It was a dark night in the rebuilt Sunagakure. 'Rebuilt' was really a biased term; this new village was nowhere near where the previous one had stood, and its architecture had seemed to dramatically change. Old Sunagakure had been rounded, sandy, and flexible. This one was full of sharp corners and spires; it was made from the harder sand of the southern deserts, and it just seemed brittle. That was a good word for the village. If you asked any villager what they thought of the town, they might not say brittle, but they would undoubtedly think it.

Sunagakure was now a hard town, but if anything came to destroy it again, it would certainly snap into small shards. The most anyone could hope for was that those shards would hurt their attacker. The village's only defense, save that desperate hope for sharp shards, was its hidden location. It gave new meaning to the term Hidden Village. Very few knew of its existence, and even less knew of its actual location. Most of that population lived there, never straying beyond its borders.

One upside, however, of their new village and location was that sandstorms weren't nearly as common as they had been.

This made for some truly peaceful nights. It also meant that any nasty Bijuu sneaking up on them wouldn't have the cover of any sandstorm, like the Ichibi and Shichibi had had on their last run-in with Sunagakure. Border patrol wasn't nearly as detestable, and on calm, warm nights, it was almost enjoyable, provided that you liked the company.

One Hanamura Kinshirou was in such a situation, except for the very last factor: he did not like his partner on the border patrol. That technically wasn't the only thing he didn't like, either, since it was nearly two in the morning. Everyone knew that any enemies--they didn't have any, short of the Bijuu, since no one knew Suna's new position--attacked at dawn or dusk. Not at two in the goddamn morning.

His partner, Ai, was clearly trying to stay awake. Her head kept dropping down onto her chest, only to bob back up again a moment later. Kinshirou found himself watching her more than the deserted desert around them. Ha, he made a pun. He couldn't suppress a grin; there was nothing else in their little stakeout (a sand dune) or immediate area (more sand dunes) to amuse him, aside from mental jokes.

"You should be trying to keep me awake…" she grumbled finally, raising her head and stretching. Ai yawned loudly, giving herself a slap on the cheek to try to wake herself up a bit more. She glared at Kinshirou, who looked away, back out to the moonlit sands. "Hanamura! I'm serious."

"Go back to sleep, hime. It's bad enough you were put on this mission; I don't want to have to baby sit you, too," Kinshirou grunted in response, setting his chin in his palm. He could barely see anything out there, but pretending to look was better than staring at her all night. She wasn't exactly attractive.

"I am not a princess!" she retorted.

"You're just the eldest daughter of the Kazekage," he said flatly, sighing. "Go back to sleep. It was quiet before you woke up."

"It's still plenty quiet," Ai replied, dropping her voice into a whisper, "And I'm not going back to sleep. It looks bad on the mission report."

"I won't mention it if you don't."

"That's falsifying documents!"

Kinshirou turned to her, losing patience. "I don't give a flying fuck, hime. Just go back to sleep or shut up."

The second he let his eyes off of the desert around him, what do you know, something appeared. Out of all of the nights of the year, and all of the hours of the night, it was at the precise moment that he turned away that something chose to show up. If it was an enemy, they would have been in trouble. Instead, whatever it was just crept into the moonlight from a dune's shadow, appearing in the two ninja's peripheral vision.

Both Kinshirou and Ai snapped their heads back to attention once they caught sight of the movement. Kinshirou was already reaching for a kunai; Ai was forming signs.

It was a little girl. She was dressed in ragged, scarlet clothes, but the moonlight washed it out to a dull pink. Her hair was black, presumably, though the moon sapped that of any color it might have had as well. She stumbled forward, seeming weak on her feet, hands held just in front of her face, as if she were about to cry. The thing that struck the two Suna-nin most, however, were her eyes. They were as large and as pale as the moon above. She almost seemed like a ghost, staring at them with those white eyes, glistening with unshed tears.

"Please…" the little girl called out, her voice high and feeble in the empty night air.

