[A/N: This chapter took a bit longer because I decided that the second half would work better in the next chapter and then had to write more to make this one long enough.]

Chapter 15: Tipping the Balance

"Oh, and what might that be?" Sasuke said, trying not to sound too interested as he took the small card Deidara had pulled out of one of the pockets of Shikamaru's vest. Flipping it over, he realized it was a photograph—not of Shikamaru's current team, but of the original Team 7 and Sasuke.

Sasuke frowned briefly, trying to remember when it had been taken. From the ramen couch he could see a corner of in the background, they must have been in Naruto's apartment. The four children in the picture were pressed together in order to fit, and from the angle it looked like Sakura had been holding the camera out in front of her.

Oh, that's right. It was her idea in the first place, anyway.

…...

Team 7 and Sasuke—who they currently knew as Satoshi Ken—had just completed the second stage of the Chuunin Exams and were eating a well-earned meal in Naruto's apartment. Naruto hadn't done any of the cooking, but had helpfully stayed out of Sakura's way as she fixed rice and tempura and heated up some of the dishes her mother had sent with her.

Sasuke was a little uneasy about being so close to the Konoha team now that they didn't have a strategic reason to stay together. Now that they were free from the tension of the Forest of Death, the others might begin asking questions he couldn't answer, or even recognize him from their previous encounter in River Country. He had agreed to stay with Naruto because he was fairly sure the blond was the least likely to remember him, but he wouldn't feel really safe until Shikamaru and Sakura left.

"Hey boys, I've got a great idea!" Sakura announced once most of the food was gone, taking something out of the box she had brought the food in.

"Is that a polaroid?" Naruto asked, snatching for it. "Neat, where'd you get it?"

"I borrowed it from my mother, so don't touch! I remember what happened to that toaster we loaned you."

"Nobody ever told me you can't toast bread once it's buttered!" Naruto protested, but Sakura disregarded him.

"Anyway, I figured that since we made it this far, we should take a commemorative photo!" Sakura declared, beaming.

Sasuke quietly set his empty bowl down on the table and began backing towards the living room. He couldn't afford to be in any photographs—that just made it all the more likely that he would be recognized. What if Team 7's teacher were to see? So far he had managed to stay away from the man, but if he ended up in a photograph it would ruin all his efforts to avoid detection.

"That's a great idea, Sakura-chan!" Naruto quickly agreed.

"No it isn't," Shikamaru protested. "Remember our team photo? It'll be that all over again."

"If you'd been looking at the camera instead of being distracted by the clouds, it would have turned out great," Sakura pointed out. "And there aren't any clouds here, so I think we're fine."

Shikamaru sighed but let Sakura pull him to his feet.

"Can I be next to you, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked.

"Sure thing," Sakura said. "Oh, Ken-kun! Come over here, we can't leave you out."

"N-no, it's fine," Sasuke protested. "You're the team, after all, I don't want to get in the way..."

"You're not in the way!" Naruto insisted, pouncing on Sasuke and nearly dragging him back to the group.

Sasuke ended up standing between Shikamaru and Naruto as Sakura got the camera ready. "Okay, keep close together everybody! And one...two...three!"

Sasuke turned his head away just before the flash, so that his bangs would hide his face. Naruto didn't notice since he was busy hugging Sakura, and Shikamaru had never bothered to look at the camera in the first place.

"Come on, Shikamaru, you might at least try," Sakura cajoled once the picture had developed enough for her to see it. "Please? You too, Ken, I know you're shy but I really do want a picture of you..."

That's the last thing I want, Sasuke thought. Still, continuing to avoid the photo would only make him appear more suspicious, so he made himself look into the camera as Sakura took another picture.

It took three more tries before Sakura was satisfied: the next photo was rejected because "You really should be smiling, Ken. Haven't you ever had your picture taken before?"

The one after that didn't pass muster because "Shikamaru! It doesn't count as facing the camera if your eyes aren't even open!"

