[A/N: Fiddled with the outline a bit, and now I don't need the source material until after the first several chapters, so I'm starting Part II early.]

PART II

Chapter 1: Routine

Three years later...

Sasuke stirred drowsily, opening his eyes as the morning sun hit his face. The bright sunlight only served to accentuate the dinginess of the hotel room he was in—despite the fact that they could well afford better, orders were that Akatsuki members had to keep a low profile.

Sasori was nowhere in sight when Sasuke sat up. The puppet master was very secretive and kept odd hours, so even though they were supposed to be traveling together Sasuke could go for days and hardly even see him. They were supposed to get a mission today (the reason why they were in this particular town), so he had better at least be close by.

Deidara was in the other bed, and hadn't moved an inch. Not about to let Deidara keep sleeping while he was awake, Sasuke tossed one of the pillows at him. Grumbling sleepily, Deidara pulled the covers over his head. Sasuke knew that if he threw anything sharp there would be lots of extra fees to pay and he didn't want to be the one to explain that to Kakuzu. Instead, he used the very thick and heavy treatise on seals that Sasori had found at a used bookstore in the last town they stopped in.

That got immediate results. Deidara flung himself off the bed, landing in a battle-ready crouch and beginning to produce a clay bird before apparently recognizing his surroundings. "Did you have to do that?" he grumbled, bundling the blanket up so he wouldn't trip over it as he gathered up his things.

Sasuke shrugged, knowing there wasn't any answer to that that wouldn't start an argument. He didn't really dislike Deidara, but Deidara was like Naruto with more crazy and less shutting up, which made him difficult to tolerate. Besides this, Deidara resented being lumped in with Sasuke by the other members since he was three years older (he was very insistent on this point). Things could get volatile very quickly if the two of them were left together; literally, since Deidara was an explosives nut and Sasuke had been honing a variety of flame techniques.

When Sasuke had originally joined Akatsuki a few years ago, he and Deidara had been placed in a team together (the intention being give the two youngest members easier jobs) but that hadn't ended well, to say the least. That was why Sasori usually travelled with them.

During his time in Akatsuki, Sasuke had continued looking for Itachi when he had time between missions. With the help of the Leader, he had found a few clues, but these had never led anywhere. It was quite clear that his brother was not interested in being found, which was quite disturbing. He didn't know what Itachi might do if he thought Sasuke was dead—Sasuke feared he might even kill himself. At least for now it seemed he was alive, but Sasuke didn't know how long that would last.

"So, what's on the schedule for today?" Deidara asked once they were both dressed. "Anything interesting? And for the record, 'reconnoitering' is not interesting, un."

"Sasori was supposed to receive orders today, but he's not around right now," Sasuke said, ignoring Deidara's clear attempt to start an argument and taking a scroll out of his pack to study. His genjutsu and ninjutsu skills had increased astronomically, but he still researched diligently. If Itachi was hiding from something, Sasuke would have to become even stronger than him in order to defeat it.

Not having anything constructive to do, Deidara began pacing restlessly around the room, muttering sulkily about 'Sasori-no-Danna wandering off all the time'.

Sasuke quickly tuned him out, putting the scroll away in favor of packing. That didn't take very long—they were travelling light, as they almost always did. Putting the pack on his bed (which was neatly made, unlike Deidara's), Sasuke walked over to the window. There was little of interest in the bare street outside, and he soon found himself idly inspecting his reflection in the glass.

Sasuke hadn't changed that much, outwardly at least, since his time in Konoha that had ended so disastrously. He had grown quite a bit—he was even a tiny bit taller than Deidara was, which just made one more thing that the older teen had to hold against him. Although he had grown his hair out a little, he still kept in in a similar style to how it had been back then, with the vague notion that he wanted Itachi to be able to recognize him if (no, when) they ran into each other again. He was getting awfully pale, though, Sasuke noticed. The Leader had been very insistent that Sasuke's identity not be revealed, which meant that he either kept out of sight or hid his face, both options leading to him not getting a lot of sun.

Deidara was now in the kitchen, and Sasuke could hear a completely unnecessary amount of noise as the other boy prepared to cook. "Sasuke, you want anything?" Deidara called after a moment. "I'm making ramen!"

"Then no, I don't want anything," Sasuke shot back curtly. Deidara knew very well Sasuke's issues with ramen, but instead of leaving well enough alone he had taken this as an invitation to confront Sasuke with the stuff at every opportunity. "In what reality is ramen a breakfast food, anyway?"

"This one, duh," Deidara replied. His voice was somewhat muffled, as if he was looking in a cabinet. Sasuke couldn't make out all of what Deidara said next due to this, but he did catch 'some people just don't appreciate good food, un,' and 'I mean, what's the big fuss over a bunch of noodles, anyway.'

Luckily for their security deposit, Sasori arrived before either of them could get really upset. "What's going on here?" he demanded, surveying the scene in the kitchen.

Sasuke promptly deactivated the Sharingan, and Deidara hid the clay bomb he had been holding behind his back. "Nothing, un!" he proclaimed, completely unconvincingly. "I was...just about to start the stove!"

Sasori raised his eyebrows. "I believe we've discussed this before," he pointed out.

