Right. Isuki's five, now, as you'll soon figure out. Enjoy!

"Um, Itachi…" Michiko mumbled unobtrusively, glancing at the floor and then back up again when he turned around. "Have you noticed that Isuki isn't around…?"

"Of course," he replied indignantly. "She wanted to go outside and play in the puddles, so I let her out."

"What? You let a five year old outside and didn't stay out to watch her?"

"You're one to talk, Miss 20/20," he sneered in return. "In the rain, too? If the child wants to catch her death of cold, I, as a tender, loving parent, would not wish to keep her from her deepest desire. However, I, as a cold, heartless criminal, have no obligation to get soaked to the bone 'watching' her."

"…That was impressive," she conceded, ducking her head. Then she flew back into panic mode borne on wings of pure terror. "But where is she now? When did you let her out? …It sounds like we're talking about some sort of dog…" she added in a mutinous mutter.

"How should I know? I let her out hours ago."

"What?"

She could smell Itachi reel back at the sheer magnitude and pitch of her screech, and others seemed to have noticed it as well.

"Ah, Michiko, what are you screaming about, yeah?" Deidara asked, sounding disoriented and rubbing his ear as he stumbled into the main hall.

"Isuki's gone," she blurted, almost tripping over a chair as she darted over to him and latched onto his shoulders, looking at the floor. "I haven't seen her all afternoon."

He seemed to suddenly snap into an attitude more serious, like a rubber band snapping back into shape and flying off to discreetly hit someone across the room in the back of the head. "What? How -?"

"The Amazing Blunder let her out in the rain," she explained, cutting him short and flapping her hands wildly.

"I'm standing right here, you know," Itachi cut in incredulously.

"What? Didn't something like this happen last week, yeah?"

"I'm still right here, just in case you were wondering."

"What's everyone yelling about?" Eris demanded loudly, floating through a wall with Sasori at her heels. Not literally, though, because he couldn't cut through solid objects, but he came down one of the myriad hallways branching off the main hall.

"Isuki's wandered off and we have to go find her!" she spouted, maddened by panic. "We have to find her!"

Michiko got the feeling Eris was giving her a Look and floating closer to the ceiling as if she could stay beyond her reach. "In this rain? Are you mad?"

"I will be if we don't find her," Michiko growled, turning hopelessly from the aloof goddess and pleading with the first person she bumped into. "Sasori, you can't even feel the rain, please? You can help; I can't feel it either please?"

"You've got to be joking."

She turned to Deidara and was about to beg, beg him to help her, when the front door creaked open ominously.

It's traditional. In situations like this there always has to be a door creaking, even if the door is made of glass, or beads, or the raw skin flap of a tent. And someone dutifully has to call out, "Oh, I wonder who it could be at this ungodly hour?"

But these were hardened criminals; they didn't follow rules, even ones they had no knowledge of. Instead they turned and stared - or in Itachi's case squinted pointlessly - at the opening into the wind-torn void beyond the walls.

And Isuki tottered in, smiling brightly. She quietly trotted over to Michiko in the silence of the room, and when Michiko picked her up it was like a spell had been broken. Eris zipped off muttering darkly, shooting into a wall, Sasori following cautiously. Deidara hung around for a few moments longer, lingering on the edge of the scene, but left in the end.

Michiko was cradling Isuki in her arms, completely oblivious to the fact that she was soaked and dripping on the floor. "Sweetey, are you okay? Where did you go?" she cooed. "I was worried sick about you."

"I found, something," she explained in her young, broken dialect. Then she started to wriggle, and Michiko was forced to set her down before she dropped her. She rushed off out the door again, and Michiko had to fight the urge to drag her back inside when the little power ball half-dragged, half-carried something in out of the rain.

Michiko expected it to be shown to her, but Isuki moved off in the other direction and Itachi seemed just as surprised as her when she stopped in front of him.

"Daddy, look what I found!" she squeaked proudly, trying to hoist it up a little higher.

"Oh, that's nice," he assured her, reaching down and running a hand over its soggy, furry head. He kept going down its back and stopped at its shoulders, fingering the small lumps that seemed draped in wet weeds of some sort. "…What is it?" he asked hopelessly, giving up trying to figure out what it was.

"A kitty!"

"Oh," he replied, sounding disheartened and skeptical. He probably remembered as well as she did what had happened the last time Isuki had dragged something in out of the rain…

"Um, Isuki, why don't you take it to your room and dry it off. The poor thing seems drowned."

"Okay, Daddy!"

Once she was gone Michiko turned to Itachi with that heavy, I-know-what's-

going-to-happen-but-I-don't-want-to-have-to-do-it feeling. They stood there in silence for a while, until Itachi spoke up.

"It's your turn. I told her last time."

Michiko sighed. Resigned to her fate, she trudged over to Isuki's room and opened the door. "Hi, Isuki? We need to talk about your… friend." She shut the door quietly behind her.

