As of right now, Bara no Sabaku has officially stolen from Suna's Red Sand the title of my longest oneshot. For those of you who are familiar with the latter, that should make you aware of how ridiculously long this is.

To SkywardShadow, if you are reading this, yes, this is "my epic".

I hope you all like it, that none of the qualities that readers of oneshots occasionally find questionable (the extreme length, the unusual pairing, the extreme warping of canon, etc.) put you off.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

---

His heart was set to pounding as the sands swirled and swished around him, eradicating his footprints and blocking out the sound of his breath.

His eyes darted around, scanning the dunes in the endlessness that was the desert for any signs of life. There was nothing, good. Nothing but the night sky with which he had used to disguise his departure, and the sickle moon gleaming down upon him.

The only sound was the sound of his own breathing, staccato and hoarse, as he stared out into the wilderness and thought, wondering at the sound of silence and wondering when the ANBU would notice he was gone.

"Sasori?"

The fifteen-year-old whipped around, his heart, if it was even, beating even faster.

He had no idea how she had come up upon him without him hearing her. She'd always been quiet, but Sasori knew how to listen for even the most discreet of shinobi.

Karura stared at him in the darkness, momentarily rubbing her limbs to block out the cold that encroached upon them. Sasori felt his throat tighten. "Sasori," Karura's voice was strained and worried, horribly quiet, "where are you going?"

Sasori's eyes widened, and he just stared at her for a moment, unable to speak. The night a week ago in Sunagakure came to mind, but it didn't occur for him to be cold; he knew she couldn't have forgotten either. "I…I have to leave," he said, quietly, tensely. He twitched, hands fidgeting noticeably. "I have to get away."

"Why?" Her face contorted in pain, and Sasori looked away, incapable of watching. "Sasori," she pleaded more urgently, stepping forward, "you have to come back."

He shook his head, taking a step back in the sand. "No. I won't." He was quiet and even-toned, but Karura could hear the turmoil beneath the surface, and frowned.

Her hand gripped his shoulder; unwillingly, Sasori looked up at her. "They'll declare you a missing nin, you know that. They'll send ANBU after you; you'll be lucky if you last a week. Please, think of your grandmother if no one else." Her green eyes were weighted in sorrow. "And I don't want to lose you."

His throat constricted further. "Karura…" He didn't know how to make her understand without saying too much; he didn't want her to know, not then.

"Let me come with you."

Sasori's head snapped up. "What?' he asked, voice hoarse and disbelieving. He stared at her, torn between shock and hope.

A heavy bag hit the ground; Karura's dark green eyes hardened resolutely. "I saw you leaving. Please, Sasori; if you're going to go, then at least take me with you."

"What about your brother? And your students?!"

She actually smiled, and took off her hitai-ate, holding it in her hands. It was a strange smile, and it made Sasori feel uneasy. "If you're going, then so am I. Like I said, I don't want to lose you."

Uncertainly, Sasori smiled back.

.x.X.x.

The night was cold and windy. The stars shimmered behind a haze of sand, and Karura had forgotten to bring a cloak.

Sasori looked at her. She was shivering, though she tried hard to hide it. Karura rubbed on her arms, covered in dark brown linen as they were.

He frowned, tilting his head and feeling a slow, small wave of sympathy come to grips in his stomach. "Karura, maybe you should take this." He dug in his bag and pulled out a spare cloak, holding it out to her.

The older girl started, for a moment unsure of what to do. Then, Karura wordlessly took the cloak from him and put it on. Sasori thought that black drained her skin, but at least she wasn't cold anymore.

Karura smiled slightly. "Thank you."

Despite himself, his face colored slightly as he nodded.

They kept on walking.

.x.X.x.

A pop and crackle startled Karura out of her half-lethargy and into full wakefulness. The fire was going down, and she leaned forward to stoke it with the bit of wood Sasori had given her. She sat cross-legged, still wearing the borrowed cloak, though it was no longer buttoned past her waist, and Karura didn't bother buttoning it down as the fire kept her legs, bare from the knee, warm enough.

It was maybe an hour before dawn; Karura could sense the wind changing and the air becoming slightly warmer, only by about a degree, but for a desert dweller, it was noticeable. The sky was still a rich, midnight blue, verging on black. The sickle moon was slowly waxing, coming back to its cool roundness as the month wore on.

Sasori was still asleep. He was usually a light sleeper, but that night he was asleep like a rock. Karura looked at him. He was across from her, lying on his side using his bag as a pillow and sleeping in his shirt, cloak folded beside him; it would have to be shaken for scorpions in the morning.

Karura bowed her head, a soft sigh being lost to the wind shooting across the plains.

It had been two weeks ago, in Sunagakure. The night, cool and mild, rang clearly in her mind, made her heart pound.

Sasori had brought it up without warning; he had a habit of doing that. They had been alone, sitting at the base of a fire escape in an alley. The street light at the street beyond had cast a dim yellow light over them as they spoke. It was a soft, quiet talk about the day; they had both been on shore leave for the past few weeks, and were nearing the end of it and would soon have to go back out onto the front lines, for an unknown length of time.

For a moment, all had been silent. Sasori had been biting his lip all through the conversation, and had been growing increasingly agitated. Karura had been on the verge of asking him what was wrong when Sasori stood up and started, in earnest, telling her what was wrong.

"Karura…" He was in the midst of stuttering and twitching, looking at his hands, his feet, the walls, anywhere but her face; speaking of which, his face was getting redder all the time. "I…need to tell you something."

He bit his lip and looked away, sucking in his breath. Karura frowned; he wasn't normally like this; Sasori rarely showed when he was nervous.

"I…love you."

Karura had, barely three weeks ago, received a marriage proposal from a friend of hers out of the Sabaku clan, completely out of the blue, and she had laughed full on in his face because she hadn't known he was being serious. The friend in question and Sasori had never really gotten along. Karura finally knew why.

She hadn't reacted well to that. Her closest friend, someone she had known for eight years, was crossing over a boundary that quite frankly frightened her. Karura's relationships weren't always stable, and in her closest relationship with anyone alive, she had had to serve as a surrogate mother. Karura had never expected Sasori to come to her with that sort of revelation.

What was it I said? she thought bitterly, staring up at the moon.

Karura gaped at him, feeling the color drain out of her face. What? "You…" she stammered. "You've lost your mind."

Karura put her hands on her knees. Why did I say that? I just pushed him further away.

After her stammering and murmuring, Sasori immediately turned on his heels, muttering apologies and disappearing into the night. He couldn't meet her eyes when they later met, and she could barely stand to look at him.

I…care about him. But I think I may have hurt him more than anyone else alive.

Karura sunk her head onto her knees.

And that wasn't fair to him, or to me.

.x.X.x.

Morning came bright and blazing, bringing with it hot, grating winds full of irritating sand. The sun was pitiless and absolutely burning, the sky blue tinted bronze.

Karura pulled off the cloak and flung it over her shoulder near her fan. Sasori kept his cloak pulled about himself; somehow, the heat never affected him as much as it did others, even among the Suna nin. They walked in total silence, unwilling to expend their energy as they looked for a cave for shelter until the storm passed.

For Karura, it was hard to believe they were in a country at war. In the desert, there was not even the slightest sign of civilization, only an empty, barren wasteland. They may as well have been the last people on the face of the earth.

Karura pulled her wool scarf up over her mouth and nose to keep out the offending sand particles. It was only a small sandstorm but it was still violent and they would have to find shelter.

For the first time, Karura turned back, hoping to catch a final glimpse of Sunagakure, the old home she had always known, knowing that in all likelihood, she would never step beyond the gates again.

Her eyes surveyed the distance. Karura didn't see a city rising up out of the desert wastes, an oasis in the wilderness. All she saw was sand.

Karura pulled the scarf up over her head, let loose a shuddering sigh, and didn't dare look back again.

.x.X.x.

The cave they found had a water source deep down, which was good for refilling their canteens and filling up spares. Karura wondered how much food Sasori had brought with him; she had brought enough food pills and rations to last two weeks at the most.