Neither Kinshirou nor Ai moved or replied. Sure, her clothes were in tatters and she was barefoot, but she didn't appear too dirty, and her hair was immaculate. She wasn't some ragged runaway like she was probably hoping they'd think.

"Please," she repeated, tripping a bit in the sand. It did come up to her bare ankles, and Kinshirou couldn't help but feel a stab of pity. Or maybe it was amusement at her stupidity. How dumb did she think they were? They were Suna shinobi, after all, even if Ai was a total ditz. They weren't going to be tricked by some doe eyes and a weak voice.

"Stay where you are," Ai commanded, voice clear. "If you come any closer, we will have to take defensive procedures."

Kinshirou rolled his eyes Defensive procedures? Good thing this is a little girl, or we would have lost about a thousand dignity points just then, he couldn't help but think.

"Please… Help me." The little girl didn't come any closer, however.

"What is your problem?" Kinshirou asked, cutting across Ai before she could say anything else stupid.

"There… There is a bad man, he is chasing me… Please, help me," the little girl said, tears finally dripping off of her lashes, down her cheeks, and into the sand below. "Please, I do not know what to do."

"Who is the bad man?" Ai asked sympathetically.

"He-He is…" She hung her head and sobbed, more tears dripping down onto the sand burying her feet.

"Who is it?" Kinshirou demanded, much more harshly than his partner.

"That would be me." He had barely heard the words before he felt the blow.

-.-.-

"Did we really have to kill them?" Seishirou asked with a disgusted face. He was staying carefully away from the two corpses, mindful of all of the blood. The other three looked up in unison, with matching bloodied and dull expressions. He grimaced, looking away. "That's what I thought…"

"It is easier this way. It's not like there are any other clothing stores around here for us to get Suna attire in," Sasori explained as he put the slightly bloody cloth over his equally red hair.

"Tomozou and I aren't going to have anything to wear," Seishirou pointed out.

"The important thing is to get me out of my uniform," Sasori pointed out, just as calmly.

"This isn't going to fit Hitomi-san." Tomozou held up the woman's over shirt against him; it was large, even on him. Seishirou squinted and turned his back on the scene. He was not going to watch them strip corpses and try on their clothes as the bodies were still cooling.

"It's covered with blood, anyway," he muttered. Unlike Sasori, who had gotten luck in scoring a red Suna uniform, the kunoichi's had been white. The blood showed up, even at night. Hitomi would look like some sort of horror film dropout, complete with bloodstains and creepy eyes.

"Her old outfit was covered in blood, too. The only difference is that it wasn't human blood." Tomozou didn't seem bothered in the least by their actions. Neither did Sasori. The most disturbing thing was probably that Hitomi was going along with her two idols without a qualm. Seishirou looked over his shoulder as Tomozou held up the over shirt against his sister. "Hmm… The sleeves didn't get any blood on them. If she wears her current shirt overtop it and just lets the sleeves show, she should be fine."

"My current shirt is dirty," she protested softly.

"Yeah, and this is dirty, too. It's only until we get into Suna. Once we're in the city, we'll take it over, and then you can have all of the clean clothes you want," Tomozou replied with a smile that almost seemed gentle. Hitomi looked up at him, cheeks red, before looking down at the white shirt. Without a further objection, she took it from him. Seishirou had to draw the line when she began stripping, however.

"No! Hitomi-chan, have some shame and go change behind a sand dune or something!" Seishirou snapped, probably more harshly than he'd intended. Hitomi stared at him, hurt, before getting up and heading to said sand dune dejectedly. He frowned as she passed him. Now he knew how their parents felt whenever they misbehaved. Boy, he'd definitely be a good kid from then on.

"What's your problem?" Tomozou asked once she was out of earshot.

"My sister was going to take off her shirt in front of you!"

"It's not like I was going to look! I have a bit of decency, you know."

"That's a surprise." Soon enough, the boys were wrestling once more, trying to bury each other in the sand around them. Sasori sighed and let them go at it, working around them. He had gotten used to it, after all, with those past few days of traveling with all three children.

