And just because you showed no love and hate on us
you fucked our trust.

This love, This Hate
Is burning me away

It's harder times like these that never change

it all just hits so close to home,
we all got friends but we stand alone, and your on your own from a broken home,
you keep the truth inside and it stays unknown. Nostalgia hit and its time to quit,
and everybody acts like it don't mean shit.

"Knife Called Lust" – Hollywood Undead

--

When they woke the next morning, Clair set off asking Naruto questions while he munched on cereal.

"So, Shi kidnapped you?" Clair asked.

"With Sasuke's help," He said with a nod.

"And Shi let you go?"

"Yup. After we yelled at each other and exchanged 'fuck you's." He said, leaving out a lot of their argument.

"Of course you two fought," She said, mostly to herself.

He rolled his eyes and told her to eat breakfast, but she refused, yet again. He gave up with not much of an argument. It was getting old.

"But, Shi just… let you go?" Clair asked, still confused.

"While Sasuke was asleep, she untied me and told me to follow her than we went to Konoha. Than she went back," He explained.

"That's when we ran into her. Man, you guys must've passed right by us and we didn't even notice," Clair said with a slight sigh.

"What happened when you guys ran into her?" He asked. She hadn't given him the full story. In fact, he'd barely figured out there had been some sort of confrontation.

She explained to him everything that had happened. She told him that they had found Jake and John beat up, after an apparent fight with Shi. She than told him about how she had fought Shizuka, mostly alone, and how they found out that he had been home, safe, the whole time.

"You two actually fought like that?" Naruto asked, stunned.

"Well," Clair started, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "Yeah, we did. I was mad and she was just eggin' me on. 'Sides, she's Akatsuki and I'm ANBU; it's what we're supposed to do." She said with a shrug even though she knew she really didn't have to, and that she never did much ANBU work anyways. She just needed a good excuse.

"I guess," Naruto said, half-heartedly. Both had the vision of his fight with Sasuke on the hospital roof-top floating around in their minds. It was just so déjà vu.

At that point, Aiko had walked in, yawning. "Morning lil bro and sis!" She said cheerily.

Clair rolled her eyes and Naruto chuckled lightly. Aiko poured herself a bowl of cereal and sat next to Naruto.

"Was I interrupting anything?" Aiko asked, glancing between Clair and Naruto.

"We were just talking about last night," Clair said with a shrug.

"Oh, I see," Aiko said. "So, what are we going to do about Miss Akatsuki?"

Naruto grumbled under his breath and neither Clair nor Aiko could decipher it. Aiko raised an eyebrow at him and Clair shook her head, slightly annoyed.

"Well, we should probably do something," Aiko said as she finished her cereal. She gathered Naruto's empty bowl and cleaned the dishes in the sink.

"Yeah, probably…" Clair said half-heartedly.

Aiko looked at her, confused. "I thought you'd be dragging her ass back to Konoha. What's up with you?"

"Yeah, me too…" Clair said dully.

"Than why not?" Naruto asked.

"She doesn't want to come back. Isn't it obvious?" Clair said. "So why waste our time?"

"Oh yeah, and she totally wants to be in Akatsuki," Aiko said sarcastically.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Clair asked, confused as she looked over at Aiko.

"If she really wanted to be in the Akatsuki, she wouldn't've let Naruto go," Aiko said.

Naruto raised his eyebrows, not catching on at all. Clair wasn't sure she understood either.

"Oh come on. You have to be heartless and just plain evil to be in the Akatsuki so you can kill carelessly," Aiko said. "She obviously didn't want to see you-" She looked at Naruto as she spoke, "-dead, so that means she's not completely heartless and evil. So, my guess is that ass dragged her into the Akatsuki with him," She said.

"Sasuke's not an ass," Naruto said stubbornly.

"Why do you still stand up for him?" Clair asked, staring at her boyfriend as if a mushroom had just sprouted between his eyes. "He's totally an ass."

Naruto grumbled again, and Clair shook her head at him. With a sigh, Aiko continued.

"I don't think it's a waste of time to go after her," She said. "'Cause what if she wants to come back? 'Sides, we want her back."

"Well it's unfair to her if she doesn't want to come back and we force her," Clair said.

"I still think we should try…" Aiko said, mostly to herself.

-

Trotting down the streets of Konoha, wolf-formed Lycan looked around cautiously at the passer-bys, who in return gave her a smile or a weird look, depending on if they knew her or not.

She was insanely bored; Kiba was on a mission and everyone else seemed to be busy. So, she entertained herself by walking around the village.

Passing by the ANBU HQ, she paused as a group of ANBU walked out, laughing and bragging to each other. At first it didn't even faze her, but she froze when she heard one utter the word 'Akatsuki'. Intrigued – due to the recent news of her friend gone Akatsuki – Lycan decided to stick around and ease drop.

"No, I swear, she just ran right into me," One of the taller ANBU laughed.

"Let me get this straight," The ANBU next to him said, "an Akatsuki member ran straight into you, just like that. You weren't even looking for Akatsuki. And now you're being promoted?"

