Sasuke looked up calmly as he felt the air around him crackle; it was with electricity, of course. For the first time in over a decade, it wasn't from his own. He didn't feel any more interest for the sight that met his coal black eyes than he would have felt seeing a butterfly float by.

There was a massive six-tailed weasel standing across the clearing from him, perched on splintered trunks. Its short, glossy fur stood on end from the raw electricity this creature flowed through it. Its numerous tails were bristling and its hackles were raised, as if it were a dog. Or did weasels do that, too? Sasuke wasn't sure. The closest he'd ever gotten to a weasel was Itachi…

Karin didn't even look up from the fire she was tending. Suigetsu only gave a passing glance to the tailed demon. He continued washing the blood off of one of his many swords. Sasuke lazily rotated his head over towards his teammate, feigning interest in him. He had collected five of the seven swords he'd set out to snag, and took care of them like he would a child. No--better than a child. Sasuke knew Tomozou had never been cleaned so thoroughly.

The kid was long gone by now. Of course he was; none of them wanted to risk his life, or have him get in the way. Karin had sensed the Bijuu kilometers off, and now her son was circling around it southward. They didn't worry about him. He was probably a chuunin rank by now, and had the emotional disposition towards blood of a jounin. He'd be fine.

Sasuke finally returned his gaze to the Rokubi when he felt a zing of static electricity run through his skin. The demon's warning shot. No doubt it had the power to summon a thunderstorm and strike them all down with bolts of lightning, or maybe even the raw electricity to flood the forest with it and electrocute them all.

Uchiha Sasuke slowly got to his feet, pushing his traveling cloak back behind his shoulders. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Karin stood up as well, and Suigetsu had stopped paying such meticulous attention to his sword. Sasuke was still the leader of this team. Nothing, least of all time, had changed that.

"Uchiha Sasuke," the weasel growled, pulling back its lips in a silent snarl, "You are coming with me."

Sasuke closed his eyes, sighed, and tilted his head to one side. It was as if he was thinking. Still resting his cheek against his shoulder, he reopened crimson eyes. "No."

-.-.-

"What?" Hitomi asked, tilting her head to one side. Some of her hair fell out from behind her barrettes; she scowled at this, but for the moment, she was more intent on Sasori's last statement.

"Such a stupid dogma…" Sasori shook his head, his smile vanishing in favor of a smirk. All at once, he lost his angelic countenance. He even laughed, a harsh, grating sound that did nothing to restore his former innocence. Hitomi felt her grip slacken, mostly from shock. The Suna-nin took the opportunity to pull her hands off his uniform, and stepped away from her before she could do anything about it. "Maybe I'll come back for you two when you shape up into some real shinobi."

Then, he disappeared from their lives yet again. Hitomi felt a shiver run down her spine, and all at once, her eyes filled up with tears. This was the second time Sasori had betrayed her--them--by leaving. How could he do such a thing? She ran in the direction he had vanished, tripping over her skirt and the loose stone below. Hot tears stung her eyes, but she just blinked them back and tried to clear her sight. He couldn't have been that far; he couldn't just leave them-- "B-Byakugan!" Desperately, she activated her bloodline limit as she ran. The world around her inverted and, dizzy from the expanded field of vision, she finally tripped and fell, pitching forward, only instead of the ground coming to meet her, there was nothing.

"Hitomi-chan!" Seishirou shouted behind her.

It was a small hill, really, but the sudden lack of ground and the sensation of falling, mixed in with her 360 degree vision, made it all too much for her. Hitomi hit the ground five meters below, landing weak-kneed on her feet. She collapsed immediately to her knees, and emptied her stomach, turning off the Byakugan as she did so.

Sasori had been nowhere near, anyway…

"Oh my god, that was not attractive."

Hitomi's head snapped up as she heard someone speak. Someone who was not Seishirou. …Or Sasori. Behind her, her brother skidded down the hill, running up behind her. "Hitomi-chan--"

Hitomi looked at this newcomer. He was back lighted by the setting sun, washing out already pale hair, and the fringes of his outfit, bathing the rest of the person in twilight. Whoever this was had chin-length hair, and if she hadn't just heard his voice, she would have guessed it was female.

