[A/N: Yes, look at what I forgot about again despite having it all prepared ahead of time. I think there are either 2 or three more full chapters left, then I've got to get back to work.]

Chapter 4:

Hide's delivery job started out very well that evening, as he didn't catch sight of the 'ninjas' anywhere. Hopefully they had figured out, after Hide had gotten the police involved, that he wasn't one to be easily deceived. In any case, even though he was looking for them now, they were nowhere to be found. He almost thought that he could have imagined the whole thing, if it weren't for the needle-hole he still needed to patch up in his bedroom wall and the bucket of water that Bakeneko had managed to tip over on herself (luckily sparing Hide's revered Uhura and Spock figures).

Things weren't nearly as busy as the day before, so Hide actually had some time to sit and read between deliveries, although he had trouble keeping his mind on the book. Machiavelli just wasn't holding his attention today.

He hoped Sasuke was all right; what Hide had done probably hadn't been especially fair, but he had to get his point across somehow. Besides, if the boy had been acting like that with everyone he thought might be his brother he would have gotten himself in worse trouble sooner or later. Sasuke was surprisingly trusting for a ninja, although maybe he was just too obsessed with finding his 'Itachi' that he didn't realize he was being careless.

That Hide hadn't seen the ninjas today was probably a good sign, though. Sasuke had probably found his way back to them after Hayashi let him go (Hide didn't think that any police tail would be able to follow Sasuke successfully, as he and his friends were frighteningly sneaky) and they'd headed back to wherever it was that they belonged. Hide hoped Sasuke wouldn't get in any trouble when he returned home; he seemed like a nice kid and if things had happened the way Sasuke had said, somebody out there had a little brother they didn't deserve.

Where was 'Konoha', anyway? Hayashi had said it wasn't in Japan, and from the way the ninjas had been acting it had to be very remote. Maybe it was in Tibet somewhere, or elsewhere in the Himalayas. There were lots of places in there that were nearly impossible to get to. But those places were just as hard to get out of, so how would the ninjas have gotten to Japan from there? If a gun confused them, they probably wouldn't have access to other advanced technology like helicopters. Still, even that wouldn't explain how fluent all of the 'ninjas' were in Japanese.

However, Sasuke had mentioned a 'world-transfer' or something like that. Maybe the reason the modern technology had confounded him was because he had access to even more advanced technology—maybe even real Star Trek stuff! Now he wished he had taken the chance to talk to the boy again when he went to the police station.

"Hide-kun, delivery."

Hide was so caught up in his thoughts that it took him a little while to register that someone was talking to him. "Sorry, Akiyama-san," he said quickly, closing the book (he hadn't been actually looking at it for several minutes, anyway) and putting it away. Mr. Akiyama could have fired him for being spacey long ago, but luckily the man was understanding about what came with hiring an amnesiac. The fact that he was good friends with Mr. Takeda didn't hurt either. "Where to?" Hide asked, straightening the sleeves of his Science Officer uniform before taking the box of ramen and fastening it into the basket on the back of his scooter.

"The new apartments on the east side of town. Here's the address."

Hide didn't look at the piece of paper before putting it in his pocket; he only needed it for the apartment number and he could get it out again when he arrived. "Right then, the fastest ramen in town is on its way!"

It got dark quickly this time of year, and it was getting steadily duskier as Hide pulled up in front of the apartment building. Taking out the piece of paper with the address, he sighed as he realized that he was going to have to go all the way up to the sixth story. Since he had the honor of Akiyama Ramen to uphold, he ran most of the way up the stairs and by the time he finally arrived at what he realized was the most remote apartment in the building he was out of breath. He leaned against the walkway railing for a moment before ringing the doorbell.

"Delivery, Akiyama Ramen!"

There was a sudden bustle of activity from inside the apartment, but the door wasn't opened for several seconds. Hide was beginning to worry that this was another plot of the stalker ninjas when the door finally opened. He almost sighed with relief when he saw a red-haired teenager.

"I brought your—" Hide began, but he didn't have time to finish the statement before a blond teenager shoved past the redhead to grab the box with the ramen in it.

"Deidara..." the redhead growled, sounding annoyed.

"But Sasori, I'm hungry!" Deidara protested.

Sasori sighed. "How much?" he asked.

"1200 yen," Hide replied. As Sasori got out the money, Hide looked past him into the apartment. Deidara had taken both bowls of ramen out by now, which was normal. What was Absolutely Not Normal was the tongue that slipped out of Deidara's hand to lap at the broth.

"Ow ow hot hot hot!" Deidara yelped, dashing into what must have been the kitchen, because Hide could hear water running a moment later.

"Of course it's hot, idiot," Sasori mumbled, pulling out a few bills.