"Damn right!" The first one laughed. The rest of his buddies laughed too as they walked off.

Stunned, Lycan watched them for a while before taking off at full speed.

-

"What!?" Raidon exclaimed, nearly falling out of her chair.

"ANBU caught an Akatsuki girl!" Lycan repeated, frantically shaking her human-hands in the air.

"Well the only girls are Shi and that blue-haired girl, right?" Raidon asked.

"I don't know!" Lycan snapped.

"You should!" Raidon exclaimed.

"What?!" Lycan asked, dumb-founded. "How?!"

"'Cause of Deidara!" Rae said, sort of annoyed. "Doesn't he tell you anything?"

"I haven't talked to Deidara in a while!" Lycan said, ready to shake Rae by the collar.

"Well, did you hear anything about what she looked like?" Raidon asked, starting to get a little paranoid.

"No! I told you everything I heard." Lyc said.

"Crap," Rae hissed. She got up and started pacing around nervously while the older girl watched. Rae had started mumbling to herself incoherently as she walked in a circle around the couch.

"Let's just see if we can find out if it's really Shi or not," Rae finally said, looking at Lycan.

"Should we get the others?" Lycan asked.

Raidon shook her head. "If a whole group of us goes down there, it'll look suspicious. Let's just check to see if it's Shi, than we'll figure out what to do from there."

"Ok," Lycan said with a nod, they than rushed out the door and down to the Hokage Tower.

-

While Raidon made a distraction, Lycan snuck up to the Record's room as a fly. She flew in and looked around. When she was sure nobody else was there, she morphed back to her human form and started going through files.

She nearly screamed when Rae appeared, almost out of thin air.

"How'd you get in?" Lycan asked.

"The window," Rae said, jabbing her thumb at the window.

"Oh…" Lyc said, blinking.

"Never mind that, what'd you find?" Rae asked, scanning the documents with her Sharingan.

"Not much. You're better at this than I am," Lycan said, searching the papers the old fashioned way – one by one – while Rae breezed through files in a second.

"Found it!" Rae exclaimed, grabbing a piece of paper.

"What's it say? What's it say?" Lycan demanded, impatiently, like an eager little kid.

Rae read it in her head, searching for the right words. When she found them, she repeated them to Lyc, than handed her the document. It was an arrest warrant for Shizuka Nara. Another document said something about Shi being placed in jail, but Rae barely glanced at that one.

"Damnit!" Lycan snapped, putting the paper back in its folder.

"They got Shi," Rae said with a frown. She clenched her fists and swore. "Stupid ANBU."

The doorknob jangled and the girls looked up at each other, panicked. They quickly scrambled out the window, right as the Hokage walked in. They landed in the bushes with a disgruntled 'ouf'.

Hearing the slight commotion, Lady Hokage looked out the window. After assuring herself it was just the wind, she turned away.

Rubbing her head, Lyc grumbled under her breath and turned to Raidon, who wasn't looking all too happy.

"You okay?" Lycan asked her.

"I'm fine," She said bitterly as she got up and brushed herself off.

With her head cocked to the side, Lycan watched Raidon, who was pulling herself out of the bushes.

"Let's go tell the others," Rae said as she started heading out. Lycan morphed back to wolf-form, than followed her younger friend.

-

Rae had gone to Éclair's house and snagged Clair and Aiko while Lycan retrieved Kazumi. When all five had regrouped in Lycan's living room, Raidon gave them the news.

"ANBU arrested Shi.

"What?!" Clair, Aiko and Zumi asked in unison.

"She's in jail," Lycan said simply.

"How?" Kazumi asked.

"She ran into ANBU apparently," Lycan explained with a slight shrug.

"You mean, she just ran, 'SPLAT!' into ANBU, on accident?" Clair asked, not really believing it.

"Yup," Lycan said, nodding.

"Sounds like she gave up," Zumi noted sadly.

Aiko gave Clair an 'I-told-you-so' look, and Clair stuck her tongue out at Aiko. Lycan chuckled amused and Raidon cocked an eyebrow at them in confusion.

"So, what are we going to do?" Kazumi asked, ignoring Aiko and Éclair's oddity.

"What can we do? We can't bust her out," Clair said.

"Well, we gotta do something," Aiko said matter-of-fact-ly.

"Duh," Lycan added in.

"Than come up with something," Zumi said, her tone a little annoyed as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Aiko, Lycan and Raidon exchanged a glance while Clair rolled her eyes and Kazumi sighed. Clair was right, they couldn't just bust in and get her out, not to mention, like Zumi had pointed out, they didn't have a plan.

Chewing on her lip, Rae watched the other girls, hoping to see a spark of inspiration. She didn't see any. Nobody had an idea. With a frown, she looked down at the ground. Shizuka was an S-ranked criminal, she had kidnapped Naruto, and now she was in jail. What was there they could do? Part of Rae was a little angry that Shi had just ditched them like that, especially for the Akatsuki. But Sasuke had – sort of – done the same. It wasn't just that though; Rae wasn't ready to admit defeat. She wanted to believe Shi and Sasuke would come back.