"Oh, right...explosives and household appliances do not go together," Deidara recited. Sasuke smirked; he had heard this lecture a myriad of times over the last three years, with a myriad of things substituted for 'household appliances'. "But that's so boring, un!" Deidara protested.

"Yes, well, fell free to blow yourself to bits on your own time," Sasori rejoined. "For now, though, we have other things to do." He gestured with a message scroll he was holding. "Our orders just came in."

Still annoyed at Sasori's intrusion, Deidara pretended not to be interested and turned away with a huff. This happened a lot, so Sasori ignored Deidara's sulking and rolled the scroll out on the wobbly kitchen table. "Oh, you'll like this one, Sasuke," he remarked after a moment.

Sasuke, who had started looking for something to eat that wasn't ramen, closed the refrigerator and looked over. "And why is that?" he inquired blandly.

"We're going to Konoha."

"What's your big problem with Konoha, anyway?" Deidara demanded a few days later. "You've been dawdling at the back for the whole way, un!"

Sasuke glared at him, his irises briefly splitting into the red-and-black of the Mangekyou Sharingan.

Deidara quickly backed down. "I was just asking," he said in an aggrieved tone. "You didn't have to get all uptight about it."

Sasuke didn't reply. As far as he was concerned, the past was his own business and he wasn't going to tell Deidara (or Sasori, for that matter) anything they couldn't ferret out for themselves. He was pretty sure they must know some of it; Akatsuki had to have been keeping tabs on him in order to find him so quickly after Kakashi had ditched him in a freezing cave in Iron Country. Still, if Deidara hadn't been privy to that information, Sasuke didn't see any reason to go out of his way to provide it.

Speeding up his pace a little, Sasuke tried to make it look a little less like he was hanging back, even though he was in no hurry to reach Konoha. It would be at least another few days before they got there, but Sasuke could already feel himself getting tense.

The mission they were going on wasn't improving matters, either. Apparently, the Leader was curious about Naruto for some reason, and thus was sending them to break into the Konoha archives and retrieve any pertinent information. Sasuke didn't see why Naruto, of all people, would have attracted the Leader's interest—Naruto had a lot of power, but not much in the way of finesse. Be that as it may, Naruto might be in danger if the Akatsuki started really paying attention to him, and even though he and Sasuke were in completely different worlds now Sasuke didn't like the thought of the exuberant blond coming to any harm. That was why he hadn't put up much actual protest when Sasori described the mission: he wanted a chance to get to the files before either of his colleagues could see them. That way, if there was something actually out of the ordinary about Naruto (besides the fact that he could down more than a dozen bowls of ramen at a sitting) Sasuke might be able to doctor any incriminating documents.

Fire Country hadn't changed at all from the last time Sasuke had travelled through it three years before. The trees were green and inviting, and the air was fresh and clear. Sasuke smiled a little, beginning to feel pleasantly nostalgic in spite of himself.

Sasori and Deidara didn't look so pleased with the environment, but this was unsurprising. Sasori had grown up in the arid desert of Wind Country, where you were lucky if you saw a scrubby little bush once in a while, and Deidara hailed from Earth Country, which (although better off in terms of flora than Wind Country) was still very bare compared to Fire Country's extensive tree cover. Deidara in particular was beginning to look a little claustrophobic: he much preferred open space for his explosive techniques.

"How much farther is it?" Deidara whined after another couple of hours. "Why can't we fly?"

"We have to be discreet," Sasori reminded him rather impatiently.

Sasuke was actually quite relieved that Deidara hadn't been permitted to make a bird and fly them this time. The feeling of being up in the air was quite exhilarating, and if it was just that he wouldn't mind. However, Deidara's steering skills left much to be desired, and he was the only one who could control his creations.

They camped out that night in a small copse surrounded by tangled shrubs. Sasuke wove several layers of genjutsu around their campsite: some to keep anyone who actually looked from seeing anything, and some to make the area appear less interesting than it actually was. After a final genjutsu intended to disguise the fact that there actually was genjutsu in use, he surveyed his work in satisfaction. Only someone with a Sharingan or Byakugan would be able to see through it, and that with difficulty, especially since they would have to resist the distraction element first.

By tomorrow they would be within the radius of the regular Konoha patrols. Sasuke didn't like the thought of encountering any Konoha shinobi, even those he didn't know—he had spent so long avoiding Konoha and anything connected with it that deliberately going there just felt wrong now. He was much stronger than he had been three years ago, but he still couldn't quite convince himself he had nothing to fear. Kakashi's sudden and inexplicable betrayal was still affecting him even now, it seemed.

The next two days passed far too quickly for Sasuke's liking. All too soon, he found himself atop a thoroughly genjutsu-covered hill looking down at the place that he had already been driven away from twice.

Still, he wasn't about to let the other two to see his apprehension, so he turned to them with a confident smirk. "Welcome to Konoha," he announced, gesturing toward the village below.

[A/N: In this timeline, since Itachi wasn't in the Akatsuki before, Deidara hasn't been in Akatsuki much longer than Sasuke so they're both 'junior members' as it were. Also, in this story I'm not using the psycho-evil-Sasori characterization of Cruel World but something closer to the more mentor-ish characterization like in In Which Deidara...if that means anything to anybody.

Well, I hope everyone liked this chapter. Part II, Chapter 2: "The Uzumaki Files" will be posted on Thursday.]