Arc Two: Akatsuki
-.-.-
Seishirou woke up without any knowledge that he'd fallen asleep. And, as any good shinobi should, he tried to remember the last time he was conscious to make sure nothing bad had happened. I was…I was in that burning building…Did I pass out?! Passing out from smoke inhalation seemed likely, but then…how was he alive? He should have burned up and died. Cremated.
There were suddenly two large, white eyes staring at him. "You are awake."
Hitomi jerked her head back just in time to avoid her brother hitting her as he sat up, looking around wildly. Ryo was sitting a few feet away, knees drawn up to his chest and head buried in his arms. Seishirou couldn't tell if he was awake or sleeping. "Where's Miki-chan?"
Ryo flinched as if struck. Hitomi looked away. Seishirou's heart sank.
-.-.-
The three kids slowly wandered back to Kirigakure around noon. Ryo and Hitomi had rescued both Seishirou and Miki from the burning house, but Seishirou had been the only one to wake up. They'd dragged both of them to one of the nearer deserted islands, waiting out the night until the Bijuu had vanished. Now, they could go back and see the wreckage of their village.
Everything seemed to be either burned to rubble and ashes or still burning. Here and there, there were a few corpses, some barely recognizable, lying on the ground. None of them were their parents or their sensei, thankfully.
There was no one alive in sight.
The whole village had an eerie quality, like a ghost town. Which it really was, now. Smoke hung near the ground like a fog, replacing the familiar mist they had grown up with. The sky was bright and clear, the sun shining cheerfully down on them, in direct contrast to the darkened houses.
The three of them walked silently through the rows of buildings. None of them had anything to say.
Ryo's house was still standing. They reached it first. He just stared up at it, dark eyes unreadable. "…Let's go." He shouldered past them and they continued on their aimless quest.
Seishirou was holding onto Hitomi's hand tightly, unaware that he was doing so. He just walked, trying not to stare at everything. It was hard to look at. Their house, too, was standing…to a degree. One of the rooms had collapsed, due to the house next door falling on it.
Hitomi pulled away from her brother and walked inside the doorway. Seishirou wordlessly followed her in, Ryo right behind him. The little girl went straight up the stairs to her bedroom. Seishirou could only stand in the partially collapsed living room, looking at all the damage. Just a few weeks ago he was here, answering the door to find that albino man…
Hitomi came back downstairs clutching an assortment of her things. There was some smoke discoloration, but they didn't seem too bad. Seishirou almost smiled at the collection, though; it was her stuffed chicken, which he gave to her for her first birthday, a couple of her barrettes, a hair brush, and her favorite kimono's sash. Hitomi looked up at the boys solemnly, and then asked, "Well?"
"Well what?" Ryo said, nonplussed.
"Are we not leaving?"
"Why would we do that?"
"Do you want to live here?" she asked them, narrowing her eyes slightly. "I will stay if you do, but I will admit now that it may be rather depressing--"
Ryo laughed. Both Seishirou and Hitomi looked at him, albeit with different expressions. Hitomi's was polite, whereas Seishirou was staring at him, appalled. "I can't believe you're thinking so…practically," Ryo admitted, biting his lip to stop from continuing his laughter. "Two ninja, and it's the academy student that is getting us prepped for traveling…"
"Hitomi-chan? Practical?" That had Seishirou laughing. Not at his sister, per se, but really at her habits. Hitomi watched him warily, brushing her hair with the brush. Now she was the only one who wasn't trying to bite back giggles. "Hitomi's the most impractical student I know!" She glared at him, pouting.
"Huh? I thought you said she was a good student…" Ryo scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.
"I am," Hitomi interjected with a sniff.
"Yeah, I guess she is. But watch this." Seishirou walked over and ruffled his sister's black hair. Hitomi gave a small shriek, and spent the next seven minutes and thirty-one seconds fixing it. (Seishirou counted.) "See? She's totally obsessed with how she looks."
"I am right here. I can hear you," Hitomi growled, cheeks tinged pink from the situation.
"You should see it when she gets her kimono dirty…" Seishirou said flatly, sighing. She went bright red and hid her face in her sleeves. Ryo chuckled, but hastily cut himself off. "But…yeah. Where are we going to go?"
"Away from here," Ryo suggested in a deadpan. It was a skill of his to be laughing one moment, and have a totally straight face the next. It always drove Seishirou mad, but now he didn't mind it so much. "Let's just leave. …Come on, let's gather some supplies. Practical supplies."
