori and Deidara's room.
"You two will sleep there," Deidara said, pointing at a pile of blankets beside Sasori's work desk as he himself sat down on his own bed.
"And if you so much as think about touching my puppets…" Sasori's hazel eyes narrowed viciously as he sat down to work. For a while, there was silence; the men tinkered with their respective works of art, the women just standing there.
"Master Deidara, is there anything you need at the moment?" Katsuki asked, her voice now back to normal, but still a little timid. Deidara's azure eyes widened somewhat at the formality, and he then became the goofy person Sasori wished didn't exist.
"No, not now, yeah. Hey, have you ever made something out of clay?" Deidara looked expectantly at Katsuki as his hands were busy sculpting a small bird, but Sasori only shook his head.
"Leader erased her memory, remember?" Sasori growled, carefully smoothing out a nick that Hiruko had somehow gotten. Deidara ignored him.
"Hmph. Katsuki-chan, come here," the clay master said, motioning to her. When she sat down on the bed beside him, he smiled and took her hand.
"I want you to make something. Just anything. Understand, yeah?" Katsuki looked up at him, a slight apprehensive look in her eyes as her mind struggled to grasp an erased memory; one that screamed at her that she shouldn't be holding Deidara's clay in her hand. She looked at the ball of clay, at Deidara, then back at the ball. The Iwa ninja laughed.
"Don't worry. I won't make this batch explode, yeah," he said. Katsuki smiled nervously at him, then she began to mold a small figure between her nimble fingers. Sasori, for his part, completely ignored Deidara and his new "toy" of sorts. Instead, he turned to Riku, who stood still, waiting for someone to give her an order.
"…Riku, come here." The girl nodded and knelt beside the desk, her head down.
"What is it you wish, Master Sasori?" she asked softly.
"Hmm… This isn't the brave, random woman I fought a few days ago… And Leader-sama said we had to talk to them…" Sasori thought, a small frown creasing the corners of his mouth. He sighed inwardly. "Do you know anything about puppets and how to control them?"