Karura stared into the almost perfectly round mouth of the pool. The depths of the water beckoned her in, but she had never been much of a swimmer, wasn't fond of the water, and didn't want to contaminate a valuable source of water.

She wondered if Yashamaru and Baki were alright, if they were worrying about her. It occurred to her how worried Yashamaru must have been, and her chest hurt, a sharp ache and pang twisting muscles and sinew.

He's all alone now…

Her eyes stung bitterly.

"What's wrong?" She looked up, startled. Sasori knelt beside her, hand on her shoulder. Concern was veiled behind his heavy-lidded eyes, concern he tried hard to hide but couldn't quite.

"Oh, uh, nothing." Karura turned her head to wipe at her eyes. "I'm just worried about my brother and my student, is all."

Sasori raised an eyebrow. "Yashamaru is more than capable of looking after himself. And Baki? Even with his injuries, he's at chunin level already; you've seen to that. I don't see what you're worrying about." His tone softened. "They'll both be fine."

Karura shook her head miserably and stared at the ground. "I…I miss them." Her voice was barely audible.

Sasori stiffened. "You could always go back," he suggested tensely. Tension crackled in the air.

"No, no!" Karura protested, and Sasori relaxed. "I've been gone too long; if I go back to Suna now, I'll be killed. I've thrown in my lot; I might as well stay out here." She smiled slightly. "You'd miss me."

The faintest smile crossed his face—that was the way Sasori tended to smile, always—as he moved away. Karura closed her eyes.

Besides…Who would look after you?

.x.X.x.

"Sasori!" Karura ran to catch up to him, ignoring the pain from the old injury on her leg as she ran, kicking up sand in her wake.

Evening sent red shots of light across the sky; the sun was going down over the shifting dunes, insistent on having its final say in a brilliant dark red sunset. The air was finally starting to cool off.

He stopped in his tracks, turning and starting at her uncertainly. The deep light eradicated her ability to read Sasori's admittedly mask-like face; any good puppeteer could hide their emotions behind the surface of their skin.

"Listen, Sasori…" She fidgeted and went on. "About what you told me too weeks ago…" Sasori tensed, and looked away. "…I'm sorry. What you said…shocked me, to say the least, but it didn't justify the way I reacted. We're friends, aren't we? Can we go back to being that? I need time to think."

Light brown, nearly red eyes stared at her for a moment. He seemed shocked, like a cat that had been caught eating off of the kitchen counter. The moment passed.

He nodded slowly. "Alright."

Karura smiled in relief. "Great!" Her feet hit the sand. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"I'm not sure, really. I haven't thought of that yet."

Karura didn't care. She spent the rest of the night smiling, remembering happier days and childhood promises that had not been forgotten.

.x.X.x.

After three more days of traveling at an admittedly slow pace, they stopped and set up camp.

It was in the north of the country; the landscape was dotted with solid mesas and hollow ones where they could shelter during the day. The wind constantly whipped across the surface of the flat plain, send sand up into the air that made it very hard for a fire to be lit at night.

"We're running low on supplies." Sasori had found some brush nearby, supplemented it with small, broken bits of wood from his supply, and was currently trying to light a match. With limited success.

The match in his hand fizzled and spluttered before it ever hit the pile of brush and wood. Not so much as a spark.

"Damn it!" Sasori snarled, reaching for another match.

"Yeah, I know," Karura responded. She watched in sympathetic amusement as Sasori struggled to light a fire. She didn't' bother trying to offer help; Sasori wouldn't accept it. "There's a town a couple of miles away. We could always get more food from there."

Sasori's brow furrowed in concentration. "That could work." The next match went the way of the first. He growled in frustration, and dug out another one. Again, a slew of curses blackened the air.

Karura frowned. "Wait, no, that won't work. If Suna's noticed we're gone, which it almost certainly has, then even during war time there'll be hunter nin in every town."

"Then what do you suggest we do when out food runs out?" She couldn't tell whether he sounded so testy due to the subject at hand or because the matches refused to cooperate.

Out of the corner of her eye, Karura caught sight of a scorpion scuttling near the would-be campfire. She caught Sasori's eye and grinned, drew a kunai, and promptly impaled the hapless arachnid. "Simple."

Sasori's face went absolutely white; he gaped at her, suddenly appalled. "You know I don't eat scorpions." His voice was shaky and accusatory as he sickly watched the many little legs continue to twitch and swim helplessly in the air.

There was something about Sasori, notorious for being absolutely merciless and, to his enemies, emotionless, being so sickened by the sight of an impaled scorpion that Karura found immensely amusing. Her grin widened to the proportions of a Cheshire cat's. "But I do." She pinched off the sting between her thumb and her forefinger, and swiftly bit off the scorpion's head. It crunched between her teeth. "Nice and juicy."

Sasori continued to shoot alarmed looks t her for the rest of the evening.

.x.X.x.

She was continuing to have the dreams. She would dream of anyone and everyone she had ever known, ever cared about.

Her parents were the first and faintest of the specters; they had died first. They lasted for only a moment, a moment that seemed to last a lifetime, and before Karura could do anything to stop it, her father's green eyes and her mother's silvery hair faded away from her sight. She couldn't hold on to them, couldn't keep them safe, couldn't keep them from dying, and it made sense that she couldn't keep them from leaving either.

Kaoru-obasan had committed suicide some months beforehand; the pain from her old, crippling wound had finally proved too much (When Karura had first received the wound to her left leg that had for a time seemed as though it would cripple her, she was haunted by the knowledge of what her aunt had become, a bitter, broken woman who smirked instead of smiled). Kaoru flicked her red-blonde curls and half-smiled at her brother's daughter. She got up and glided away, as if the tendons in her leg had never been severed, as though she had never needed crutches to walk, and as if she could walk with perfect ease.

Sayaka smiled and waved, and Karura could only stare at her, stock-still and heartbroken, as Sayaka chattered lighthearted words that Karura couldn't hear, couldn't fathom, and eventually slowly receded into the mist. When Karura woke up, her face was wet and encrusted with sand that stuck to her tears.

Chiyo sat across from her, saying nothing. She brushed her graying hair (formerly as bright a shade of red as her grandson's) out of her eyes, and stared at her. Chiyo seemed neither happy nor sad; instead, she was empty-eyed and hollow. The old puppet mistress radiated loneliness and pained bitterness, and in the end it was Karura who had to look away, instead of the specter fading from her view.

Yashamaru and Baki acted as though nothing was odd, nothing was out of place. They all congregated in the cramped, sunlit kitchen of the apartment Karura and her brother shared, and again, she couldn't hear a word they said. In fact, they didn't seem to notice her at all. Yashamaru's medical textbook, thick, leather-bound tomes, littered the kitchen table and made it groan under their weight; he lifted Baki's veil and further examined the milky eye and ghastly scars on the left side of the boy's face, Baki sitting perfectly still.

Finally, she and Sasori sat at the base of a fire escape, alone. The only source of light was the sputtering yellow street lamp nearby…

Karura woke up, brushing tears and sand from her face as she pulled herself upright and out of sleep. The fire had burned down; shivering convulsively, Karura shook out the cloak Sasori had lent her and put it on, buttoning it down to the waist.

Across from her, Sasori twitched and mumbled inaudibly in his sleep; his lips formed unknowable words. Karura leaned over silently, and laid a hand on his shoulder. He didn't wake up, but he seemed to calm momentarily, his breathing evening out, before the twitching and mumbling and unrest started up again.

Karura rested her head on the sand, and wondered if Sasori was having the same dream.

.x.X.x.

While too groggy to react, Karura began to notice something odd.

Just as she was about to fall into sleep, a figure would appear by the fire, often out of nowhere.

Karura couldn't see a face in the darkness, but from the small, shaking hands, elegantly fingered and adorned with nail lacquer and a gleaming ring, she was sure it was a woman. Shrouded in night and a dark cloak, the woman would huddle close to the fire and try to get warm.

Unsure of what she was seeing, Karura drifted off to sleep without bothering to be alarmed. When she woke up, she would find a shallow dip in the sand where the woman had been, but no footprints leading to or away.

.x.X.x.

One night, Karura finally caught the woman red-handed.