It had almost become a sort of routine. Tomozou and Seishirou would fight, Hitomi would look on impassively, and Sasori would try his hardest to ignore them while steering them through the treacherous Suna desert. On the first day, they had nearly died of dehydration--Tomozou was the worst off--and on the first night, they had nearly froze (Sasori took pity on them during the night and put them in a pile with his own uniform as a blanket). After that, the three quieted down considerably and followed his orders with a lot less complaining.

Fortunately, it had only taken a few days to cross the harshest parts of the desert. Then, that night, they had come across the border patrol: their first lucky break. Seishirou had protested to Hitomi being used as the distraction while Sasori snuck around behind them, but she had complacently told him that she could handle herself. And even he had to admit that she was a better actress than what he would've guessed.

"How are we going to get into the actual village? We reek of blood. Especially you two," Seishirou asked from where he had Tomozou in a headlock. The younger of the two was busy scrabbling for either air or an escape.

"How is that out of the norm?" Sasori replied in kind, tugging at the Suna uniform's red sleeves. He obviously didn't seem very comfortable in it, and Seishirou half wanted to ask why that was. Just as he was about to, Tomozou elbowed him hard in the stomach, and he doubled over with a wheeze. Now the fight continued between the boys. Sasori sighed, still pulling at his sleeves. "Everyone is a little ragged and bloody these days. You just didn't notice because you were too busy being coddled in Kirigakure. Not all of the villages are as well off as you were."

"Yeah, but most refugees would have enough sense to avoid heading into any village while wearing bloody clothes," Tomozou replied, having switched their previous positions.

"In some cases, such a thing is impossible to avoid. Such as now." Hitomi came back then. She didn't seem fazed by the fight or the argument, and instead strode immediately over to Sasori and glued herself to his arm. "May we go now? It would be nice if we could get some sleep in a real bed…"

"We probably won't reach the village tonight. Once we get into it, we have to act quickly to avoid more problems. We would already be under suspicion because you're foreigners--"

"Technically, you are too," Tomozou interjected as Seishirou flailed in his grasp.

"--and your stupid antics will probably just get us into more trouble. Thus, there is a need for haste," Sasori finished as if he hadn't heard him. "We'll probably get there by sunset… Optimistically, of course."

-.-.-

Hitomi didn't like the desert, she had decided. She'd decided that the first day of traveling. She was tired, she had a sunburn on the back of her neck and her arms, she was thirsty, she was constantly sweaty, and Seishirou and Tomozou wouldn't stop fighting. Even if it was a million degrees out, they'd probably fight over who got to combust first.

"You're drinking water like it's going out of style." Seishirou tried to grab one of Tomozou's water bottles, but he only ended up getting a fist to the face as he tried. "Come on, stop it. You'll faint again if you run out of water now."

"Look, I need to drink lots of water," Tomozou replied snappishly, glaring at Seishirou with a hostility that hadn't appeared until they entered the desert. Hitomi watched him curiously. He, unlike Seishirou and herself, wasn't sunburned in the least. He didn't even appear all that flushed. He just sweated.

"If I were losing that much water, I'd need to drink often, too," Sasori said, sounding amused.

Seishirou glared at him before demanding, "Whose side are you on?!"

"Frankly, Tomozou's."

"He's drinking more than Hitomi-chan and me combined!"

"That's a bit of a stretch. Even if he was, he's also sweating more than you two, and his genetic makeup isn't made for the desert. You and Hitomi are much more suited for this. Well, you more so than her…" Sasori tilted his head to the side with a small frown. "I don't see how you two can attract the single most unsuited person in the world for every single trip."

"Ryo wasn't unsuited," Seishirou replied quietly, in a tone that probably should have told Sasori to back off.

"He died, so apparently he was unsuited for something in that situation." Sasori didn't heed the warning.