"There, that one's perfect!" Sakura stated finally, and Sasuke and Shikamaru both breathed sighs of relief. "I'll have some copies made and then we can all have one," she said, holding the picture out so all of them could see.

…...

Sasuke surveyed the picture slowly, marvelling a little at how young they had all looked then, before everything started to go wrong. Sakura was at one end, smiling warmly; Naruto was next to her with one arm around her shoulders and an ecstatic grin on his face; Sasuke himself wasn't quite fully facing the camera, and had a tentative half-smile; and Shikamaru was smirking lazily as he looked into the lens with surprising intensity.

Sasuke was a bit surprised that Shikamaru had kept such a sentimental item—his own copy was long gone, he was sure. Sakura hadn't had the time to make the copies until after the exams were over, at which point Sasuke had pinned it up on the wall of the room the Inuzukas had given him. He had seen no reason to take it with him on the fateful trip to the Land of Iron, and the Inuzukas had probably disposed of it and the rest of his things afterwards.

I should just get rid of it, Sasuke thought, gathering the small amount of chakra that would be needed to turn the photograph into cinders. I don't need anything that's going to remind me of them. What would Sasori think?

Still, he couldn't quite bring himself to burn the picture. Finally, he put it in an inner pocket of his cloak, near the pocket holding the scroll of secret files. It seems I'm carrying a lot of secrets around lately.

"Enough rest," Sasuke announced once Deidara had finished eating. "If we hurry, we can meet up with Sasori by tomorrow. Let's go."

The two Akatsuki members turned the horse loose after they left the little town where they had spent the night; where they were going now, the animal would only get in the way. It had served them well, and Sasuke hoped that whoever found it would take good care of it.

Once they made it out of the town, Sasuke and Deidara took to the trees so they could travel faster. The place the Leader had designated to use for extracting the demon from Gaara was in River Country; this was closer to Konoha than Sasuke wanted to be anytime soon, but orders were orders. From their current location, it wouldn't take them more than a day to make it there.

Sasuke considered asking Deidara to make a bird to fly them there, but decided against it. While his teammate was nearly back to his old self now (annoyance with his younger partner and all), his chakra was still badly depleted. He would probably need all he could spare for whatever the Leader had in store.

Deidara's stamina also left something to be desired at the moment, and therefore Sasuke was forced to take frequent breaks which delayed their progress. This was a little worrisome: by this point, their path and the one Sasori would have taken were near overlapping, which meant that anyone following Sasori's trail had a chance of catching up to them.

The slower pace Sasuke had to set for Deidara, along with the regular stops to rest, meant that they took longer to arrive at the rendezvous point that Sasuke had originally estimated. It was late the next morning by the time the two Akatsuki members stopped in the river canyon.

"Are you here, Sasori?" Sasuke called as he entered the cave with Deidara following.

"No thanks to you," Sasori's bored voice replied. Sasuke turned toward the sound and saw the puppet master lounging on the back of Deidara's bird. Gaara's inert body lay on the ground underneath the bird's beak. "I've been waiting for days," Sasori added accusingly, jumping down from the bird. "Hurry up, we need to get this started or the Leader will be most upset."

"Just a minute, let me get at my stuff, un," Deidara said, running over to the bird. Sasuke followed; while he had kept some essentials with him, such as the scroll full of secrets, he had left most of his things behind when he went to rescue Deidara. After running around in the desert for a week, he wasn't about to say no to a fresh shirt.

…...

A short time later, the massive statue that would soon imprison the beast currently contained by Gaara had been summoned. Its huge form took up a good two-thirds of the space within the cave—because of the sheer size of it, the usual Akatsuki rendezvous points could not be used, which was why the Leader had chosen this cave, one of the largest in the area. Deidara's bird was sitting in the center of the cave floor. Compared to the huge stone hands surrounding it, it barely seemed bigger than a hummingbird.

Sasuke and Deidara watched over Gaara as they waited for the others to 'arrive.' The Leader had been the first to appear along with the statue, a transmission of his silhouette taking shape on one of the fingers of the statue's outstretched hands.