Having decided that she was going to catch the woman there, she woke up and saw the newcomer sitting close to the fire, huddling on her knees with hands extended.

Karura sat bolt upright; the stranger started, putting a hand to her chest. Green eyes met ice blue ones. Karura's first reaction was neither one of hostility nor of alarm. "Get your own campfire," she half-humorously told the newcomer, who just stared right back, clearly shocked.

The woman was a pale young woman around Karura's age, with light blue eyes and silken hair barely a shade darker, pulled up with a large flower dangling from one side. She gracefully rearranged herself into a more dignified seating position, sitting with her legs folded beneath her and her hands on her laps. Her small hands were painted with orange lacquer; she wore pale blue-gray eye shadow; over her body was a swishing, fully enveloping coarse linen black cloak, embellished with fluttering crimson clouds. Quietly, she dipped her head to Karura, who, warily and feeling as though it was some sort of ritual, nodded back.

Karura's comment woke Sasori up. Groggily, he opened his eyes. "Karura…who are you…" he laid eyes on the young woman.

Sasori scrambled upright, drawing a scroll from his bag. "Who the hell are you?!" he snarled at the black-cloaked woman.

She spoke for the first time. Her voice was quiet and calm, but Karura could sense a strange torrent hidden beneath lifelessness, and frowned, deciding to pay close attention to what the woman said and did. "Akasuna no Sasori, Sabure Karura?" She barely seemed to notice or care that one of the nin she was among, a puppet master, had drawn a summoning scroll and was clearly more than willing to attack her.

Sasori and Karura shot uncertain looks at each other, before Karura answered. "That would be us."

Beneath the fiery green, blue and gold bands of the aurora borealis, the three spoke. The woman went on, deep shadows carving lines too cavernous to belong to such a young woman across her face as her eyes flickered with the red light of the fire. "I have been asked by an associate to contact you, and request that you consider joining our organization."

Sasori opened his mouth to retort (and most likely he would have done so in strong language), but Karura cut him off. "What sort of organization?" she asked politely, getting the feeling that the woman was not someone she wanted to take lightly.

The woman bowed her head. "That information is available only to members. We can not afford to be loose with our information."

Sasori let out a small, contemptuous noise. "You're a mercenary group." He shot a sharp look at Karura. "We can get on perfectly well without them."

Karura held up a hand. "What's a shinobi but a paid mercenary?" She focused her intense green gaze back on the other woman as Sasori twirled a kunai in his hand, catching it tightly at moments and then twirling it again, never taking his almost-red glare off of the woman.

"Where is the organization based?" she asked in a business-like tone. The wind cut across them.

"We have many locations, but the main base of operations is at Amegakure."

Karura looked back at Sasori; both wore identical thunderstruck expressions. "Amegakure," Karura repeated slowly. "The most isolationist village, including Kiri, on the continent. The village that has released an order saying that any foreign nin or civilians who enter the country without the express permission of Amegakure's leaders are taking their own chances." Karura raised an eyebrow. "How do you expect us to get there? Can you guarantee our safety in Amegakure?"

The woman smiled icily. "You needn't worry."

Karura frowned and nodded intently. She caught Sasori's eye. "Sasori? A word."

They moved away from the fire, Karura pulling the wool of her borrowed cloak more closely about her person. Sasori was grim and suspicious, distrustful of the woman who had showed up at the fire.

"I don't trust her," Sasori proclaimed stubbornly, his voice hushed as he folded his arms across his chest. He shot a dark glare at the blue-haired woman, who was adjusting the fragrant flower in her hair while she waited for them to finish.

"I don't trust her either, but if she and her "associate" can afford us some degree of security, then I think we should go with her." They spoke in Kaze tongue, the old language of Kaze no Kuni known exclusively to Suna shinobi; every major nation had a variant of a private tongue.

Sasori glowered at her, the small freckles across the bridge of his nose growing slightly darker. "How do we know this isn't just some sort of hunter nin trap? We could be walking into a snake pit!"

Karura brushed her long bangs out of her eyes as she thought, chasing the outline of a brilliant electric blue band in the aurora borealis. The original inhabitants of the area in which Ame no Kuni was located had been transplanted Kaze villagers and shinobi; that, coupled with the fact that Ame no Kuni and Kaze no Kuni were neighboring countries tended to make the accents of the two peoples very similar. Knowing Amegakure's reputation, Sunagakure had been alone out of the great nations in not sending armed incursions into Ame during the last wars.

Amegakure's secretive nature and border policies made it a veritable black hole of information, not to mention a very dangerous place for foreigners to be. It would be difficult and foolhardy for even as skilled a shinobi as a hunter nin to penetrate the small country.

"A hunter nin infiltrating Ame is likely to pay for it with their life," Karura pointed out. "We can't survive out here forever. We need to ally ourselves with someone."

Sasori's eyes narrowed. "And that "someone" would be her?" He nodded to the young woman, who had found a position for her flower that suited her and now stared into the fire with an expression on her face that made Karura's skin prickle.

She shrugged almost diffidently. "We don't have a whole lot of alternative options; if you have a contingency plan to running out of supplies here, I'd love to hear it. Even if we get to be in a difficult situation—" she smiled playfully; Sasori's face reddened a little bit "—I think we can handle ourselves."

Sasori hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

They walked back to the woman and gave their decision. She immediately sprang up from the sand. Her name was Konan, and she was a member of an organization called the Akatsuki.

.x.X.x.

Karura decided she didn't like the weather in Amegakure.

It rained every other day; on their journey through the Ame countryside, she and her traveling companions had been soaked to the skin no less than three times. The roads were invariably muddy, leading to the advent of cobblestone streets in Amegakure. Karura had been to Hi no Kuni once, where it was also quite rainy. In Konoha, there had been an almost oppressive humidity that was more than capable of making foreigners feel like they were going to suffocate at any moment; in Ame, perhaps because of the higher elevation, it only got cool and misty. It was never really warm in Ame; even at the height of summer, the temperature never rose about seventy-five degrees. It was too cold and too wet for Karura's liking.

She surveyed the city in the brief interlude between two clashing storms. It made sense that the capital of the most insular nation on the continent would be highly industrialized. Amegakure was a sea of tall buildings and factories, the smoke stacks letting out sooty black smoke. The streets were as narrow as Sunagakure alleyways and crowded with shops, stands and bright waterproof awnings. Amegakure was alone on the continent, in that it was totally self-sufficient.

Karura pulled the high collar of the cloak she had been given higher up her face. It billowed and swished around her like a living thing.

The cloak bothered her. It wasn't the feel of the linen that disturbed her; Karura was more than used to wearing coarse linen against her skin and in fact preferred it over other materials. The deep black cloak, embellished with vivid red clouds, smelled of incense and secrets. It inhibited her movements, which for a fan-user was a liability. It was a shroud that only let in darkness.

Thunder rolled, the rain started again renewed, and not for the first time, Karura wished she was home.

.x.X.x.

Soon, Karura discovered that she, Sasori, Konan and the shadowy Akatsuki leader were not alone in the dark, cool, silent tower.

"Oh, hello! Hello over there!" Karura frowned at the unfamiliar voice and turned around. Standing in a doorway, framed by a yellow light (Karura had often wondered what all the doors were for but didn't attempt to open them for fear of what she might find), a man was waving furiously at her. He was a slim-built man with a voice reminiscent of a teenager over-eager to please. He wore an orange mask with only one eye hole.

Bemused, Karura walked over to him. She could guess he was grinning ebulliently behind the mask. "Hello, I'm Tobi! Are you one of the new members?"

"Umm…yes, my name is Karura. I was looking for Konan…"

"Oh! Konan-senpai is down the hall, Karura-senpai."

Karura started to walk off. "Okay, thanks."

"I'll see you later, Karura-senpai."

Dark blonde eyebrows went into dark blonde bangs as she walked. Now what is that kid doing here?

.x.X.x.

It was nearing midnight, and while trying to find sleepiness (wherever it had fled to) Karura noticed a door left slightly ajar.

It was chilly in the corridor, the sounds of the city below (sirens and shops and crowds beginning to thin) audible only at a ghostly level. None of the lights were left on (Karura couldn't find a light switch anywhere), but the moon shone out from behind shifting clouds sending pale, milky light into nooks and crevices, illuminating the shadows.