"Okay, Mommy!" she squealed, looking up from the wet fluff ball at her feet.

She sat down on the edge of her bed and pulled her into her lap. "Well, Sweetey, you know you can't have everything you want, right?"

Itachi looked up when Michiko came walking purposefully past and into one of the other halls.

"Where are you going?" he asked curiously.

"To get a box from storage. …Well, the poor thing can't sleep on the cold floor all night!" she added after his inquisitive silence.

"Michiko, we can't keep it. She can't keep it. Sir Leader won't like it."

"I won't like what?"

Itachi just barely avoided jumping at the sound of the voice right behind him. "Won't like the cat Isuki brought in out of the rain, Sir."

"A cat?" he asked skeptically. "Hm… I like cats," he added suddenly, but casually, like he didn't really care. "Cold and stealthy, silent killers of the night… If no one else is mortified by its presence, it can stay." And he was gone.

And then Itachi heard voices, like Leader's departure had signaled to the others to come now or something. What was it that attracted them all to others' problems like moths to a flame?

"What's this about a cat?" Kakuzu asked shrewdly as he trudged heavily into the room. "We can't afford to keep one."

"Yes we can," Michiko countered.

"No, we'll have to feed it, and care for it, and no," he insisted.

"But we can take care of it fine without any money! We can catch it food, and it won't cost you a cent."

"…Fine," he huffed stalking off. One down… who knew how many were left to go.

"What? How can you say 'fine'? Last time she brought something home it nearly gnawed my finger off. I will not tolerate having something else here."

"Well, if you had been more observant, Sasori, you would have noticed something was gnawing your finger off. Just pay more attention. And besides, that was a dog, not a cat."

"No. Cat's claw on things. I -"

He stopped when Isuki came in, carrying her cat.

"What the hells is that, yeah?"

"It's a cat," Itachi stated simply, like he was stupid. And he was, so he didn't have to exaggerate his tone.

"Oh, pardon me," Deidara snapped sarcastically. "I guess I'm the only one who's never seen a cat with wings before, yeah."

Itachi hated that he had to take his word for that. Although, that would explain those strange weed-coated nubs… soppy feathers? Gods, why did she have to bring back the weirdest things?

Isuki trotted over to him and tugged on his pant leg. "Daddy, I, I wanna name my kitty. I have a name for him."

"Really?" he asked wearily. "What is it?"

"I wanna for name him, Sasori."

Itachi paused, holding back a chuckle so as not to disturb the silence that had cascaded down on the room. "And why would you want to name him that, Isuki?"

She twirled around playfully, heaving the limp cat-thing… creature up further in her arms. And she stopped suddenly, like she had remembered what she was going to say, stumbling over her words. "Because, for I wanna name, my pets after people I like."

And the silence continued, and everyone was looking expectantly at Sasori… the puppet one. You could tell he was getting bent out of shape by the way his expression visibly wavered.

He stalked off, but instead of following the passage back to his room he headed for one of the more obscure hallways.

"Where are you going, yeah?"

He paused, turned around. "…I'm going down to storage to get a box."

Itachi woke up to a high-pitched mewling.

"Michiko," he groaned, rolling over and stuffing his head under the pillow. "What time is it?"

"Ugh… two thirty."

"Oh, at least it's doing better; it hasn't screeched for a whole fifteen minutes."

Michiko muttered something and made the mattress jump when she beat her pillow.

"Michiko, go into your daughter's room and shut the thing up."

"She's just as much your daughter as she is mine."

"Not at two thirty in the morning she isn't."

"…Fine," she grouched, and he felt her slide out of bed and heard the door shut behind her.

Sighing, he tried to ignore the brief cries, then noticed they stopped suddenly. Then he heard another longer whine before it trailed off, like it was getting farther away. He propped himself up on his elbows when she came back.

"Well?"

"It ran away," she explained brusquely, flopping into bed.

"Really? How could it run away when it was in a box?"

"It has wings, remember. And it ran pretty fast when I threw it out the window."

Michiko woke up with a groan when something landed on her stomach.

"Mommy, Mommy!" Isuki cried. "Sasori's gone!"

"He probably just has a mission or something," she muttered before rolling over.

"No, Mommy, he doesn't have one!"

"Have you looked in his room?"

"No, silly! He was sleeping in my box, remember?"

Michiko paused. What…? And then she remembered. "Yes, I remember,"
she mumbled as she sat up in bed. "I was just testing you."

"Oh, okay!" Isuki chirped. "So does that, mean, you know where he is?"

She blinked: "Yes, dear, Itachi and I got tired of listening to it whine, so I threw it out the window and it ran away," didn't seem like it would cut it. "Well…" she conjectured, staring off into space as if inspiration would magically appear from its blackness. "He probably just ran away, Sweetey. It's not your fault."