Hide had a very bad feeling about this. "Right, I'll just be going now," he said as he took the money, smiling innocently and hoping they hadn't noticed him staring, "so, Live Long and Prosper, and—um. That's a gun."

"I know what it is," Sasori said calmly, not lowering the pistol from where it was pointed at Hide's head. "I also know how it works. Now get inside and be quiet."

Since this seemed to be the best option at the time, Hide complied (especially since he didn't want Sasori to remember the ramen money and take it back). However, he'd never been able to keep quiet for long.

"You do realize kidnapping is illegal in Japan, right?" Hide said as the door closed behind him. The gun Sasori was holding was probably even more illegal than that, but Hide didn't think he ought to say so considering he was the one it was currently pointed at.

"I'm well aware of that," Sasori replied.

"So...are you two ninjas too, or something?"

"Be quiet."

"Was that a yes or a no?"

"Shut up or I'll gag you."

Apparently Sasori was not the type to be easily shaken by back-talking kidnappees. Hide obediently sat down on the couch that he was directed to and tried to look nervous while keeping a close eye on what was going on. If Sasori looked away for even a moment, he might be able to get his cell phone out and dial Officer Hayashi before they realized what he was up to.

"What do you want me for?" Hide asked after a few minutes, as nothing seemed to be happening, except that Deidara was almost done with the ramen. Sasori hadn't eaten any. "If you're going to do…whatever it is you're doing, you could at least share the ramen, you know. I also notice you didn't give me a tip."

"Don't play stupid," Sasori snapped, clearly not at all amused by Hide's flippancy. "Your adoring little brother led us right to you."

Hide's bad feeling got worse. "Look, I'm not this Itachi person."

"Funny how quickly Team 7 found you then. They seemed awfully certain who you were."

Team 7 must refer to the group of ninjas that had been following him around, Hide thought, filing that bit of information away for later. He tried another line of reasoning. "I have friends with the police, you know. You won't get away with this; let me go now and maybe I can get you let off with a lighter sentence."

"I assure you," Sasori said evenly, raising one eyebrow in a Spock-like manner (Hide promptly decided he hated him; he'd never been able to do that even when he practiced), "where we're going, the police will not be an issue. Hurry up with that ramen, Deidara, we're wasting time," he added in almost exactly the same tone.

"Just finished eating," Deidara said.

"Very well then."

By the time Hide realized that Sasori had just thrown a dagger at him, it had already sliced a thin cut in his arm and embedded itself in the couch behind him. That was not something Hide was going to take meekly.

"Do you know what you just did?" Hide exploded, jumping to his feet. "That Starfleet uniform was expensive! Do you have any idea how—h-how long—I—" Hide couldn't manage to make himself finish the sentence. The room was starting to get blurry and his head was spinning. Maybe I should have stayed sitting down, he thought just before he hit the floor.

Hide woke up an unknown amount of time later, and immediately wished he hadn't—and not just because of the headache.

His legs weren't there. Or rather, he was pretty sure they were there, as he could see their silhouette through the white light creeping up his body, but he couldn't feel them at all, just a strange dull coldness. His hands were also tied, he discovered when he started to sit up and failed. That didn't make him feel any better about the situation.

Taking a split second to look around, trying to figure out what was going on and if there was any way to stop it, Hide saw that he was somewhere dark and spacious—a warehouse?—and lying on some kind of elaborate circle, like something out of Fullmetal Alchemist.

One thing quickly learned by anybody who ever watched Fullmetal Alchemist was that ending up on a circle made of strange mystic symbols was a Very Bad Thing.

"What's going on?" Hide demanded in a shaky voice, trying to push himself up as he caught sight of Sasori kneeling by the circle, Deidara at his side. "What are you doing—stop it!"

Then a band of white light wrapped over his face and he couldn't see or hear anything else. That was the worst, feeling the coldness coming and not being able to tell what was going on. Even if he couldn't do anything about it, being able to see would have given him some sort of edge over his rising panic, and that would have allowed him to pretend that he had some modicum of control.

What Hide hated and feared most was not being in control. Even when he was at school and kept to the background, he knew that if he really needed to, he could get things done.

This, on the other hand, was entirely alien, he didn't have any control and he never would, and pretty soon they would realize that he wasn't who they wanted him to be and then he would die.

Hide wasn't usually this much of a pessimist, but sometimes one had to make the logical realization, and right now that happened to be that he was kind of doomed.

Finally, the white light disappeared and Hide found himself lying on a cold stone floor. As he caught his breath and waited for his circulation to go back to normal, Sasori and Deidara appeared through what Hide assumed was the same mechanism. They didn't look nearly as shaken up as Hide felt, which was probably because they had actually understood what was happening and initiated it willingly.

"Let's go," Sasori said calmly, and Hide wondered randomly if he ever used any other tone. "The Leader's waiting for us."