They set out the next day.
-.-.-
Sasori awoke painfully. So, of course, the first thing he realized was that his heart had been damaged. After all, a human puppet didn't feel pain unless the human part came into play. He sat up, running his hands over his chest. It looked like only the heart container itself was burned…which meant he'd live. Oh joy.
He shook his head to clear it.
Deidara… He had been kidnapped. Taken by the Bijuu for bodies.
But they can't seal him without all of them there. So they have to travel back. …I have to catch them before that, Sasori thought darkly. He couldn't allow himself to hope that it would take more than a week or so. Unless he got lucky and one of the other demons was out at the time, and they had to wait for it to get back as well…
A week. A week was all the hope he'd allow himself.
So the Suna-nin got to his feet, dusting off his burnt and tattered uniform. He looked around him for a moment, making sure he wasn't missing any body parts or weapons. Then he left Kirigakure, without turning back. He had a mission, after all, and nothing came between a ninja and his mission.
-.-.-
Suigetsu stretched. He missed sleeping in a bed, he really did. But after the last debacle they'd caused in the last village they visited, he didn't blame Sasuke for keeping them out in the woods. Even if he hated sleeping on the ground. Especially when it rained. (Because it always rained.) Then he'd wake up waterlogged and sluggish and sick. Not how he would normally like to start the day.
"What's for breakfast?" he asked, rolling back his shoulders.
"Don't ask me. I'm not your maid, Suigetsu," Karin sniffed. "Or servant or slave or cook or anything. You're lucky I call you a teammate."
"…So what's for breakfast?" Suigetsu repeated. She threw her hairbrush at him. He caught it and threw it back on reflex. It was how their mornings usually went.
"Can't you two act normally for once?" the little boy sitting in Karin's lap asked. He really wasn't little, though his mother liked to tell him otherwise. She caught the brush again, and returned to brushing the boy's washed-out hair without acknowledging that she'd fought with Suigetsu at all.
"I agree," Sasuke said stiffly. "You think you would have sorted out your differences, but no…" He flipped a page in the book he was pretending to read.
"Aww, is Sasuke-kun jealous?" Suigetsu cooed. "He has no one to have a lover's spat with."
"Add lover to the list of things I'm not," Karin interrupted, finishing brushing her son's hair.
"That's cold."
"Suck it up," Sasuke told him, giving him a red-eyed stare.
"One of these days, this sword," the Kiri-nin pointed to the slightly rusty sword, laying in the grass a few feet off, "is going through your neck."
"This family is so fucked up," the boy sighed. Karin smacked him lightly on the head.
"Don't swear. It's bad for you."
"Sasuke-san swears. Dad swears. You swear."
"All beside the point," she said simply. "Your dad is old, anyway."
"That would make you old too, bitch," Suigetsu retorted wryly.
"Sweetie, go play in the forest while I shove daddy's sword up his ass, okay?"
Yep, definitely a typical day for Suigetsu. He snagged his son as he passed, just in case Karin was serious. But at least she wouldn't dare do anything serious while he was here. Or at least shed blood. Though the kid was already eleven and probably at least a chuunin, she still had a fit whenever he had to see the tiniest drop of blood. And considering the group he was traveling with, that happened quite often. Karin gave them both a dirty look, and then stood up, and walked off, still holding her brush like a sword.
"You guys are weird," the boy deadpanned. Sasuke nodded his agreement from behind his book.
"Yeah, well, you have both our genes so by default that makes you weirder than us," Suigetsu replied, waving a hand dismissively. "It's common to have a few eccentricities in high-level shinobi, anyway. Or haven't you learned that yet?"
"I have so learned it!" he burst out defensively. Suigetsu chuckled, crossing his arms. At least he could still win an argument with someone in this group.
-.-.-
Ryo and Seishirou took turns trying to teach Hitomi how to walk on water. After all, she was heavy, and they didn't want to carry her all the way to the mainland. But it was an impossible feat. She had to learn something perfectly, and know every little detail about the technique before attempting it. And needless to say, two genin who had only learned it a couple of months ago weren't the best teachers.
"Okay, so you know how to gather chakra, right?" Ryo asked for the umpteenth time.
Hitomi nodded seriously. "It is how mother says I should fight." Ryo gave his teammate a look, but Seishirou just shrugged.