For one strange, brief, dizzying moment, she wondered if she had gone to heaven.

The boy placed a hand on his hip, swinging his weight to that leg. He looked right, then left, and then back at them. "Who are you?" he finally asked, as if they were intruding. Maybe they were. It wasn't as if they knew this area.

"Who are you?" Seishirou shot back, sinking into a fighting stance. Hitomi coughed, then spat to clear out her mouth a bit. She shakily stood up. Now she wasn't only dizzy, she was slowly getting hungry. Probably because her stomach was splashed on the ground in front of her. This pale-haired boy in front of them narrowed his eyes. Because of the backlighting, it was hard to tell the exact color, but she noticed that they were light in color. Like hers.

Maybe he is some sort of angel, she thought, wiping her mouth on her wrist. But…Sasori had also looked like an angel, and look what he did…

"I'm next in line for the throne." The kid laughed, shaking his head lightly. Hitomi frowned, wondering what that meant. There were no more emperors or kings anymore in these lands, unless some sort of small kingdom had sprung up without Kirigakure noticing, which was unlikely, of course. Kirigakure knew everything about the world; it was one of their last defenses. "You know, there's a demon on the loose right now. What are a couple of kids doing wandering around these parts?"

He couldn't have been older than Seishirou, but his arrogant tone reminded both of them of Sasori.

"We are looking for Sasori. He looks like he is a teenager, and he had red hair and brown eyes, and he is wearing an Akatsuki uniform--" Hitomi felt Seishirou's hand clamp over her mouth to prevent her from saying anything else.

"…Akatsuki? What's that?" He cocked his head, blinking in confusion. Hitomi frowned beneath her brother's hand; what kind of front was that? Everyone knew who the Akatsuki were, so it was no use pretending not to…

"…" Seishirou glanced down at her, then back up at the stranger. "…Black, high-collared cloak. Red clouds with a white outline."

"Oh, him? He just passed me. Called me a little ingrate." The boy pointed over his shoulder, then looked back at them. The pair opposite him exchanged a glance; yup, that matched Sasori's description. "So what is your business here…?"

"What's yours?" Seishirou asked, his hand still tight over Hitomi's mouth. She blinked a few times, clearing up the last vestiges of her tears over Sasori's departure. If this boy had seen him, then he couldn't have gone far, and it meant they could still catch up to him--

"I told you. I live here. Is that a crime, now?" He put both hands on his hips, swinging his weight to the other leg again. "And I can tell you right now that I'm not stupid. You bunch of kids had better get out of here, with your little uniforms--though yours don't match his--and better head for the hills. Like I said, the Bijuu is here, and it's not going to be a pretty battle. Of course, my father and mother and Sasuke-san are going to kill it, but no telling how much carnage will--"

Seishirou let go of her, opting for a more blunt approach to this high and mighty kid. In a flash, he was behind the pale-haired boy, holding him in a full nelson to keep his hands apart, resting his chin on his shoulder. "You, shut up. You're not fooling anyone with this act, so just tell us which direction Sasori-sensei went, and we'll let you go."

The kid suddenly grinned, and leaned his cheek against Seishirou's. Hitomi watched in amazement as, faster than Seishirou, the kid reached back, grabbed hold of the back of his captor's shirt, and pulled him over his head. Seishirou's head slammed into the ground as the kid jumped forward after impact, pinning him with his feet. "What was that supposed to be, huh? Some sort of attack? I bet you're just a little genin, aren't you?" he cooed, kneeling down on the ginger-haired boy's back. He then turned back up to Hitomi, grinning even then.

Hitomi stared, dumbfounded, in return. No one had ever beaten her brother…at least, no one in their age group. And here was this kid out of the blue, beating him effortlessly. Behind him, the sun finally set, ridding the scene of the orange highlights.

"So let's start with the basics, shall we? State your name, rank, and purpose here. And what is this Akatsuki you keep going on about?"

-.-.-

Sasuke had had a theory, from the start of the battle. He tested it, too, rather quickly. Sasori might have figured this out in his own time, if confronted by the Rokubi, but as it was, Sasuke was the one who gets the credit of the second-fastest way to incapacitate a demon (the fastest being to force foreign chakra into its body).

Electricity worked wonders when types were mixed, after all.