"But, he can't run away!" she insisted. "My window, was closed!"

Crap. How was she going to explain that? "He could have gone to another room and gone out through another window…"

"But Kakuzu won't, let anyone leave windows open!"

It seemed the constant noise was beginning to wake Itachi up, albeit it had taken a while for him to reach a point which allowed him to think straight and form coherent sentences. "Wha…?" he mumbled, trying to sit up.

Double crap. "…Then he must still be here?" she suggested half-heartedly.

"But, Michiko, I thought you-"

She bristled and hit him, effectually cutting him off. "Have no idea where he could be!" she substituted.

"What was that for?"

"Sasori has run away, and we need to go find him," she told him briskly, slapping his arm. "Get up, you oaf."

"What? ...Oh, right."

"Isuki, why don't you get started looking and we'll catch up."

"Okay, Mommy!"

When her child's retreating back disappeared through the door, she turned on Itachi. "What do you think you're doing, you idiot? Were actually going to tell her I threw her cat out the window?! What are you trying to do?"

"I'm sorry, Michiko," he muttered. "I wasn't really awake yet."

"How could you not have been awake? You weren't asleep, were you? Huh?"

"Yes, but there is a difference between ceasing to be asleep and waking up."

"…Fine, whatever. We're going to go look for the cat now. Okay? And you will not complain. Okay?"

"…Okay…"

It appeared the calling out thing was waking up the other members.

"Sasori!"

"Michiko, what are you doing, yeah?"

"Looking for Sasori."

"Isn't he usually with Eris?"

"No, no; the cat," she corrected, making a gesture with her hands to indicate something small. "Remember?"

"Well, yeah… Did it run away?"

Michiko smelled around to make sure Isuki wasn't in the room and pulled him close, whispering conspiratorially. "Actually, I threw it out her window last night, but I don't want her to find out. Will you pretend to help look for it?"

"Sure, why not? It's not like I have anything better to do -"

"Good!" she exclaimed brightly, completely undermining his sarcasm. "Go see if everyone else is awake, and if they aren't, wake them up and explain to them."

"But I -"

"No buts! Just go!"

"Fine," he spat, stalking off.

Geez, what's eating him? she wondered, staring after him for a bit.

'He probably didn't get any sleep,' Jurag drawled, 'what with Sasori whining through the night.'

Michiko nodded to herself before setting off in the opposite direction, calling throughout the halls.

"Sasoooori! Sasori!"

She heard a door further down the hall slam open. "What?!"

"No, not you: the cat."

"…What? Isuki's little monstrosity?"

"The one you fetched a box for…?" Michiko prodded.

"What's wrong with it?"

"It seems to have developed a nasty case of 'missing'."

"Oh."

Michiko yelled when he turned to go back into his room. "Don't you want to help look for it?"

"Do I have a choice? …I thought not."

She nodded, satisfied, and turned to continue the nonexistent search. Then she remembered something. "Sasori?" He ignored her. "Sasori? Sasori!"

She glared at him when he turned around. "What?"

"Why didn't you answer me?"

"I figured you weren't talking to me."

"Well, cut it out!"

"What? I didn't do anything!"

"…Whatever. I just forgot to tell you Sasori isn't really missing."

"Then why are we looking for it?"

"Because we want Isuki to think it ran away."

"Why do 'we' want her to think that?"

"Because we don't want her to find out I threw it out a window when it wouldn't shut up."

"…Nice."

Michiko peered under the couch while Itachi lifted it up, getting her nose level with the floor. "Sasori?"

"What?"

"The cat," she and Itachi replied.

Michiko grinned on the inside when she heard Sasori's distant grumbling, but she frowned into the dust bunnies on the floor. "I knew you shouldn't have let her name it Sasori."

"I knew you shouldn't have let her keep it."

"Ah, touché."

"Tooshay what, Mommy?"

Michiko almost hit her head on the underside of the couch. "Nothing, Sweetey."

"…Did you, find Sasori?"

She forced a depressed sigh. "No, Isuki, we didn't; no one did. I think he just ran away."

She heard her heart crack a little when the child started to cry. "W-why did he run away?" she asked pitifully, throwing herself into Michiko's lap. She glanced up at Itachi, who just shrugged back at her.

'Improvise,' he suggested.

'Gee, thanks for the advice,' she snapped back, hugging Isuki to her. "Well, Sweetey, he probably just wasn't used to being inside. He probably got scared and that's why he ran away."

'Ooh, how creative.'

'I don't see you doing anything to help.'

"…I scared him, didn't I?" Isuki hiccupped through her tears. "I, scared him away."

"No, Sweetey, it wasn't your fault."

"Yes it is. Sasori's all cold, and alone, because of me. I loved him, too hard, didn't I? He didn't, love me back, and I, ruined it."