Hitomi hastily ducked as Seishirou aimed a windmill kick at Sasori's head. He grabbed Seishirou's ankle before it could connect, however, and threw Seishirou to the side as he would a rag doll. Hitomi rushed to her brother's side, helping him back to his feet, scowling when she saw how badly his cheek had been scraped by the sand. "Now we have to stop," she said, turning to Sasori with that same scowl. "Seishirou is hurt and we have to make sure it does not get infected."

"Who is the one causing problems now, huh?" Tomozou remarked loftily, sitting down where he was.

"If you three can't make it, maybe I'll leave you behind."

"You needed us for the takeover of the village." Now, the redhead--though his hair was hidden beneath his hood--was the aim of three glares.

"Plans can be changed. It'll be easier to sneak in and interrogate the leader alone, anyway."

"Fine then!" Seishirou snapped, throwing a handful of sand in Sasori's direction. It scattered harmlessly in the air halfway there. "Go on without us! You're the one who dragged us into this godforsaken desert, so you're the one who brought all of this on yourself! You're the one who is having this trouble with the Bijuu, and it was the Akatsuki who brought the Bijuu to our parents, anyway! It's all your fault, not ours!"

"You're just harmless victims, then?" Sasori asked calmly, not rising to the bait. "Poor, lost souls, victimized because of circumstances?"

"No, we're victimized because of certain Akatsuki members who keep popping up," Tomozou replied disdainfully.

"You're not in this argument," Sasori said sharply. "Your parents were targeted regardless of the Akatsuki."

"And who do you think was it who let the demons first out, huh? If you could have kept a better leash on your pets, none of this would have happened--"

Tomozou was hoisted into the air by his throat before he could finish his sentence. His feet dangled over the sand, and he tried vainly to pull Sasori's hand away from his neck. Sasori glowered at the struggling pink-haired boy. "You know nothing of what the Akatsuki has done or been through. Don't talk as if this was a simple mistake of us letting a few demons out. You--Oh, fuck it all. I'm just going to kill you three here and solve a lot of problems now. I should have done that in the beginning."

"Wh-What the hell?!" Both Seishirou and Hitomi were taken aback, not only by his words, but by his sudden violence.

"Sasori, put Tomozou down! You do not mean any of that--"

"I do mean it. I--" Sasori was cut off as Tomozou suddenly broke free, using his white sword to stab the redhead through the arm. He dropped to the ground and pulled his weapon out in the same movement, slightly surprised that there was no blood to be seen.

"If you're going to fight us, you're going to regret it," Tomozou growled. "I don't care if you're fucking Akatsuki or not."

"Stop it, both of you!" Hitomi shouted in a high voice.

"I'm not going to stop! This bastard just tried to kill me!" Tomozou shouted back at her, temporarily turning towards her. Sasori took advantage of that and tried to attack him again, but he underestimated Tomozou's reflexes and got another sword to the arm as a result. "Stop standing around and either help or get killed!"

Seishirou didn't need any further pushing. He may have fought with Tomozou, but he hated Sasori more. Hitomi could only stand there and scream at them all to stop it. She wasn't going to get in the middle of it. And why should she? She honestly didn't know which side she'd choose. On one hand, she knew they were being nuisances, but that was only because they were still human. Sasori didn't have to deal with sweating or dehydration or heatstroke. On the other, however, Sasori was the one who was abusing them, and they needed to fight back or die. She didn't know how serious he really was, but he looked pretty serious to her…

Things escalated when Seishirou brought out a fire jutsu and nearly caught Sasori in it. He, in return, called out one of his puppets, the white-haired one that used electricity as its weapon. It made a lunge for Seishirou while Sasori went for Tomozou, but Seishirou grounded it with another well-timed Katon. Tomozou, for his part, ducked out of Sasori's grasp yet again, though he just got yanked back by the sword a moment later. Sasori pulled back his hand for a punch, but instead opened it so that the palm faced Tomozou's head.

"Stop it!!" Hitomi suddenly tackled Sasori, and the three of them--Tomozou pulled along by the sword still--went sprawling in the sand. Tomozou didn't waste the opportunity, and started a desperate wrestling match to try to pin Sasori's hands down so that he couldn't do any more of his puppeteering. Maybe, if Seishirou had been with them, they would have been successful. Since he wasn't, Sasori just threw them off, and changed tactics. Hitomi was an easier target, anyway.