Not five minutes into the fight, the Rokubi was lying on its side, breathing labored, and bleeding from several wounds on its body. In addition to those wounds, two of its tails had been chopped off. Suigetsu was working on taking off another, tossing the other two to Karin by using his sword as a catapult. Sasuke was off to the side, nursing the wounds he had suffered from the explosion from the two electricities mixing. He was still wary of the Rokubi--it wasn't dead yet--but knew better than to try to warn either of his teammates. They could take care of themselves, anyway.

Karin suddenly looked up sharply, craning her neck over one shoulder. Sasuke mirrored the movement without realizing it; his Sharingan was still on. He kept it on once he saw who it was. A few moments later, Suigetsu looked up cheerily from sawing off another tail.

An Akatsuki member was standing at the edge of the trees; at least, those that were still standing. Their battle had been short, but it had been fierce and cleared quite a swath of forest. It took Sasuke a few moments to place him, but when he did, he didn't feel any concern over it. It was the redheaded one, Sasori. He still looked as young as ever, and his hair was just a few shades duller and darker than Karin's. Sasuke briefly vacillated between asking and not, and eventually decided to hold his tongue. The Akatsuki member could speak first.

His brown eyes found the fading Rokubi. Sasuke, again, mirrored the movement, before irritably shutting the Sharingan off. These days it was getting harder to control, at least with the little things. He couldn't help but notice how the edges of his vision had been growing fuzzy… But that was neither here nor there. Here was an Akatsuki member, and Sasuke was in no way hurt enough that he couldn't fight, if the situation called for it.

Sasori just continued staring mutely at the Rokubi.

"Well?" Karin said finally, putting her hands on her hips and leaning forward a bit. "What do you want, Sasori-san?"

"I…" It took a moment for him to find the words he was looking for. "It was of the utmost importance that the Rokubi did not capture Uchiha Sasuke."

"It would take more than the six-tailed demon to beat us," Suigetsu said jovially, prying the tail away from the demon's body before tossing it at Sasori. It landed by his sandaled feet, blood oozing from it. Sasuke had noticed that its blood was a darker color than humans'. "Of course, now it's like, the three-tailed demon…" He snickered evilly.

The Rokubi's eyes rolled in its sockets, and once again Sasori was looking at it. It growled faintly.

"Don't underestimate the Bijuu," Sasori warned in a low voice.

Karin laughed shrilly. "I suppose that's advice coming from one who knows?"

"Yes, it is!" he snapped. "You three got a lucky break and managed to take this down, but--"

Then, the Rokubi suddenly rolled to its feet, blood flying from the bloody stumps of its tails. It reached around and snapped its jaws closed around Suigetsu's chest, but the white-haired man just melted into water as his sword clanged to the ground. Water splashed the ground with blood. "You stupid human, why did you have to interrupt!" it snarled at Sasori, charging. It couldn't quite run in a straight line; apparently its tails held most of its power.

Sasuke jumped to his feet, but by then, it was all over.

Sasori stood underneath the Rokubi's neck, dark red blood dripping onto his hair. Two wing-like collection of blades were splayed out from the back of his tattered cloak. One of them was imbedded deeply in the weasel's throat, sticking out on the other side. The demon hissed, and then finally collapsed once more. Sasori smoothly ducked out from under it before he was crushed.

"We did the same thing to the Shichibi, and it nearly killed us for it. It got away." Sasori shook his hands, then wiped the blood off on his uniform. He looked over towards Sasuke. "You're as reckless as ever." Then, he turned to Karin, who was helping a half-formed Suigetsu to his feet. "All of you."

"It wouldn't have lasted long in that state," she growled, glaring at the other redhead.

"True, but it was far more dangerous. How many of you would it have killed before it finally died from blood loss? The Bijuu are not like shinobi. They won't just fall over when exhausted, and they don't run on chakra or adrenaline alone. They don't have human self-preservation instincts; they just have the instinct to kill."

"So you killed the Rokubi. Only eight demons left, oh great Akatsuki-nin."

"The Gobi is also dead." The calm façade was back, Sasuke noted as he sat back down. "The Shichibi is also wounded from when we fought it…"

Sasori suddenly trailed off. He looked up, into space. Sasuke could only wonder what he was thinking about. As much as Karin liked to mock him, he was still an Akatsuki member, and that was practically a rank. A rank that was still higher than theirs.

