Meeting The Rest

It had been a few days since Sasori and I got back to the hide-out, and all I'd done was lay in bed, moping around missing everyone back home again. I'd spent a bit of time training, but mostly I just locked myself in my room and read my books. I hadn't seen much of mum or dad, or really anyone for that matter.

Surprisingly, I'd seen Sasori the most out of everyone, passing each other in the halls or sharing the kitchen. He wasn't speaking much any more, but he no longer seemed to try to dig at me for every little thing. Sometimes we actually managed to hold a full conversation, though that was rare, and about things I found little to no interest in, but it was something at least.

He was different then I'd first thought him to be. He wasn't as arrogant as he liked people to think, he was just passionate about things, mostly his art and puppets but there were other things as well, like for instance music. For some reason he didn't think it was art like most people did, but still he loved it. To say I was shocked when I found out was an understatement. Sasori was a little reluctant to say what kind he enjoyed the most but he eventually came out and told me he liked rock, though what type of rock was still untold.

I sat up from my bed and looked out my window. Raining like always. Did I expect any different? No I guess not.

I let out a heavy sigh and lazily got up to start the day. After a quick shower, I got dressed in simple black slacks, a dark brown tank top and my ninja sandals. I pulled my hair up and out of my face into a ponytail and left my room to grab a small breakfast.

Walking into the kitchen I was surprised to see Kisame there, leaning against the counter, talking to someone sitting at the table with their back to me.

"Kisame, you're back." I greeted with a genuine smile. I hadn't seen him since Sasori woke up, I somehow missed our weird conversations.

"Hey kitten." Kisame said with one of his toothy grins. "So, your the leaders kid?"

"You know huh?" I rubbed the back of my neck with a nervous laughed.

"Yeah, he's told everyone now." He gave a rumbling chuckle and turned to the guy facing away from me still and using his fish like eyes, motioned towards me. "Kitten, this is my partner, Itachi."

The man finally stood up and turned around, and I got my first good look at him. Tall, dark and handsome. Yep if perfection were a real thing it was standing right in front of me. So this was the guy from all the stories Kisame told me. He gave me a nod of acknowledgment and went over to the sink to wash his dishes. This guy, Itachi, had so much grace, his feet made no sound when he walked. If I weren't looking right at him I wouldn't even know he was there. I was kind of glad we were on the same team, I could tell he was one hell of a ninja already, maybe better then even Sasori!

Speaking of the red head, he just so happened to walk in. "Morning Sasori." I greeted with a grin on my face and unknown to me a barely noticeable tint of red to my checks. Kisame saw it though, but hid his look of curiosity.

"Good morning." He replied and went to make his morning coffee. It was clear he'd only just gotten out of bed, his hair was in a rumpled mess on top of his head, dressed in a plain black t-shirt and baggy dark gray trackies. Over all he looked like a hot mess...'Did I just call Sasori hot? No way!'

Shaking those thoughts from my now confused head, I spun around to look at my partner. "Do you know if we have any missions coming up? I'm getting pretty bored all cooped up in here all day." I walked over to lean on the bench next to where he was making his morning coffee. It really hadn't been that long since we went on that first mission, but I was still bored. Hopefully it'll be something a little less violent then last time.

"No." He gave a quiet sigh and stirred his coffee a bit before moving to sit at the table and I followed suit and sat down on the other side. He looked to be still half asleep, with his eye lids barely open, and the slightest hint of dark circles, slowly, almost delicately, sipping at his hot caffeine fix.

"Oh." My head dropped dramatically and I let out a long loud sigh of my own. Great stuck here even longer! With nothing to do! This was becoming ridiculous. I just wanted to get my mind off my old home. It was a lot harder to say good bye then I thought it would be. Even second time round, it hurt. Then again the first time I wasn't given the chance to say good bye.

I looked up as I heard the kitchen door open again to see Deidara walk in as well. Kitchen now very full, Itachi and Kisame left to do god only knew what, and that left just me, Deidara and Sasori in the small room.