"Something about her bloodline limit…"
"Anyway, you just put your chakra in your feet." He raised one leg, showing her his sandaled foot, balancing on top of the water with the other. They were currently taking a rest on one of the many tiny islands, where Ryo was supposed to be making Hitomi practice in the shallows. "And keep it level."
Seishirou rolled his eyes as Hitomi asked, "How do you know when it is level?"
"When you don't sink or go flying into the air," he said flatly.
"Then it is a constant output." She nodded to herself seriously. Then she realized that a lock of hair had come out from behind her barrette, and had to spend the next ten minutes fixing her hair.
"This is impossible," Ryo complained, walking back over to the beach to collapse on the warm sand. "Hitomi-chan, I'm sorry, but you are incapable of learning." She blushed, pausing in clipping her barrette back on. Seishirou grinned to stop himself from laughing.
It was the next day before they made it to the mainland. Hitomi still hadn't learned how to walk on water, which made for two very tired boys. But they still had a few hours left of sunlight, so they decided to press on as far in as they could go. At least traveling in the forest was fun, and even Hitomi could keep up.
"Is walking on trees the same principle?" she asked. She was confined to the ground as Seishirou and Ryo jumped from tree to tree. But they were still kind enough to stop and wait for her occasionally.
"More or less. But it takes less chakra, since the wood doesn't absorb it like water," Ryo replied, somewhat impressed that the little girl would have picked up on the similarities. Hitomi blushed as she nodded. "Hitomi-chan…do you know any jutsus?"
"…" She tilted her head back and thought about it. That wasn't reassuring. "…Bunshin, Henge and Kawarimi." Which, for an academy student, wasn't half bad, but for two genin boys, it just posed a problem. She was a liability.
Their patience was taxed even further when she had to stop to fix her hair again.
Hitomi meticulously combed through her dark locks with her fingers, taking out the barrettes and putting them back in the exact same place. "Okay," she announced several minutes later. Just as she started walking--both boys sighed in relief and jumped back up into the trees--she noticed that her kimono had a smear of dirt on it. "Wait."
Hitomi then untied the obi around her waist, and proceeded to strip down to her underwear. She spent several more minutes rubbing the dirt out, shaking the fabric out, and then trying to get it out more. It was nearly half an hour before she was fully dressed again, not a bit of fabric out of place. She looked up, smiling in slight embarrassment. "Alright--"
There was no one in sight.
-.-.-
Sasori was lost. Not that he'd ever admit it, but directions were not his strong point. In the sky or in the desert, it was simple. But in a dense forest? Especially one that was unlike the native ones of Ame? So he was lost. And all of the trees were relatively the same height, so he couldn't get to the highest point and check his surroundings from there.
But he wasn't going to lose time. He couldn't afford to. Earlier that day he had seen scorch marks from the Nibi's passage through the forest, and they were fresh. Unfortunately, he'd lost the tracks after a disaster concerning a river and a waterfall. And so here he was, trying to either find a suitable natural landmark or the scorched tracks.
Six days left, he told himself, pulling out the Sandaime's summoning scroll. A puff of smoke later, Sasori was lifted into the air by a pillar of black sand, sitting cross-legged and wondering why he hadn't done this immediately after losing sight of his trail. Ah--there it was. A line of blackened and toppled trees, heading westward just half a kilometer from where he was now. I'll be there soon, Deidara.
Sasori slid down the pillar as it disintegrated. Halfway down, however, something caught his eye. Unfortunately, before he could do the necessary finger movements to stop the sand from crumbling, it vanished beneath him, and he promptly fell back to the ground. As he was getting up, grumbling, Sasori couldn't help but think he'd just seen Kakuzu.
The clearing where supposedly his ally was located was just north of his position, but that was opposite of the Nibi's trail. Kakuzu would help him, though, especially as it would help his own partner, too. What if it wasn't Kakuzu, though…? Sasori glanced back and forth a few times, sighing. He disliked situations like this. They were best left to textbooks.
With a heavy heart, Sasori turned and headed northward.
-.-.-
Hitomi stood there for the longest time. She had realized that she was lost, and the first classic rule of being lost was not to move, so whoever was supposed to be taking care of you could circle back around and pick you back up.
But…that does not apply to shinobi, she noted. As an academy student, she really was in the grey area. Technically not a ninja yet, but she did have some of the training. At least enough to fend off any wild animals that might want to eat her. …Right?