Sasori got to his feet, calmly walked over, and picked Hitomi up by her wrist as she was trying to get out of the sand. Tomozou, the faster of the two, charged Sasori from behind and thrust his sword through the redhead's neck. He stumbled back in shock, however, as Sasori spun around and kicked him back into the sand, sword still imbedded in his throat.

"Let go of me!" Hitomi tried to hit him, but his arm was much longer than hers.

Sasori opened his mouth to reply to her, but was cut off when, all of a sudden, the ground around them rushed up and ate them.

-.-.-

Sasori's puppet suddenly went lifeless, much to Seishirou's astonishment. He looked around wildly, but Sasori was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Hitomi. Tomozou, however, was staring in shock at something just in front of him; Seishirou saw nothing but sand.

"What the hell just happened?! Where's Hitomi?" Tomozou shouted, jumping to his feet and waving his arms wildly. He pointed at the sand, too astonished to say anything else.

"Isn't that what I should be asking you?!" Seishirou demanded shrilly. He didn't know where his enemy or his little sister were; those were two very frightening facts for a young genin. "Hitomi-chan? Hitomi-chan--!!"

"Relax. If she had enough sense to hold her breath, she's fine." Both boys jumped, snapping back to their defensive stances. Seishirou noticed that Tomozou didn't have his sword anymore; would he have to fight without it? Come to think of it, he hadn't really seen Tomozou do much else than punch, kick, and stab people…

On top of one of the taller sand dunes, there stood a man. Somehow, he had snuck up on them, and obviously he was the one responsible for the disappearances of both Sasori and Hitomi. He jumped off of the dune, reappearing just a moment later in front of them. He was taller than they had originally thought, but that really wasn't what had initially caught their attention. What caught their attention was his very familiar uniform, black with red clouds on it.

Tomozou jumped back as another man appeared on the scene. Seishirou didn't have the same reaction time, however, so he just managed to give an undignified yelp as he was picked up from behind. "Wh-Wha--?"

"Sei! I'm so glad you're safe!" Seishirou craned his neck back, the back of his head resting on the man's shoulder. He broke out into a wide smile when he saw his dad's smiling face.

"Dad!" He immediately started squirming, trying to get into a position to return the hug. "Dad--you're alive!"

"Did you think a mere demon could kill me?" Neji set him down, only to have Seishirou tackle him in another hug.

"No--but--you… you never came back," Seishirou replied, face buried in his father's shirt. The brunette man set a hand on his head, tilting it back so that he could look at him again.

"I came back now. I'm sorry it took so long."

As all of this was going on, the other, taller man was fishing a coughing Hitomi out of the sand. He hoisted her up, sand dripping from her like water, and set her back on the ground beside Tomozou. She wobbled, and he held out a hand to steady her, more out of reflex than any sort of compassion. She coughed and wiped her eyes, blinking blearily until she realized that Tomozou had his arm around her shoulders; then, with a speed that belied her age, she got away from him and hid behind the tall Akatsuki-nin.

"Back off unless you want Sasori to go for you again," he grunted, shooing her away.

Hitomi shuffled nervously away from him, looking around in distress--that is, until her white eyes found her father. With a squeal of joy, she rushed over to get in on the hugging, ignoring her messy hair and clothes and sand.

Tomozou watched the family hug, a bit jealously. To prevent him from doing something stupid, however, he turned to the new Akatsuki-nin and asked, "What exactly did you do?"

"I used a Doton to put them both underground. You can't do much in the way of killing little girls when there's that much sand separating you," he replied curtly, before making another hand sign. He then reached down into the sand and pulled Sasori back up by the back of the collar.

"I don't have to breathe, so I don't see why you had to separate us that way," was the first thing that came out of his mouth. Tomozou growled at him, but Sasori only spared him a small glance. "Kakuzu, when did you get into Suna?"