"Morning guys." The blonde greeted with his trademark boyish grin and flipped the kettle on to re-heat the already hot water. Deidara turned back around to face us and jumped up onto the bench. "Got any plans today?"

Both Sasori and I looked up and shook our heads no.

"Want to come to the Akiri training grounds with me later today hmm?" He asked over his shoulder.

"Akiri training grounds?" I asked in return. I'd been living there for two years and never heard of such a place.

Deidara looked at me weird for a few seconds before finally getting off the bench to make a coffee. "Akiri training grounds yeah, It's about half an hour out of rain. Far enough that it actually has sun most of the time. And it's big enough to move freely, not to mention it's outdoors yeah."

"Not many people go there because it's so close to the Akatsuki's main base, so it's perfect for when we want to train harder then indoors will allow." Sasori pipped up and finished explaining for the blonde.

"Okay, cool." I nodded my head to show I understood, and smiled in excitement. Finally something to do! We spent the rest of the time in the kitchen making small talk, until the two boys walked off to get ready, leaving me alone once again.

Sighing, I got up from the table, washed all my dishes and then went back to my room to grab anything I might need for the day. While I was packing everything up I turned on my stereo and danced around my room, picking things up as I passed them, dropping them into the bag I was taking with me. I was actually having a lot of fun, and would of happily continued if someone hadn't cleared their throat behind me.

I froze in place, hand above my pack, still opened from dropping the roll of bandages I'd been holding not five seconds ago. Swallowing loudly, I slowly turned around to see my red headed stalker. Yes stalker, that's what I'm now calling him. It seems no matter where I go or what I'm doing, he's never too far away. He'll just randomly pop up out of no where! Tell me how that's not stalking.

Sasori didn't say a word, thankfully, he just stood there, leaning against the door frame with one eye brow raised in amusement.

"What? Never seen a person dance before?" I stuck my nose in the air to show I wasn't embarrassed about being caught and continued to pack my things, although I didn't start dancing again, I left the music on until I was ready to leave.

When I got out the front, Sasori and Deidara were already waiting for me. Sasori looked annoyed, though I wasn't surprised, I had taken nearly twenty minutes to get ready, That's like a year in Sasori time.

"Took your time." Sasori rolled his eyes and started walking for the gates.

"I took 20 minutes tops!" I shouted after him, running to catch up.

It wasn't long before we were out of the village and sprinting forward on a narrow road to this 'Akiri training ground'. After maybe 10 minutes though I started to notice something. This place, it looked familiar somehow. The farther we ran the more I recognized. I got so caught up trying to remember if I'd ever been here before that I didn't see that the boys had stopped and ran right into Deidara and fell backwards to the ground.

"Owie." I moaned childishly, rubbing my now sore behind while Deidara stood there laughing at me.

I glared at the blonde as best I could, but it held no heat. I got up and brushed myself off, stealing a glance at Sasori, who was trying to hid a smirk but failing. Shaking my head, I stood up straight and looked around, and that's when it hit me. I did know this place, it was the same training grounds that mum and dad took me for my test. 12 months hadn't done a whole lot for it. It still looked pretty torn up, although that could have been from others training here, a lot of it was from my test.

And that was the last thing I could think before the hardest two hours of sparring in my life began.

Panting harshly trying to catch my breath I blinked my eyes to adjust them and it was all over. A hard kick to my gut and a hit to the head and I was down. Deidara slowly brought his leg back down and stood over me, sweat dropping off his face he smiled that cocky smile of his to say he'd won the spar. I just glared back and painfully crossed my arms with a huff. "You got lucky."

Grin still in place he held out his hand to help me back up and walked over to Sasori, who had gotten a bomb to the back and had to sit out for the last half an hour. We all sat down under the trees and ate the food that Deidara had thought to bring with us. Since I was being childish after losing I sat next to Sasori to eat, trying to keep as much distance as I could from Deidara. Making small talk about whatever came to mind, I noticed Deidara kept starring at Sasori and me with this weird look, as if he knew something, but whatever it was he never brought it up so with a small shrug I ignored it.