Hitomi looked around her with large, white eyes. There was always the Byakugan… As much as she disliked it, she knew it had its uses. Like now. Her range of sight wasn't particularly large, but anything would help at this point. She brought her small hands up into the seals that her father taught her and whispered, "Byakugan."
The world around her inverted and expanded. Using it always made her dizzy and nauseous, but Hitomi just swallowed past that and tried to focus on one thing at a time. Trees, lots of trees. A few small animals, mostly birds. No humans in sight. The black-haired girl took a step, stumbling. Walking was the hardest to do; motion sickness with three-hundred-and-sixty degree vision? Last time she had used it, Hitomi hadn't lasted ten steps before vomiting. Her mother just told her to practice more.
She took a deep breath, and took another step forward. If she just walked slowly and kept her focus on a stationary thing, she should be fine. She could even turn it off and turn it back on…but that expended chakra. I am not using it for anything else, she thought wryly, gratefully turning her bloodline limit back off. The world returned to normal, and she sighed, relieved.
Hitomi jumped up into the nearest tree, mindful of the fact that she was balancing there. Unlike Seishirou or Ryo, she couldn't glue herself to the bark. Aiming, she jumped into the next tree, amazed at how easy it really was. No wonder shinobi preferred to travel like this!
After a few minutes of tree-jumping, she decided to reactivate the Byakugan. Unfortunately, doing so while she was balancing precariously on a tree branch wasn't the best idea. Hitomi promptly fell out of it before she could adjust, landing on the hard dirt below. "Ow." That would leave a bruise or two.
The impact had shut off her Byakugan. Hitomi gave up on it. She'd learn that later, like the water-walking technique. All in due time. She gave herself a few moments to catch her breath, lying on the ground.
Then someone walked into her (normal) vision.
"Oh…!" the person gasped. Judging from the voice, Hitomi would guess it was female. As if the large breasts suddenly pressing into her face didn't give it away as the woman picked her up and hugged her.
What really caught her attention was the person's ensemble. Black fabric, red lining, high collar, and red clouds outlined in white. Hitomi bit her tongue and kept quiet, still squished against this stranger's chest.
"It's a little girl!" the woman said delightfully with a thick accent. Hitomi didn't know what country it belonged to, though.
The uniform appeared to be about ten or twenty sizes too large for the woman, if the way the fabric was pooling around both of them was anything to go by. Is it borrowed? Hitomi asked herself, keeping a blank face. Luckily, that was something she excelled at.
The woman finally let her go, but only at arm's length. Hitomi sucked in a lungful of breast-less air. "My, aren't you cute!" she exclaimed. The girl didn't reply. This woman had purple hair and blood red facial markings that made it look like she was crying; the description was definitely one she would have remembered in school, so she surmised that the woman had definitely borrowed the uniform. She wasn't Akatsuki.
Then, things suddenly got crazy.
Two more people suddenly crashed into the scene. Literally. Branches above them broke and rained down on both girls as the two fighting landed on the ground. They made quite the crater, too. As the leaves and dust settled, Hitomi watched in shock as the two men stood up, grappling with each other. Even though one of them was a great deal shorter than the other, he seemed to be holding his ground somewhat well. She gasped softly as she recognized him; the redheaded man who was fighting the Sanbi.
"Kakuzu!" the woman shrieked, drawing both males' attention.
"Why the hell are you wearing his uniform?!" the redhead asked, before being picked up swung into the nearest tree, splintering it. He wasn't quick to get back up.
"You are…Akatsuki?!" the woman's anger suddenly melted into delight. "Ohh, now I get two members! And this little girl!"
"I am not yours," Hitomi said flatly. The purple-haired woman waved her off. Hitomi glared back as she stepped forward, raising a hand. The taller man--Kakuzu?--stopped stomping the redhead into the ground obediently.
Then the woman started forming seals. Hitomi knew one thing: she couldn't let her complete them. Because if she had somehow gained an Akatsuki ally, and the other Akatsuki-nin didn't like that, it meant that this fight wasn't fair. And somehow, she wanted to even the odds. The black-haired student kicked the woman in the back of her knee, effectively sending her into the ground.
The redhead, just as that happened, threw what appeared to be a white bird in Kakuzu's face, and then shot a stream of fire at the bird. It promptly exploded, shrouding the entire clearing with smoke.