Two voices, deep voices she didn't recognize that belonged to men, drifted from the utter blackness of the doorway, eerie in their echoing qualities. Curious, Karura huddled in the doorway, listening intently to the voices.

"Three have been developments that disturb me." The first speaker had a deep voice, but some quality of it bespoke ill health. The voice was slightly creaky, hoarse from disuse, and soft in a manner that indicated that the speaker didn't want to raise his voice.

"I have ways of making those developments irrelevant." The second speaker, on the other hand, seemed to be in good health, but there was something about him that made Karura uneasy. The voice was full of an old power, dark and foreboding.

At that moment, moonlight glittered in the room. The first speaker was left enshrouded in shadow (Karura could hear the dull buzz of some sort of machine in the background), but the second stood in the path of the light. He was familiar.

Tobi? Karura was thunderstruck.

"And how do you propose we go about that, Madara?"

Karura's blood ran cold. Tobi is Uchiha Madara? She had heard that name many times before; apparently the harmless kid was neither harmless nor a kid. Uchiha Madara was a notorious nin from Konoha, one of that village's founders. But he was supposed to have been killed in battle with the Shodai Hokage nearly sixty years ago. How can he still be alive?

A hand lit on her shoulder. Before Karura could yelp, another hand closed over her mouth.

Konan didn't seem herself. Her lips were white, her usually half-closed eyes, heavy-lidded like Sasori's, were wide open, fear making them panic and dart. She was breathing hard, her face pale and strained as her hot breath hit Karura's face. The former Sand kunoichi could practically smell the other woman's fear.

Konan momentarily peered over Karura's shoulder; she was taller enough than her that she could do it easily. "You should not be here," she whispered, before sweeping the smaller woman down the hall.

"What did you hear?" Konan still spoke in a whisper, her accent made strangely thicker by the action.

Karura told her, her already soft voice lowered further. "That hanger-on, Tobi…He is Uchiha Madara?" she asked, bewildered.

The blue-haired Akatsuki member nodded. "Yes." She shook her head agitatedly. "You should not have been there."

Her ice blue eyes, glassy with a strange, darting fear, bore into Karura's tanned face. "You must not tell anyone of what you have heard or seen. Do you understand?"

"Does Sasori—"

"No, and you must not tell him."

"Why?" Karura asked, frowning. "I tell him everything."

Konan let out a small, frustrated noise, a whistle through her teeth. "It does not matter why! If you care about him at all, you will not tell him what you have seen! Do you understand?"

"Yes, of course." Karura looked sideways at her friend. "Calm down; you're going to get everyone's attention."

Konan nodded, remembering herself as her face rearranged itself into its normal stoicism; Karura felt sorry for her. "You know where your room is, don't you?" she asked quietly.

"Yes."

"Then go back there and stay there."

As Karura began to walk down the hall, the noise of her footfall unnaturally loud, she asked, "Konan? Who was the other man?"

Konan stiffened, and didn't answer. She didn't look back, as she walked the other way.

.x.X.x.

Sasori was getting moody again. He had always been a bit short-tempered even at the best of times, but now was different and yet strangely familiar.

Karura was used to Sasori's moods and mood swings. She was used to him not looking her in the eye, walking off whenever she approached, and all around just acting strangely. Before, it had been bearable, because she didn't know why he was acting like that. But now, it was bearable no longer, because she did know why.

Standing out under a rock outcropping, the rain was beginning to slack off, and Karura stood so she wasn't standing in the area where the rain wouldn't hit her and soak her clothes; Karura still hated getting wet, and was sure she always would.

A small sound came behind her. Konan wrung rainwater out of her cloak, her skin noticeably moist.

"Get caught in the rain?" Karura asked.

Konan nodded a little sheepishly. "Yes."

Karura rolled her eyes, smiling at her. "You're crazy; I hate getting wet."

The other woman stood beside her; water beads glistened on each strand of her sapphire hair and her skin likewise glittered with rain.

They stood silent for a moment; Konan wasn't much of a talker, and was a taciturn woman who in honesty preferred silence. Karura liked to talk, and wondered if it would change.

Konan stood, staring out at the city with her arms folded across her chest. Her soft voice barely bothered to rise above the rain. "Are you adjusting well?"

Karura tilted her head from side to side, her hair shifting positions. "Well enough." She smiled ruefully. "I don't like the weather."

A small smile flickered at Konan's mouth. "I didn't think you would. There are few who can take our rainy weather."

Karura fidgeted with the skirt of her cloak as a flock of white birds fluttered past them, not noticing the two women who stood watching them.

"You and Sasori are close, are you not?" The question was sudden, and Karura felt pale blue eyes staring at her shrewdly, though not unkindly.

Karura looked at her, her neck craning sharply. She felt herself tensing, despite herself; it was a miserable subject. "Yes, we are. I've known him for a little over eight years now; we were on the same genin team together. Why do you ask?"

Konan narrowed her eyes slightly, her face shielding anything that might have been hesitation in her course of action. "He's…in love with you. You know that, don't you?" Her calm voice with the accent that was so like a Kaze nin, was especially soft, as though to say it at normal volumes would be some sort of sacrilege.

Karura stiffened, feeling her throat burn. She bit her lip, and bowed her head. "Yeah," she muttered. Her hands clenched and twisted the skirt of her cloak; the threads stretched and groaned. "I do."

A pregnant pause followed. The women didn't look at each other, and Karura continued to stare at the ground, tracing the path of water rivulets with her eyes and trying to think of anything but her teammate.

"What…happened?" Konan's whisper almost indicated that she was afraid to find out, and for the first time in a while Karura was reminded that she and Konan were the same age, and that Konan was not as stoic and in control as she seemed.

"I'd rather not say," the former Sand nin answered honestly. "It's made things pretty awkward between us, and that's putting it mildly."

"Do you love him?" Konan was twitching noticeably now and it was plain to Karura that she wanted to be talking about anything else.

Karura stared up at the sky. The rain was starting to clear out and sunlight was pouring in shining, brilliant white shafts through holes in the clouds. "I've been…thinking about that, for a while now. It's…hard to think about, but…Yes, I think I do."

.x.X.x.

For once in her life, Karura managed to get Sasori out of the tower. It had just stopped raining, and when Karura asked Konan if they could leave and go out into the city for a few hours, she was more than obliging.

"Of course. As long as you leave your cloaks here, don't let on that you're from Suna and don't say you're part of the Akatsuki, it's more than reasonable. You two should mix into the crowd with ease. Just remember to take an umbrella with you."

Karura feigned a shocked and scandalized expression when she caught Konan shooting her a conspiratorial look as they left.

Amegakure was similar to the other minor nations like Kusa and Taki in one respect; it was a melting pot of faces and ethnicities. There was a sea of faces of differing tribes; anything ranging from the fairer tribes of Tsuchi no Kuni (hair colorations there tended to show in shades of either red or more commonly some shade of blond) to the more swarthy-skinned natives of Hi no Kuni to the two starkly different tribes of Kaminari no Kuni (There, the people tended to be either very pale with fair hair and eyes, or have very dark skin with hair colors ranging wildly from dark to red to pure white). Green eyes, blue eyes, brown eyes, gray eyes stared at someone wherever they went. The only way to tell a stranger was by how they spoke; Karura was counting on Ame and Kaze accents being so similar to keep her and Sasori from being noticeable.

"This place would be a claustrophobe's worst nightmare," Sasori muttered as they moved at an almost sluggish pace through the throng.

Taking into account all the stands and vendors' stations set up, the cobblestone streets of Ame were only about four feet across at the widest (there was little, if any, distinction between streets and alleyways), and while they weren't exactly packed back to back with people, traveling through the streets could only be done slowly. Up the street, people shrieked and dove out of the way as a cattle-driven cart bearing vegetables from the countryside up the high street.

