[A/N: I don't want to write a whole story detailing what happened with Kakashi and Root, so I'll just explain here. After the deaths of Obito and Rin, Kakashi was partially inducted into Root—he wasn't subjected to much emotional trauma besides what he had already been through, but he did a lot of very nasty jobs for them before finally rebelling and ending up in ANBU sometime around the Kyuubi attack. Very few people know about it (Itachi wasn't supposed to know and Kakashi doesn't know he knows) and he is very keen on keeping it that way. Kakashi's stint in Root being revealed might be part of what Danzou is threatening him with, because he thinks a lot of the villagers won't trust him anymore if it becomes general knowledge. This is only for Turning Points backstory; none of my other fics use this.]

Interlude III:

Six months later...

Sasuke sighed as he looked down at the grubby surface of the table he was seated at. The ramen place had been in better shape, but...ramen. Even if he didn't mind the taste, he wouldn't want it anyway because of all the memories it would bring back. Besides, this place wasn't as busy; it was deserted except for him at the moment.

He had managed at least passably since Iron Country—his situation wasn't good, but he had survived which was what counted. After getting off the mountain, he had tried to find Itachi under any the false names he could remember, even the female ones, but his brother seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth. Sasuke doubted he was dead (this was Itachi, after all) but would soon have to admit it was a possibility.

The late Mio and Gentaro had actually had a lot of money in their packs, which Sasuke had taken advantage of as well as everything else of theirs that had looked useful (he did feel guilty about this, but it wasn't as if they could have made any more use of it). However, the money was almost gone now and soon he would have to try to find employment as a missing-nin.

That was going to be difficult. When he and Itachi had been travelling together, Itachi had been very secretive about where he got his jobs from and what sort of jobs they were, so Sasuke had very little knowledge of how the process worked. Still, he was reasonably sure he could work something out, as long as no one recognized him. He had been very cautious in that regard, staying away from anywhere Konoha shinobi often travelled to and staying out of sight of everyone except when necessary. Right now he was masking his chakra to civilian levels and wearing a bulky hooded jacket that hid his face almost entirely as well as disguising his general build.

The single waitress finally made her way over to him. "Order?" she asked curtly. Clearly, she wasn't being paid any extra for courtesy.

"The yakisoba," Sasuke replied. The waitress wrote this down and then walked off without so much as a nod. Sasuke settled down to wait.

While he was waiting, the door opened and two other people came in. Sasuke looked them both over from beneath his hood but took care not to look too interested—he didn't want to attract attention.

They only looked to be a few years older than Sasuke, to his surprise. He didn't have time to notice much else besides that one was blond and the other a redhead before he realized that they were heading for his table.

Sasuke frowned, tilting his head so his face was even more shadowed as they approached. He had hoped they would merely pass by, but they stopped right next to his table.

"We've been looking for you," the redhead said quietly as he and his companion sat down on the bench across from Sasuke.

"You must have me mistaken for someone else..." Sasuke said, trying to sound calm.

"Oh, I don't think so...Uchiha Sasuke," the redhead replied, leaning forward to whisper the name.

Sasuke couldn't keep himself from stiffening in surprise, and decided not to keep up the pretense. "How did you—?"

"We're just awesome that way," the blond said blithely.

"Well, not exactly," the redhead said, "but we have been keeping an eye on you for some time."

"Have you," Sasuke said, judging how far it was to the door. If it came down to that, he stood a good chance of getting out of the building before they could catch him.

The redhead nodded. "You're looking for your brother, aren't you? We thought we could help...in exchange for a few favors. Oh, we haven't introduced ourselves, have we? This is Deidara, and I am Sasori. We're with the Akatsuki."

[A/N: Someone must have seen this coming...This is the last interlude, by the way, and the beginning of Part II will take a while since I have to go over the source material again.]