Sasori looked over to Sasuke again. "Near Iwa's southwestern border, along the mountain range, there is a large building. It was an Akatsuki base, but now it's where the Bijuu are stationed. They've captured three bodies for Jinchuuriki; don't let them capture any more, understand?"

The black-haired man nodded solemnly. "The Bijuu aren't going to get the better of us. They can have the Rokubi's carcass to attest to that."

Sasori smiled tightly. It was not a happy smile. "Don't be overly reckless and act like the stupid kids I once knew you three as. The Kyuubi is still out there, along with six others." Then, he left.

Sasuke slid back down into a seated position. He had no quarrel with the rest of the Akatsuki, but he wasn't going to bound off to help them. If the Bijuu came to him, he would kill them. But he wasn't going to hunt them down. Suigetsu groaned as he finally reformed his body, shaking his head to clear it. Karin fetched one of his swords for him to use as a crutch.

"So the Rokubi…dead, eh?" he asked, leaning heavily on the broadsword. Neither Karin nor Sasuke responded to him. "…Better go get Tomozou, then. Karin, fetch."

"Excuse me?!" Suigetsu beamed at her for a moment before he was doubled over again. She had figured out long ago that just hitting him in the head caused him to turn into a puddle. Now, she normally kneed him in the stomach or the crotch, as he usually couldn't liquefy in time to counter it.

"You still might want to retrieve your child," Sasuke said, eyeing Suigetsu with a mix of pity and complacency. After all, he had brought it on himself…but he knew how hard Karin hit. "Unless you just happen to explicitly trust Sasori--"

Karin nearly tripped over herself to get out of the clearing.

Just after she made it to the trees, chakra suddenly filled the clearing. Suigetsu suddenly staggered, and Sasuke felt the world around him tip to the right. Karin collapsed against the nearest tree trunk, trembling.

Then, there was a roar.

It was loud enough to shake the ground beneath them and rattle their bones. And it was something they'd all heard before. The Kyuubi.

The Rokubi had just been a trap! Or--a diversion, Sasuke realized, leaping to his feet, Sharingan blazing. He realized that they were in no position to really fight the Kyuubi. He was injured--however minor--and Suigetsu and Karin were both off-kilter from stress, worry, and the last Bijuu fight. Not to mention that it was the Kyuubi, of all demons. If it were any other, Sasuke probably would have figured they could fight their way out, but not if it was the demon fox. Even when it had been sealed in Naruto, it had been strong enough to hand his ass to him on more than one occasion.

If what Sasori said was true (that he was being hunted for his body, something he was used to, but never to this extent), the Kyuubi wouldn't just let them flee. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place, now.

As scarlet ears poked up over the forest in the distance, Sasuke lowered his glare to the ground before him. He wouldn't be beaten, but, if he couldn't win…he wouldn't lose, at least.

-.-.-

Sasori was confident that Sasuke could handle himself. Which was why he left him there. Now he was sprinting back across the southern part of what had been Ame, long ago, towards the ex-Akatsuki base. Now he was going to spring Deidara, Bijuu be damned. He had saved Sasuke and his group, even killed another demon to boot--it was time to rescue the princess and dragon (and whatever the hell Hidan was; Sasori had never figured out where any of the rest of them stood in that fairytale) once more.

It took him a little over a week at a dead sprint to reach the southern Iwa mountains. Sasori wasn't being reckless, he told himself, he was just in a hurry. Even at that dangerously fast pace, he didn't get caught unawares by any Bijuu. There weren't any returning tracks, either, though he wasn't exactly being thorough in his search.

The Suna-nin snuck easily into his old hideout, listening hard for any signs of movement. He didn't find a sleeping Shichibi--or an awake one--this time, either.

When he got to the third holding cell, he didn't find any humans, either.

-.-.-

Arc Two: Akatsuki: Pause

-.-.-

Next Chapter: The children 'bond'--blood, sweat, tears and all. Hinata, Deidara and Hidan tentatively make their plans for the immediate future, while Sasuke has to deal with his own problems. Meanwhile, Sasori comes up with a plan...