Above, there were blinking, spluttering neon signs in vivid shades of orange and purple and red, advertising their store's wares. There were waterproof awnings fluttering in the slight breeze and iron-wrought balconies connected to cramped, dark brick apartment buildings; clotheslines were briefly extended between storms. There was even the occasional bridge or walkway connecting buildings on the opposite sides of a street. It was a wonder any rainwater hit the ground at al. Karura had even seen a true rarity: a foreign church from the far west, with stained glass windows depicting images she didn't recognize and some strange chanting in a language she didn't speak coming from inside.

Sasori stared gloomily up at the sky, which was a dark shade of blue gray and growing darker all the time. "It's awfully overcast," he pointed out.

Karura rolled her eyes. "And that is why I have a parasol umbrella sealed inside of a scroll. Come on, I think I see something interesting over on the left." Karura tried to ignore the butterflies fluttering in her stomach as she dragged him on by the wrist by the street.

It was a brightly lit shop with light-colored hardwood floorings and wide open spaces. There was a box at the door that requested that all patrons leave their shoes there.

The shop carried many glass figurines and other valuables. Several dozen large and miniature Maneki Neko winked back at them in shades of white, black and tri-color and one particularly large one on the clerk's desk beckoned them in.

"I just want to look around," Karura reassured Sasori, seeing his slightly wary glance at the price tags. "You know I've never had much use for these things."

After a quick sweep of the little shop, neither one of them very interested in the gewgaws inside, Karura and Sasori retrieved their shoes and stepped back out into the street. The sky was now very ominous indeed.

"Where to now?" Sasori asked, almost too politely. Karura felt some panic ignite in her stomach; he was getting standoffish again, receding into himself. He was trying to withdraw.

"Konan told me about a florist's shop that should be nearby. I wanted to stop in there," Karura said hurriedly, gesturing for Sasori to follow her.

The street branched off, two branches at narrow angles. On the far side of the right, Karura saw a sign with stylized kanji reading "Tsuta's Floristry," just as the clap of thunder made the glassware at a stand of trinkets tremble.

"There it is." She tugged on his sleeve. "Let's go inside before the rain gets us."

"Welcome to Tsuta's Floristry," the desk clerk, a pretty woman with dark hair, greeted them. "Feel free to look around."

The flower shop was a small shop with the walls covered from ceiling to floor in both fake and real flowers kept fresh by use of some sort of organic preservative; there was also a large row standing parallel to the desk and the far left wall.

"Nice place," Sasori remarked softly, staring at the multitude of flowers, which ranged in color from pure white to indigo. "They must have been all grown in greenhouses; I don't remember seeing any of these on the way here."

Karura shot a slightly confused look at her friend. "I don't remember you being quite so interested in vegetation."

"Chiyo-baachan taught me how to mix poisons using cactus flowers as an ingredient; knowing components of plants becomes useful at times."

"Ahh."

For a few minutes, they were totally silent. They were the only customers in the shop, which Karura was admittedly grateful for; she was about to do something she didn't particularly want an audience for; the standing row stood between them and the clerk's desk.

"Sasori?" Karura kept her voice deceptively mild. "I have my answer, you know."

Sasori didn't look up; he was far too absorbed with the description of a large, venomous-looking orchid. "What?" he asked, either feigning or genuinely expressing obliviousness.

It was at that moment that Karura made her move. In a quick movement, she jerked his neck down (it wasn't hard; there was barely an inch difference in their heights) and kissed him full on the mouth. Karura rather enjoyed it; Sasori was just busy wondering if he had suddenly stepped into an alternate dimension.

After pulling away, Sasori gaped at her in such a flabbergasted way that Karura's grin was punctuated with a laugh. "That was my answer. And don't look at me like that, Sasori! You're the one who started this train wreck, not me."

"You'll forgive me if I am unapologetic," Sasori muttered shakily, though he was starting to smile himself.

Laughter bubbled up from Karura's throat; suddenly, she just felt like laughing about something, anything. She felt buoyant. "Forgiven."

Her grin widened as she heard Sasori mutter, "Father was right. Women are crazy."

.x.X.x.

Coming face to face with Madara again took the bounce right out of Karura's step and wiped the smile from her face.

He was pretending to be Tobi, but Karura could not forget the ominous chakra he exuded as Madara, even though Tobi was nothing but innocuous harmlessness. She could barely push down her dread when "Tobi" waved at her and Sasori as they were coming back.

She wasn't hiding it well enough. "What's wrong?" Sasori's voice sounded quietly in her ear. He looked at her with eyes that didn't quite veil his concern.

Karura shook her head, keeping her voice down, her arms folded across her chest. "Nothing," she lied. His grip on her shoulder tightened. Sasori followed her gave.

"Tobi? He's completely harmless."

Yes, Karura thought bitterly. About as harmless as a cup full of cyanide.

It occurred to her then that she was going to have to be more careful. If Sasori noticed, others would as well.

Amegakure was not a safe place.

.x.X.x.

Sasori had been sent out to take care of some "infiltrators" that were making incursions on Ame territory. After being gone for three days, Karura, worried, asked Konan (the Leader was never in plain view; she couldn't apply to him) to go out and meet him. Konan, surprisingly agreed, and asked Karura to meet someone who had agreed to join the organization on the way to Sasori's presumed location.

"How will I know him when I see him?"

"I've asked him to wait for a person with a black cloak with red clouds on it. He's from Kusa, and he'll know you. You'll recognize him immediately."

"Anything else?"

"Yes. His name's Zetsu, and he's rather…strange."

It was all Karura could do not to yelp when Zetsu appeared from behind a boulder. She could barely keep her shock off her face.

He was…He was…Karura wasn't entirely sure he was even human, though she didn't dare voice that thought. He was a humanoid man with one black side and one white side, literally, encased in a huge Venus fly trap. His teeth were sharp and serrated.

"Are you from the Akatsuki?" It took Karura a moment to realize that only one side of him was speaking, the white side.

Karura nodded wordlessly.

"Good." Now, the black side was speaking. Zetsu looked at her with an utterly penetrating gaze that made Karura feel very small and insignificant. "There are two enemy nin up ahead, beyond the crest of that hill. They're camping out; I thought I would wait for you."

Karura nodded, and drew her fan out from beneath her cloak. Thunder rumbled overhead in the pewter gray sky, and the clouds shifted and the wind picked up, but it did not rain.

The nin were dispatched quickly. Karura, like all decent Wind users, had good chakra control, and was able to fashion the wind in the shape of a sharp edge and sever their throats before Zetsu even had to do anything.

Karura turned around momentarily to re-attach her fan to the sash around her waist. When she turned around, she gasped in horror.

In the evening gloom, amongst the single tree and all the large upright rocks and dips in the land, Zetsu was bowed over the corpses, his lips stained with their blood, his chin dribbling bodily fluids, his teeth as crimson red as unadulterated sin. Karura watched, stock-still, as he cannibalized the corpses.

"What are you doing?!" she shrieked, sickened and aghast. She put a hand on the rough surface of a nearby boulder to steady herself.

He looked up at her. "Disposing of them."

Karura hid behind the boulder and tried to block out the sounds of eating and devouring and outright abomination coming from ten feet away.

Eventually, as darkness was beginning to obscure her surroundings, she looked up and found Zetsu was standing over her. In his hand, he held a burlap bag dripping some dark, thick liquid.

"The heads," he explained. "I put something up their necks to keep them from rotting. They're missing nin; they have a high bounty on their heads."

Karura slept in the single tree in the vicinity that night, with one eye open and a kunai resting in her lap.

.x.X.x.

Sasori glared at the four enemy nin as they smirked at him. They saw a diminutive, undersized seventeen-year-old boy, unarmed and unthreatening. Sasori saw dead meat.

Lightning flared parallel to the ground in the clouds overhead; the brilliant streaks illuminated the mostly treeless moors.

The normal insults were passed, a ritual Sasori, impatient man that he was, had never had much love for. He just wanted to kill them and be done with it. They used unusual techniques; they would make excellent editions to his collection of human puppets.

Soon, but not soon enough, the insults were done with. And the screaming began.

.x.X.x.

Karura and Zetsu found him the next morning. Sasori was sitting with his back up against a boulder; in his hand he held something long, pale and covered in crimson stains. His hands were red; his sleeve hems were soaked and crusty with dried, congealed blood. He stood up when he saw them, and threw away the object, which Karura realized was a human femur.