"Kaiya, Sasori. I want to see you in my office. Come back to rain now." Dad's voice said from out of nowhere, making me jump slightly from the sudden noise, but before we could reply he broke the connection.

I stood up, stretched out, ate the last bite of my lunch and then went off to get everything I brought with me. While I was gone however, Deidara cornered Sasori.


"So, I see you warmed up to our little Kaiya rather quickly hmm." He commented with a large grin spread across his face. With a raised eyebrow Sasori attempted to ignore him and gather the few things he had taken. "She's pretty cute, don't you think?" Deidara asked with a look that suggested something Sasori didn't like.

"I don't know where you're trying to go with this pointless conversation, but I wouldn't continue." Threat made and understood, Sasori walked away. The blonde just looked down and pouted.


Within 15 minutes we were packed again and sprinting back to AHQ. The whole time though Deidara kept looking at both Sasori and I, and when he wasn't doing that he looked deep in thought, Sasori just ignored the both of us which wasn't a surprise really. I just stayed quiet and watched the two, clearly I missed something back there. 'hmm, I wonder what happened?'

When we got back Sasori and I went straight to dads office to see what he needed. Maybe another mission? It would be great to get out and do something, instead of just sitting around being bored. Before I could knock on the door however it was opened, mum on the other side, blank face as usual, stepped back to allow us entry into the dark room. Dad, as always, was sitting at his desk doing paper work, looked up to acknowledge us.

"You wanted to see us dad?" I said politely with a small bow of the head to show respect for the man who helped me become the person I was today.

"Yes. You're first mission went very well, I'm impressed by the fact you have only known each other a few days and were able to finish the mission with no complications." I let a smile show through at the praise we were given. "But because the two of you have only known each other a few days, in certain situations it can become problematic." Dad interlaced his fingers and rested his chin on them, with an intense look in his eyes. "I have decided that for the next month you will not have any missions. Instead I want the two of you to take that time to train together everyday."

Jaw slack I turned to look at my partner, Sasori didn't seem to like the idea either but said nothing.

"Knowing each other can be the difference between success and death. Learn each other. By the end of the month you should be able to write a biography on the other. I see you two apart for more then an hour you'll have hell to pay. That is all." He said darkly with the top half of his face covered by shadows, to be quite frank, he looked scary as hell and there was no way either of us were going to put up a fight with a look like that. The both of us just turned tail and got out of there as fast as we could without actually running.

"He really can be scary when he wants to be." I whispered as I put a hand over my rapidly beating heart.

"He isn't the leader of Akastuki for nothing." Sasori replied with a matter of fact tone, but I could tell he was shaken up as well.


After the pair left, Nagato sat back in his chair and waited for Konan to come back with the paper work he'd asked for. Closing his eyes, he rubbed his temples in a private moment of weakness and allowed the strain of running a village and Akastuki to show. He almost wanted to laugh at how the world portrayed him, it wasn't easy playing the bad guy, but he accepted his roll in making the world better and would gladly die for his beliefs, he just hoped he'd be around long enough to see his daughter blossom into the great ninja he knew she would become.

"Nagato?"

"Did you find it?" He sat up straight once again and looked for all the word perfectly fine.

She handed him the papers and stepped back to allow the man space, knowing that the stress was once again surfacing. On top of everything, he was worried about Kaiya.

Someone out there was looking for her, but who? And more importantly why?


The next morning I was up, dressed and eating breakfast all by 6:30 when Sasori came in. "Morning."

"Morning." He said so softly it was almost a sigh.

"So any ideas on what to do in training today?"

"Not really." He held a hand to his head and closed his eyes, Sasori really wasn't a morning person.