Currently, Sasori was perched next to the Leader as the two of them discussed something. Sasuke watched, wishing he could read their lips well enough to know what they were talking about since they were too far away from him to hear. For all he knew, Sasori could be informing the Leader of the insubordinate tendencies Sasuke had been showing lately.

On the ground next to the bird's feet, Gaara twitched suddenly, and Sasuke's attention was entirely focused on the Suna jinchuuriki until he was certain that Gaara wouldn't regain consciousness fast enough to be a threat before the removal of the Tailed Beast commenced.

Sasuke frowned slightly as he remembered again what exactly the removal of the Tailed Beast involved: there was no possibility of Gaara's surviving the procedure. Moreover, his death would be Sasuke's responsibility, just as surely as if he had killed him back in Suna.

Sasuke found that he didn't like that thought in the slightest. True, he had killed before in the service of the Akatsuki, but only in the heat of battle or when it could not otherwise be avoided. This was vastly different, the premeditated murder of a helpless captive. If one believed in the ideals the Leader preached, it could perhaps be justified—but Sasuke had joined the Akatsuki to find his brother, not because he ascribed to their ideals.

As Sasori moved away from the Leader's image, Deidara also took his place on the statue, but Sasuke did not yet follow them. Jumping off of the bird, he looked down at Gaara for a moment.

Gaara had saved his life once: if Sasuke paid him back for that kindness by helping to kill him, that would be a step Sasuke's moral code wasn't likely to survive. But if he didn't, not only could he forget about having any help from the Akatsuki in his search for Itachi, but they would be after his blood as a traitor besides.

Taking a deep breath, Sasuke began to plan out his next steps.

Above Sasuke, the transmitted forms of other members of the Akatsuki were appearing in their places. "You're keeping us waiting, Sasuke," Konan called reprovingly, her voice distorted by the transmission technique.

"Just a moment," Sasuke replied. "Before that, though, I wanted to ask the Leader something."

"What." The Leader's voice was clipped and curt; obviously he was not in the least pleased by the delay.

"Have you found any information on my brother lately?" Sasuke inquired, keeping his tone light and amiable.

"Sasuke, this is not the time."

"Then what is? I get the chance to speak to you so rarely, after all. If I didn't know better, I might even think you were keeping something secret from me. Anyway, I'll ask again: what do you know of my brother?"

The Leader sighed, and Sasuke winced inwardly at how upset he sounded when he spoke. "Currently, nothing more than what I have already given you, but we have hidden nothing—"

"Enough!" Sasuke shouted, and was immediately surprised at his own outburst. Can't back out now, he thought. If this doesn't go my way it's over. "I'm not a child anymore—I'm not going to run errands for you in return for a few petty clues that lead nowhere! I joined you because you promised to help me find him, but so far I might as well have been searching myself. If you haven't anything better to offer, I don't see what I'm doing here, to be honest."

"If you're quite finished with your little speech, Sasuke, we will discuss this later," the Leader snapped. "I'm sure we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement."

Oh sure, like the one that got him an Uchiha at his beck and call for three years while I got barely anything in return. "You know," Sasuke said airily, beginning to pace back and forth in front of Gaara, "No-one seems to have figured out yet that I'm standing in front of the biggest bargaining chip in the room."

Deidara gasped, and there were shocked murmurs from the other Akatsuki members, although these were too indistinct to make out through the transmission.

"You wouldn't, Sasuke." The Leader sounded calmly sure of himself, and it was that surety that hardened Sasuke's new resolution.

"Oh, wouldn't I?" Sasuke could see Sasori moving in his peripheral vision, but before the puppet master could even make it all the way down the arm of the statue, Sasuke whipped out his short sword again, holding the point of it above Gaara's heart. "It took quite a lot of effort to finally catch the first of the Containers, didn't it? Wouldn't it be a pity if something were to happen and ruin all your hard work?" Sasuke stared icily up at the Leader, not allowing his gaze to waver in the slightest. "This is the last time I'm going to ask: where is my brother?"