"Are you alright?" he asked immediately, taking in her slightly pale face.

"What did you do with the bodies?" the black side of Zetsu asked too eagerly; Karura shuddered.

Sasori smirked. "I'm keeping them."

"Why?" Karura asked curiously, though inwardly she was relieved that Zetsu wouldn't have the opportunity to devour them.

The red-headed boy smiled coldly, his eyes icing over. A cold wind blew behind and around him, but not on him. "Puppets."

.x.X.x.

Two and a half years later, Karura couldn't keep from staring when her wide green eyes met slanted gold ones.

Sasori's smirk widened to an absolutely venomous smile, and beside Karura, Konan frowned slightly, but Karura could only stare as Orochimaru of Konohagakure walked up the hill towards them.

They had changed location, from the tower in the middle of Amegakure to an underground building carved into a hill in the moorlands of the Ame no Kuni countryside. The rain was coming a few hundred yards behind Orochimaru as he slithered up the hill with the sinuous grace of a hundred-year-old cobra.

He looked the same as Karura remembered him from over eight years ago. In fact, he didn't seem to have aged at all. Orochimaru remained painted in shades of chalk white and coal black, purple and gold. A king's colors adorning an imposter. His sharp incisors seemed to lengthen as he smiled.

Sasori's smile was unfamiliar. Karura couldn't remember him ever smiling like that. He looked like a predator, waiting to strike.

Orochimaru surveyed them all with a politeness that was oiled, practiced, artificially convincing, and nodded.

Konan stepped forward. "You may remember me." Her tone was brusque and cool; Karura shot her head sharply at her. Konan was radiating intense dislike, and not even bothering to hide it. She disliked this man, and for some reason, she wanted everyone to know it. It was strange; Konan was usually as contained as a docile potted plant, not one to let things slip.

Orochimaru smiled in a way that was all at once vicious, patronizing and utterly false. "I am familiar with all of you," he spoke in the dry, rattling, sibilant voice that was so reminiscent of empty tombs and ancient places. It was an eerie feeling to be anywhere near him.

Konan's head jerked roughly up and down in the semblance of a nod; she remained ruffled. "You and Sasori will work together during your time in the Akatsuki. Please go down the hall to the left, to the third room. That is the room the two of you shall share. You will receive further instructions later."

Sasori and Orochimaru locked eyes, and Karura sensed an exchange occurring between them. Sasori's smile widened poisonously, his eyes flickering with something Karura wasn't sure she wanted to recognize. They went inside together.

When they were out of sight, Konan let out a breath of air as though she had been holding it the whole time. "I don't like it," she muttered, as though Karura wasn't even there. "I don't."

Her blue eyes cleared, and she looked at Karura, pretending that what she had just said, she hadn't. "Was there something, Karura?"

She shook her head, unable to keep a smile off of her face. "No. I've just got to find Sasori. There's something…something I need to tell him."

.x.X.x.

"I am with child. Maybe two or three months along."

"That's…that's wonderful."

Sasori didn't have to chase a shadow or an obsession, so he pulled what he did have very close to him and held her tight.

.x.X.x.

Karura felt Konan's eyes prickling on the back of her neck. The pale woman looked for some reason very, very sad.

.x.X.x.

Konan's soft, sad voice seemed to echo in the windowless room, the muted but eternal sorrow somehow resounding. "You can not keep the child with you once it is born."

Sasori spoke first. His reaction was immediate and wrathful in the extreme. "What?" he snarled, springing to his feet. Though shorter than Konan, he seemed to tower over her in that moment.

Sitting in the wicker chair, all Karura could do was gape. She didn't shout. "What do you mean, Konan?" Why was her voice shaking, why? She didn't understand; she was usually so much stronger in her stances than this. But now, all she could do was shake and stare and behave like a schoolgirl told she had failed a class.

The woman surveyed them in a way that was stern, sad and sympathetic; how she achieved such juxtapositions Karura couldn't be sure. "The Akatsuki is no place to raise a child. You will both be gone for months at a time, maybe even years; any child you raise will be a distraction and a liability to you.

"Besides, do you really want a child of yours growing up around the likes of Zetsu and Orochimaru—"

Sasori left, slamming the door behind him.

Konan fixed her eyes on Karura piercingly. "—and Uchiha Madara?"

.x.X.x.

"Can you believe her; if she actually thinks—"

"Sasori, Konan may have a point."

"What?"

"Please just listen to me, Sasori…"

.x.X.x.

When the snow was falling all over the land in droves and in blankets on the countryside, muffling everything, Karura was convinced hell had come for her.

"It's alright, you see, it's alright." The only reason Konan was there at all was because Karura had insisted; Sasori wouldn't have let her anywhere near otherwise.

It was a small house away from the Akatsuki base. It had been abandoned some time in the past, and for some reason the site of it made Konan very numb and even less talkative than usual.

Beside her, Sasori gripped her hand tightly, not saying a thing, his eyes huge in his face and filled with horror, fear and a desperate sort of anticipation. Then a floodgate broke and he spoke, twisting whispers that bespoke his unraveled state. "Come on…Don't leave…I love you, please don't leave…"

Karura didn't have the heart to tell him to shut up.

It was a horrible pain, childbirth; nothing Karura had been told could have made her fully aware of what she was going to experience. A blinding blackness twisted around her chest and her throat, choking her intensely as she coughed and gasped for air, but mostly shrieked and wailed.

Finally, she knew it was over when another higher-pitched round of wailing reached her ears.

Konan was wiping the child off, cleaning it of amniotic fluids and blood. She crooned softly in the child's ear. "Don't cry," she trilled. "You're mother's exhausted enough, don't cry, don't cry…"

At that point, feeling Karura and Sasori's eyes on her, Konan remembered herself and handed the child over to his parents.

It was a boy, a small baby boy with porcelain pale skin, a thin fuzz of deep red hair and blue eyes that were fading to pale sea foam green. In his mother's arms, he stared up at his parents before yawning and falling asleep.

Karura's heart pounded, as she smiled shakily and tears dripped out her eyes of their own accord. Nothing made sense anymore, nothing was right anymore, and she wouldn't even be able to keep her own child close to her.

Sasori slid an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head, and Karura wondered if he was thinking the same thing.

Konan stood to leave the room. In the doorway, she turned around, her face still sad and dull. "Remember what I said." She left; the door barely made any noise as she shut it.

Wind battered against the windows; little snowflakes fluttered from underneath the boards, melting as soon as they hit the ground. The fire was the only source of heat in the house.

They were silent, staring down at the face of their son. Karura spoke first, dully. "Your grandmother's, then?"

"As soon as the storm clears up."

It didn't occur to either of them to fight it.

"Do you still wish not to name him, Karura?"

"No. Chiyo-sama will name him something different, anyway."

Karura held her baby son close to her chest, and tried to shore up the moments. They would never come again.

.x.X.x.

In the desert, the wind knocked against physical and mental doors. Chiyo's bones ached, the cold affecting them far more than they had before.

Cold, long winter nights like this reminded her of five years ago, when her grandson and one of her other students had vanished into the sand.

There was no way either one of them could still be alive. Chiyo knew that much, and it was a dull ache in her heart that continued to pain her and would until her dying day. She remembered the two children's faces, and was reminded of her failure to protect.

They had been swallowed into the desert night, and Chiyo only wished she could do the same.

She was sitting awake in her cool hermitage in the desert. Her brother Ebizo, such a deep sleeper, slept straight through her getting out of the bed next to his and moving into the living room.

Out of the corner of her ear, Chiyo heard the small sound that could only be a lightweight human footfall, coming from outside. She frowned.

"Now who could be awake at this hour?" she muttered, grabbing an old wakizashi and getting ready to fight as she moved to the outside.

There was nothing. The full winter moon shone on the desert. There were no footprints anywhere, and only the thinnest film of sand hovered above the dunes.

Then Chiyo looked down. A small bundle sat at her feet. Picking it up, she saw a baby with dark red hair.

.x.X.x.

Out in the wilderness of Tsuchi no Kuni, Karura was alone.