"Awhile ago. Waiting for your sorry ass. If I'd have known that all you were doing was beating up children, though, I would've caught up with you awhile ago."

"I had a good reason to," Sasori replied, brushing sand off of his sleeves. He then shook his head, dislodging even more. Then, he fixed his comrade with a flat glare. "I do hope you know what kind of fuss the girl is going to make once she realizes just how much sand she has on her body."

"If she does, I'll just put her back in the sand," the man replied simply.

-.-.-

That night, they camped as close to Sunagakure as they dared. It was still quite cheery, however. Both Hitomi and Seishirou were leaning against their father. Sasori was sitting with Kakuzu, discussing things in low voices. Those two groups meant that Tomozou was alone on his side of the fire, glaring daggers at them all.

"--And you should have seen it, dad! She was just covered in blood, and it was as if she didn't even know it!"

"I knew I was covered in blood."

"I'm more surprised that you knew how to properly butcher a goat, much less a mountain goat," their father said wryly, though he was smiling at the anecdote. "Had you ever seen an Iwa mountain goat before, Hitomi-chan?"

"No," she admitted, looking down at her lap in embarrassment. "But… Most animal physiology is the same, is it not?"

"Not quite… But you could probably get away with a lot of mammals operating on the same principle."

Tomozou stared at the happy little family across the flames, knees drawn up to his chest. He was sulking, yes, but he wasn't stupid enough to merely sulk. He was also thinking.

Sure, he had seen pictures of their family before, but seeing it live, in person, made a lot more sense. Hitomi looked a lot like her dad, especially with the dark hair and white eyes combination. Seishirou seemed out of place. Tomozou fiddled with his white sword, scowling behind his knees. Seishirou wasn't a part of their family, not by blood, but he still got his happy family all together, nice and neat and joyful. He couldn't help the envy, but Tomozou tried his damned hardest to suppress it. After all, his family was much better, and they were missing their mother still, anyway. They weren't completely perfect…

Who were Seishirou's parents, then? he thought. Ninja never had 'no reason' for adopting another kid; adoption was actually fairly rare, except in times of war and disaster. True, he was twelve, and that put him back to the initial Bijuu-Akatsuki battle, and that was as much of a disaster as anything else in the world, but… There were too many coincidences.

How did they know of the Akatsuki? Or rather--how did the Akatsuki know of them? Hitomi seemed to idolize Sasori, and Kakuzu hadn't hesitated to rescue her. Moreover, Sasori seemed to harbor conflicting feelings toward Seishirou, usually either disdain or some sort of distant affection. It was entirely possible--likely, even--that Sasori had known Seishirou's parents. Maybe Kakuzu, too. And Neji, their father, knew both Akatsuki-nin rather well.

It made sense, then, that both Neji and the Akatsuki knew Seishirou's parents.

Sasori, Kakuzu, Itachi, Kisame… Tomozou tried to name them all, but only got those four. There were ten members; he was missing six. Sasori and Kakuzu got along fine, but he doubted they were partners in the organization; that meant that two more were their partners. Four strangers in the organization were left unknown to him.

Could… Could one of those deceased members have been Seishirou's father? Maybe it wasn't even one of the dead members, he realized excitedly. There were still four members alive. Maybe, maybe one of them was Seishirou's father. Maybe that was why the two Akatsuki-nin there that night didn't look at Seishirou at all, and maybe why Sasori seemed to act so weird, and it just answered so many questions.

First things first, then. Tomozou set down his sword and crawled over to where Sasori and Kakuzu were conversing. Both men stopped and looked at him as he approached, not entirely welcome. "Sorry to interrupt," Tomozou said, though he was nothing of the sort, "But I have a few questions about your illustrious organization."

-.-.-

Next Chapter: Tomozou gets his questions answered. Did he ask the right ones, though? Neji finds out why Sasori was attacking his children, and Kakuzu amuses himself with trying to figure out why they're both acting so sentimental. But--what's this? Hitomi's sudden breakdown leads to a halt in all plans, for a group 'talk'...