We finished eating quickly and made our way to the training room. I wasn't sure if I should take it easy on him since he was still recovering, or if I'd have to go all out because he still had many years over me. 'I guess I'll find out soon enough.'

unknown to either of us though, we were being watched.

"We'll just watch them for now, see what they do"

For the next couple of hours we didn't talk much. That's pretty much how every day went really.

We would get up and spend half an hour getting ready, go have breakfast together and make small talk, then go to the training room. For the most part we spared, even started making bets on who would win with the loser having to do 1000 push ups in five minutes or something like that.

But one day things went a little different. I had my normal morning routine but when Sasori and I got to the training room there was people in there, people I had never seen before. There was one guy with a blindingly orange mask on, another really tall guy with a weird looking scythe, one I couldn't tell what it was beside plant like. 'What the hell is going on here?'

I turned to my partner and voiced my thoughts."Um Sasori, who are all these people?"

"They're the other members of Akatsuki." The red headed boy replied with a curious look in his eyes. Clearly he had no idea what was going on either.

Deidara walked over to us and the one with the orange mask followed behind him like a lost puppy. "Hey guys, you're finally here, yeah. Leader told everyone that they had to meet Kaiya hmm." Big smile in place, Deidara didn't see me shrink behind Sasori, trying to make myself as small as possible. One little thing they didn't seem too know about me yet, I was extremely shy when it came to me being the center of attention in a room full of people I didn't know. 'Oh this is going to be great!'

What I didn't expect though was when Sasori seemed to step in front of me even more, almost like he knew I didn't want to be seen and was trying to help. Sasori help? It was shaping up to be one weird day, and it wasn't even nine o'clock yet.

"This is the Akatsuki?" I looked around the room with wide eyes taking in the sight of the deadly men. I knew some of the faces, Kisame was there and standing next to him was Itachi. The one with the mask that followed Deidara I could only guess was Tobi, Deidara's new partner, he seemed to be a fully grown man but he had an air of child like innocents surrounding him, which only became more apparent when he spoke.

"OH are you Kaiya? You're Sasori's new partner right?" Bouncing around like only a five year old could.

"Tobi right?" Tobi gave an over exaggerated nod.

"YEAH!"

"Shut the fuck up you over grown child!" I looked up and saw the guy with the scythe walking over to us and stopped in front of Sasori, and by default, me. "Hey cutie, name's Hidan, and you are?"

"K-kayia." I wasn't too sure about this one.

"Back off Hidan, she's not interested yeah." Deidara stepped in to save me. I looked up at Sasori to see him glaring at Hidan venomously, basically if looks could kill, the crazy scythe wielder wouldn't have had time to blink. I mouthed a thank you to Deidara and he just gave a nod and introduced me to the rest. "Okay, so you already know Kisame and Itachi over there hmm, that one there," He pointed to a guy with a cloth mask over the lower half of his face and I could see stitches? "Is Kakuzu, he does some medical treatments when needed but mostly he just keeps to himself yeah. He's partnered with Hidan."

Deidara then pointed to the plant looking thing. "That is Zetsu, he doesn't come to rain much, mostly just does recon hmm. But he does clean up messes, if you know what I mean." He gave a wink which only made me feel sick. 'Messes? As in bodies? Oh god please don't tell me he eats them.' Although something told me he did.

"And that, Kaiya, is the Akatsuki yeah."

After awhile everyone left and Sasori and I finally got to our training session, but the whole time I noticed something was off about him. He wasn't concentrating, hit's I made that he should have blocked and dodged without any trouble was connecting. His movements were slowed and almost unsure. Was he drunk? No not Sasori. What was going on?

At around 12:30 we took a small lunch break and I finally got up the nerve to ask him about it. Taking in a deep breath to calm myself, I tried to sort though my thoughts before I said anything. He looked over to me and seemed to notice I wanted to say something but waited patiently for me to start speaking.

"What's up? You seem off today." I began lamely.

"I'm fine. Just a little head ache." He replied but I wasn't completely convinced.