She was gathering reconnaissance on the jinchūriki of Tsuchi no Kuni, having finally learned what the ultimate goal of the Akatsuki was. It didn't bother her, really; it was just a job, and nothing more. To inject emotions into it would be pointless and destructive.

It may have been her imagination, but Karura got the impression that Konan was trying to keep her away from Kaze no Kuni. She was always sent north—always to the cold places, why the cold places?—to find information, away from the land of her birth.

It was lonely out there. Tsuchi no Kuni only had one real city, Iwagakure, and all one would find on the road was the occasional tiny village and the roadside inn. Karura was in one of those inns at the moment, staring out the window at the wilderness as the candlelight of the lamp flickered and began to go down.

The wilderness was a flat rocky plain, stretching on forever until high, jagged mountain peaks interfered, only occasionally punctuated by gnarled trees; forests were found in small pockets only, packed densely together. Wolf packs ran across long plains casting long shadows as they chased long-legged deer. Karura felt as though she was teetering on the edge of the earth.

She set pen down to parchment, and wrote her letter.

February 5, 68 AFV

Dear Sasori,

Karura paused, nibbling the nub of the quill, before going on.

Has it really been two years already? It feels more like an eternity.

How are you doing? I hope you and Orochimaru have been sent to a warmer place than me; there's still snow on the ground here, and it's miserable. I will never like snow.

Enclosed is a letter for Konan, detailing the information I've learned on the jinchuuriki of Tsuchi no Kuni; there's not much so far, but I'm still working on it. Iwagakure isn't an easy place to infiltrate; I've tried to stay out of the city since security's so tight.

I'll keep this short; I know how you are and sitting still. Are you still using that puppet shell? It must be hell on your back.

I hope I'll see you soon, Sasori. I miss you.

Love,

Karura

Karura missed many people terribly.

She missed her brother, her sister, dead for eight years, she missed Chiyo, who had been mentor and friend. She missed Konan, whom she could forgive even if Sasori couldn't. But most of all, she missed her now two-year-old son, and she missed Sasori.

Leaning over, Karura blew out the candle, and the only light was the blood of sunset as she curled up in the moth-eaten bed and went to sleep.

.x.X.x.

Two years later, they had cause to see each other again.

It was a different hotel, a bigger one with a dining hall on the ground floor, about two dozen miles east of the first across the rock-strewn plains where nothing grew but brush and the rare gnarled tree.

Stepping up to the man standing at the entrance of the dining hall, Karura tipped up her hat, smiled at him, and handed him a card.

The man had fair hair and light-colored eyes like the majority of Tsuchi no Kuni inhabitants, and also like most Tsuchi villagers, he was very tall. He smiled back, nodding his head politely as he took the card.

"Welcome to the inn, Masami-san," he greeted her in the thick, lilting accent of Tsuchi no Kuni. "I assume you're meeting the two men over there?" He pointed to two men sitting near the back, one much taller than the other, wearing cloaks and hats.

Karura smiled and nodded. "Yes, I am. Thank you." She slipped into the hall.

Sasori and Orochimaru were sitting at a table near the back, bowls of soup sitting in front of them. Orochimaru's long fingers were linked in front of him, almost bonelessly.

Sasori tipped up his hat. He was exactly the same as Karura remembered, yet different somehow. His skin seemed stretched across his face more coldly; his eyes were considerably more opaque. The smile, however, was all the same.

Orochimaru had not changed either.

"Sorry I'm late," Karura murmured, smoothing the skirt of her cloak as she sat down. The strains of a violinist and a pianist reached her ears. "I ran into some trouble on the way and I had to work fairly hard not to kill them."

Snake eyes narrowed, the vertical slits that Orochimaru called pupils gleaming in the dim light of the swinging lanterns overhead. "Why didn't you just kill them, Karura?" The dusty rattle of a voice cast a pall over the room. "You're more than capable of it."

Karura tensed, drawing her left hand under her cloak to the kunai pouch where gleaming live steel at her thigh. "This thing—" she closed her right hand into a fist and rapped it on her fan "—draws far too much attention to itself out here. I'd rather not have every nin within a fifty-mile radius know I'm here."

Orochimaru smiled in a way that was meant to convey a rueful oversight, but instead only seemed a dark emptiness. "I did not foresee that; forgive me."

Orochimaru had changed in two respects. He was even more ominous than he had been before, and was twice as hair-raising.

.x.X.x.

When all lights but the lanterns hanging from ceilings of the upper hall, and she knew Orochimaru wouldn't be in the room with him, Karura took the opportunity to speak with Sasori.

It was late at night; from the window, Karura could see the magnificent sky, a patchwork tapestry of deep indigo blue and royal purple, dotted with pinpricks of diamond and gold, ruby and pale, vivid sapphire. The sickle moon glittered hazily, a wisp of white like a single curl of hair off of an old woman's head.

Then, Sasori slammed the shutters over them and latched them, and she couldn't see it anymore.

"It's been quite a while, hasn't it?" Sasori seemed to be fighting to inject the appropriate amount of emotion into his voice; his eyes showed what he felt, but his voice and his eyes didn't match.

"A little over four years," Karura clarified, staring around the room. The smooth, oak brown of the walls, the shutters, the floorboards and the nightstands and bed frames had been left unpainted; the planks of the ceiling were left naked, a yawning, cavernous gap that revealed the shape of the roof. The bed sheets on the two twins beds were of un-dyed wool.

"I'm going to try to get into Iwa soon." Karura came and stood beside him; he voice quavered, dark golden hair trembling just a little bit. "Wish me luck."

Sasori nodded, wavy scarlet hair falling over his heavy-lidded eyes. "Of course." Silently, he pressed his lips against her forehead, cool, dry, and, so it seemed to Karura, almost totally impersonal. It was like two strangers meeting for the first time, though neither of them had ever thrived on elaborate, cloying confirmations of affection.

Sasori smiled weakly at her, hand on her shoulder, and Karura could only barely return the gesture.

Later that night, Karura laid alone on her bed, the room dark and quiet. Her fan and cloak rested on a wicker chair, and the window shutters were left open to let in the star's shadows and the soft breeze.

Two rooms over, the soft sighs of a pair of lovers could be heard, moans like the whispers of the wind before a great storm, and far from being irritated with it as she normally was, Karura lied flat on her back in bed, stared up at the shadows chasing each other across the planks and boards of her cavernous ceiling, and wished it could be her.

.x.X.x

A crow cawed in the distance, flapping away from its twisted perch; Karura threw away the crimson-dripping kunai, clotting blood smearing her ring and the purple lacquer on her fingers.

The man had been following her; from the way he fumbled his ninjato, there was no way he could have been any higher in the ranks than chunin.

He laid spread-eagle off of the road, the sparse brown grasses and thick stones pressing against his brown flak jacket and kunai pouch. His clothes were stained nearly black, his eyes open and glazed. Karura had tried to make it as clean a death as she could, but he had fought and struggled and made it difficult and lingering.

Karura had always believed that for every person she killed, there was someone who missed them. No matter how good or vile that person was, someone would fall to pieces at their death and for that reason, she tried to leave off on wanton slaughter as much as she could.

But now, for the first time Karura had killed, and felt nothing.

His curiosity had cost him his life, and Karura could not regret it.

She stood up without so much as a word or a sigh. It was still many miles to Iwa.

.x.X.x.

The city of Iwagakure was the largest of all hidden villages, a sprawling, massive metropolis nestled deep in the mountains where there were more trees, entirely pines stretching towards the sky and furnished with slender sterile brown trunks and densely green needles. The cones littered the floor, making stealth near-impossible for a foreigner.

Nearly the whole of Tsuchi no Kuni's eighty thousand population lived in the enormous city; no more than two thousand occupied the remote outposts and the tiny, sub-arctic, snowbound mountain villages at the far northern border near Kaminari no Kuni. Originally, the inhabitants of Tsuchi no Kuni had, like Kaze no Kuni, been shiftless nomads, but unlike Kaze no Kuni, who had focused the population base on three major cities and several smaller towns, Tsuchi no Kuni's population was concentrated almost entirely on Iwagakure.