Hitomi ran for all she was worth. She didn't know what was going on, but the tables must have just turned. And that couldn't have been good for her; she wasn't even a genin. No where near Akatsuki level. So she ran and was out of sight of the clearing before the smoke had cleared. At least she was fast for her age. And she'd had a head start. Hopefully that explosion and the distraction would allow her to get away. This time, she was definitely going to find her brother if it killed her. No more Akatsuki-nin for her, oh no.
Hitomi stopped against one of the trees, chest heaving. There was no sound of the fight, so she hoped she was far enough away. Plus, why would the woman pursue her when she had her hands full with that redheaded boy…?
"Damn, that was my last doll." Hitomi must have jumped a foot in the air.
The redheaded boy was sitting in the tree above her, legs dangling just inches above her head. He was leaning back, looking in the direction she had just come. Is he really that fast? she thought, frowning. She had been sprinting and had a head start, and here he was, not even out of breath.
He jumped down, looking at her, visibly sizing her up. Hitomi narrowed her eyes, frown intensifying. "You've grown," he said simply.
"What--?!"
"You. Have. Grown. The last time I saw you, you were roughly this large." He held up his hands a little ways apart, nodding to himself. "But I suppose that was nearly ten years ago…"
"Who are you?" she asked suspiciously. She certainly didn't remember any redheaded kids. And her parents never mentioned any. Especially ones wearing Akatsuki uniforms. Which was confusing; he couldn't have been much older than her brother, but here he was, wearing the uniform of a long-dead organization. Had he borrowed the cloak like that woman?
"Sasori." The name didn't ring any bells. Sasori could tell from her expression that it didn't, either, judging on the way he sighed and put his hands on his hips. He looked up at the leaves overhead. "…I guess that it's for the best that you don't recognize the name."
"Am I supposed to?"
He just waved a hand over his uniform. Hitomi rolled her eyes. He had definitely borrowed it, then, if he was so willing to show it off.
"Is Seishirou around here? Or did the Nibi carry him off, too? Oh gods, don't tell me they found him already…"
"I lost my brother. The Bijuu did not capture him. They captured others?" she inquired. Apparently this Sasori knew stuff about the demons that she didn't, and if he was going to pretend to be polite to her, might as well get as much as she could out of it.
Sasori gave her an 'are you kidding me?' look. It was unsettling, especially since he still managed to look so bored while doing it. He opened his mouth to speak, but then thought better of it. "…Nevermind… If you're looking for your brother, then I suggest you go in that direction." He pointed briefly to his left, before vanishing. Hitomi barely heard the thump of his sandal as it hit the branch above her.
"…" Boy, would she have something to tell Seishirou.
-.-.-
"I thought you were keeping an eye on her!"
"She's your sister, idiot!"
"So?" Seishirou couldn't come up with anything better than that as a retort.
Then, though, they heard an explosion off in the distance. Both boys' eyes widened. Explosions meant fighting. And fighting while a defenseless nine-year-old girl was missing? Not good. They were off like arrows through the trees in that direction.
They hadn't gotten half a kilometer when someone suddenly jumped in front of them, arms held out. Both boys were caught under the chin by this stranger and flipped over, their breath knocked out of them as they landed on the dirt below. "Hitomi-san is off in that direction. Now don't say I've never done a good deed for it's own sake." The stranger leaned down from his branch, tilting his head at the two genin getting slowly back to their feet. Seishirou looked up just in time to see a flash of black and red.
Why had that voice sounded familiar? he couldn't help but think.
"…Who the hell was that?!" Ryo demanded hoarsely, holding his neck. Seishirou shrugged, rubbing his own throat. There were definitely nicer ways to stop people to tell them that their sisters were--
"Which way had he pointed?!" he burst out, jumping to his feet.
"I didn't see; I was too busy acquainting myself with the grass," Ryo said flatly, giving him a cold glare. "Good luck trying to find your friend, though. I've never seen anyone but sensei move that fast."
The ginger-haired boy ignored him. Instead, he leaned back and cupped his hands around his mouth, shouting, "Hitomi!!"
"You do not have to be so loud," came the reply, almost at once. Seishirou snapped his head around so fast it was a wonder he didn't break it. There his sister was, picking her way delicately through the undergrowth, careful not to mess up her hair or kimono again. "I was just over there. Sasori told me you were this way."
"Sasori?" Ryo asked, brow furrowing. He, too, got to his feet, dusting himself off. "Why does that name sound familiar…?"