I walked over to him and felt his forehead for any sign of a fever. Nope. "You don't feel feverish."

"Kaiya, seriously I'm okay." He had a gentle look on his face in an effort to assure me he was indeed okay.

With a sigh I gave in and nodded my head in acceptance, but I was going to keep a close eye on him just in case, something just didn't seem right.


Once they had finished lunch Kaiya and Sasori went straight back to sparring, but the whole time Sasori just couldn't keep his mind focused. No matter what he did he kept thinking. About that mission, about her. She was different, he couldn't quiet put his finger on what it was about her that intrigued him so, but is was definitely there.

The way she effortlessly dodged everything he threw at her, or the way she didn't take any crap from him, or her eyes- 'Stop it!' Sasori snapped his eyes shut to stop the slowly forming metal image of the girl before him, however in that split second his eyes weren't on the real Kaiya she managed to get behind him and fly kicked the poor boy in the back of his head. Stunned, he stumbled forward, eyes now wide open, he spun around and looked at her.

There she stood, breath fast and heavy, slightest hint of sweat on her forehead and chest, her eyes also wide but in concern, shock, maybe even confusion? It was too much. He had to get away from her. He needed to clear his mind, he had to think clearly. Neither of which would happen if he stayed there with her.

So he ran. With no place in mind he went straight, all the while trying to think of anything but her. When he came to a dead end he turned left and continued to run, still with no idea where he was going, at that point he didn't care, he just had to keep going. 'What is going on?!'

Not looking where he was going he soon ran into something "Whoa! Fucker watch where you're going!"

Looking up from his new position on the ground he realized he'd just ran into Hidan. He stood up and attempted to brush himself off before he once again sped away from the girl he couldn't stop thinking about, completely ignoring the immortal screaming curses and profanity at him.

It had been two weeks since they'd started their 'training' and things had been going well. But something changed. What was it? What happened? Why was he thinking about her?

"Sasori! Wait up, yeah!"

Coming to a halt, the redhead turned around to see his best friend running after him. Out of breath by the time he caught up, Deidara took a few seconds to calm his breathing before he started to speak.

"Whats going on, yeah? Kaiya's worried. Said you just ran off without a world." Deidara stepped back to look at Sasori properly, and realized something was obviously very wrong. "You look awful! Seriously whats going on?"

Trying in vain to compose himself, the boy breathed in deep through his nose and somehow managed to lose the wild and freaked look in his eyes. He looked for a way to describe what was going on in his head but he couldn't find the words. His mind was still a mess and the more he thought the worse it got. "I don't know." Sasori sat down against the wall and put his head in his hands. "She's in my head." He finally got out while starting to shake. "I can't get her out! Why can't I get her out?"

"Get who out, hmm?" Deidara sat down beside him, already having an idea on who he was talking about.

"Kaiya."


I looked everywhere for Sasori after he ran away, even asked Deidara if he'd seen him, but after an hour I was ready to give up and go back to my room for a nice long shower.

"-ant be right."

I stopped walking when I heard a voice from around the corner. 'Sasori?'

"Look Sasori I know I can be wrong about a lot of things but trust me I'm right about this, yeah." It was Deidara who spoke that time. 'Right? About what?'

I decided to keep walking to see what was going on instead of snooping around, but once I turned the corner and Sasori saw me his eyes went huge and he looked almost afraid of me. I backed up a few steps in hopes it would settle him a little. "Finally I found you." I breathed a sigh of relief. "You know I've been worried sick about you right?" I placed my hands on my hips trying to act upset, but really I was just glad he was okay.

"I'm alright." He said looking down at the ground to avoid looking at me.

Deidara got up from his position next to Sasori and walked over to me. "I'll keep an eye on him for the day don't worry."

"Are you sure he's okay?" I questioned. Nothing either of them said would really assure me but none the less I asked anyway.

The blonde just gave me a single nod and I took that as my cue to leave the boys alone, so I walked away to continue to my room.