"He may have Akatsuki connections. He seemed to know Kakuzu, and he was wearing the uniform."
"Who is Kakuzu?"
"Kakuzu--he was an Akatsuki member. From Takigakure. And Sasori, I think he was, too…" Seishirou said with something like awe. "Was Sasori--Did he have red hair?"
Hitomi nodded seriously. "But he was not older than mother or father, and they were both young during the Akatsuki's reign. And he claimed to have known me."
Ryo crossed his arms, tapping his sandal. He was glaring at nothing with a scowl on his face. Seishirou knew it to be his thinking pose, so he just mentally shrugged it off and turned back to his sister. "Why did you come across two Akatsuki members, Hitomi?"
"They were fighting when the woman found me," she replied blithely.
"What woman?" Just how many people were in this forest?!
"I do not know who she was. She did not state her name, either. But she had long, purple hair and red markings. And she was apparently wearing Kakuzu's Akatsuki uniform. It was quite large on her."
"…I don't know about that woman, but there's something I've just realized," Ryo said slowly, looking back up at the pair. "Kisho said that you grew up in Amegakure. And we know that your parents may have known Akatsuki members. …Well, this proves it, doesn't it? If this Sasori guy knew Hitomi, he must either be spying on all of you or an Akatsuki member that your parents knew. And it would be why Hidan came to your house, too."
Hitomi nodded solemnly, as if unfazed by this news. Seishirou, however, felt like he'd been punched in the gut. His parents? Akatsuki connections? Laughable. Both of them were quiet and didn't associate much with other people (His father particularly). His sensei at the academy had once called his mother the 'tamest, most docile kunoichi in all of Kirigakure'. They knew the Akatsuki?
Ryo continued, however. "In the academy, all we ever learned about the Akatsuki was what they supposedly looked like. No photos survived. We got descriptions, though. And some legends and fighting styles. Sasori was the puppeteer, wasn't he? And I know Hidan and Kakuzu were definitely both members; they were partners, too. And the books always, always mentioned that several 'other ninja' commonly were seen with the Akatsuki members."
"You can't be saying my parents--"
"There was the Rain Lord," Hitomi said seriously. Seishirou knew she was currently studying history in the academy--or had been--but he wasn't expecting her to start in on this. She couldn't. She knew their parents just as well as he did. They weren't the type to affiliate with the Akatsuki. No way. "She and the leader of the Akatsuki had a fight concerning her supposed body guard."
"The leader, his partner, Zetsu, the orange-mask one, Hidan and Kakuzu, Sasori and his partner, and Kisame and his partner." Ryo counted them off on his fingers. "I can't remember all of the names, but that would be the members. Two of them, at least, know your parents--and you." Seishirou shook his head, ponytail swinging. His teammate shot him a glare. "There's definitely a connection here, Sei. Even if you're too dumb to realize it."
"And what if there is?" he shot back, narrowing his eyes. "What is that going to change, huh?"
"I don't know. Maybe it means you have Akatsuki friends."
"Most of the members are dead."
"At least three of them are still alive," Hitomi pointed out unhelpfully. Seishirou spared her a withering look. "I think that Sasori's partner is still alive, as well."
The boys gave her blank stares. "…What?"
"He mentioned someone getting captured by the Nibi. And he is very obviously tracking the Bijuu, if he is all the way out here already. Who else would he bother rescuing?"
"That settles it." Ryo hit his fist against his other hand, nodding fiercely. "Your parents were in cahoots with the Akatsuki. Four members here?"
"This Kakuzu guy was in the forest. Not anywhere near Kiri," Seishirou replied scathingly.
"He's still in the area." The black-haired genin shrugged. "We're going back to Kiri."
"What?"
"Why?" Hitomi added, tilting her head to one side. (Until she realized that this messed up her hair, and had to fix it once again.)
"You said your mother liked to take pictures, didn't you?" Ryo's dark eyes were glittering deviously. Seishirou nodded; he knew all too well. "And who would pass up the opportunity to take pictures of the Akatsuki, huh?"
-.-.-
Next Chapter: The children make it back to Kirigakure to hunt up Akatsuki memories. Seishirou refuses to believe that his parents were in with the Akatsuki. Hitomi takes things more in stride. Sasori takes on the Bijuu, and afterward takes on the kids. He's sure in for a bad day... And what's this? Hidan, Hinata and Deidara just aren't going to get kidnapped without a fight!