Karura sat on the roof of a building, the occupants inside clearly unaware of her presence, as the sun went down. She was aware of the bad implications of sitting on a roof watching the sun go down and twilight overtake the land, and knew the implications got even worse when it was taken into account that she was alone, but Karura had never been a devoted adherent to convention.

Iwagakure had been hewn out of the mountain face, and since seismic activity was common in Tsuchi no Kuni, the buildings had been fashioned in such a way as to minimize the damage done by regular earthquakes.

In daylight, Iwa wasn't much to look at. The rounded buildings were portrayed in drab shades of dull sepia brown and stolid granite gray. The only bit of real color was the very rare brick building, the rich Tuscan red softening the outline of brown and gray.

The city didn't bustle; it throbbed. There was always something happening; the sounds of sirens and talking provided a cacophony that only became eerie after sunset.

The sun went down completely; the riotous red, pink and pure gold shades of sunset were put away. Vivid neon purple existed nearest the horizon, a hazy reminder of the sun; higher above, painted in uneven shades and at uneven intervals, a deeper cerulean blue stretched out like an ocean; highest, the darkest shade of indigo that could exist before inky blackness heralded true night. The moon hung with a nimbus of light all around it.

In daylight, Iwagakure was drab, dull and foreign. But at night, when the moon painted all the buildings pristine white, it reminded Karura of home.

.x.X.x.

"They say he's an axe-murderer," Sasori jibed playfully in her ear.

"Shut up," Karura rebuked mildly, folding her arms around her chest. "You're not helping."

They were back at the hideout in the Ame countryside; it was raining outside, predictably. Karura had just received word that she was to be assigned as a senior partner to a new member of the Akatsuki who was waiting for her in an inn further north.

"Uchiha Itachi," Karura murmured, staring out at the rain beyond. "Figures that out of all the missing nin who could have become my partner, it would have to be the one who inexplicably decided to take out every member of his family except his brother in the middle of the night. Konoha's in an uproar."

"Let them fall to pieces," Sasori murmured, arm around her waist. "The less stable Konohagakure is, the better for us. When are you going to pick him up, anyway?"

"What's the matter? Karura's eyebrows rose in a slight provocation. "Jealous?"

A harsh bark of laughter followed. "Of a thirteen-year-old? Hardly."

Karura leaned up slightly and kissed him on the cheek. "I'll be back soon. Don't let Orochimaru eat you in your sleep between now and then."

Another harsh laugh came.

.x.X.x.

He doesn't look like an axe-murderer to me, Karura thought dubiously as she stood over the boy half-slumped on the bench before her. He looks like a scrawny little kid who's been put through hell.

The inn, for whatever reason, had no lighting and was mostly empty. Itachi was easy to pick out; the way he was sitting alone on a bench pressed up against the wall in the dining hall screamed "foreigner". She marched straight over to him.

Karura had honestly expected something different out of Uchiha Itachi. She had expected a tall, arrogant man with a raw, bloodthirsty chakra. She expected a monster. What she found was something else entirely.

Itachi was a young boy, no more than thirteen years old; she could guess that he was somewhat shorter than her, maybe two or three inches (The cloak will have to have the seams redone at the sleeve and the skirt hem, Karura thought critically). He was very pale, painted with a pastiness that didn't seem natural, though not so unnatural as Orochimaru; it only contrasted with long, thick black hair and wide eyes the same color. The boy's bones stuck out at his wrists and collarbone as though his skin had been stretched out across his bones too hastily and no one had ever bothered to put down muscles and fat beneath. Purple marks like bruises colored his skin around his eyes. Itachi was exhausted, pallid, haunted.

"You are Uchiha Itachi?" Karura asked quietly, trying not to draw attention to them. She offered him the words with the quiet dignity of a priest approaching one of the flock to give spiritual advice, her dark cloak billowing around her.

He looked up with agonizing slowness, and Karura came to the horrifying realization—horrifying because he was nin and he should have noticed beforehand—he hadn't known she was there until she spoke. "Y-yes." His voice was soft, cracked, and strangely sluggish, and Karura prayed that it was only deprivation of food and water that was making him this way.

"I've gotten us a room for the night, but first—" Karura put her hands on her hips and frowned "—first, I am going to get you something to eat and drink."

Itachi looked at her as though he wasn't sure he had heard correctly. In the deep blue light that could only come from a rainy evening, he looked like a dying man slumping into darkness, too weakened to prevent his fall.

Karura fought the urge to roll her eyes. "I am going to hazard a guess, that you have neither eaten nor drank anything in at least three days. The signs of deprivation are noticeable in you. You're so pale you're waxen, and you seem very lethargic. You're eyes are bloodshot, and that means you're either dehydrated or you've been crying a lot lately. And I am disposed to lean away from the later. If you can even walk steadily at this point, I'll be amazed. I'll be back in a moment."

Karura soon came back with a bowl of rice and one of beef stew, and two cups of heated tea. Itachi accepted the thick stew without comment, eating as though it was the first bit of food he had had in months.

"From the way you're wolfing down that stew," Karura observed wryly, "I'm gonna guess you're not a follower of the teaching of Buddha."

Itachi shook his head, continuing to chew quickly.

"Alright, alright, slow down; you're going to choke yourself. No one's going to take your supper away from you."

"I'm sorry," Itachi choked, lifting his head from the bowl, his eyes dark and roiling. "It's just that…" he broke off.

Karura's lips tightened, and she looked straight ahead, half-eaten bowl of rice forgotten. The mindset of the Akatsuki was not a place where one judged another for their crimes. She would not judge Itachi; if she did that, working with him would become impossible. But still, she had to wonder…

What could drive a kid to slaughter his own clan?

.x.X.x.

Karura lit a match and stuck it inside of the lamp, watching until the wick burst into life.

Outside, it was storming, thunder making the furniture shake. Inside, the room had two twin beds, a nightstand between them, and a fireplace over to the side.

"Stand up," she told Itachi clinically. As he did so, Karura pulled the cloak she had brought for Itachi out and held it up to him. "As I suspected. It's too long, far too long. I think I have a needle and thread in here somewhere."

As she pulled them out, Karura realized how cold it was in the room. "Itachi, I'm going to talk to the landlord about getting some coal for the fire; I've never liked the cold."

When she got back, Karura found Itachi huddled near the lamp, the cloak spread across his lap; the red clouds gleamed strangely in the flickering half-light. He had the needled in his hand and patiently, expertly, he ran it through the hem of one of the sleeves.

Karura was thunderstruck. "Where did you learn to do that?"

Itachi looked up. He hesitated for a moment, then said, very softly, "Mother taught me."

.x.X.x.

They returned to base the next day, a soft rainstorm riding on their heels. Itachi wore the altered cloak well; he kept the hat low over his face as if he didn't want even nature to see what he looked like.

Orochimaru took an instant, and to Karura, disturbing interest in Itachi. His gold eyes followed the still-sickly boy wherever he went. It was almost predatory, and though she couldn't get Sasori to see it, Karura knew something was going to happen, which was why she wasn't surprised when it did.

Karura was personally relieved when Orochimaru left the Akatsuki. But it may have broken Sasori entirely.

.x.X.x.

"Sasori?" Karura pushed open the door left slightly ajar, hoping to find him inside. The lights were dim; she reached for the light switch that she knew would be just inside.

They flicked on. She gasped.

Sasori sat on one of the beds, a sprawling, life-sized puppet in his lap. That in itself was not what surprised her; Sasori was constantly working on his myriad puppets, repairing, adjusting, improving them. But the face of the puppet did.

The eyes of the Sandaime Kazekage stared back at her.

Green eyes met brown ones; Sasori remained totally impassive, his face a mask of indifference as the Noh was to theater. He made no attempt to hide, or explain himself; it was as though the Sandaime was any other puppet.

"Sasori!" she gasped. "The Sandaime…he…you…" She broke down, not quite crying, but close, very close. "Tell me you didn't! Tell me!"

He just looked at her. Karura wasn't sure what it was that she saw in his eyes, but it wasn't an apology.

She left, the door slamming shut in the wind behind her.

She got halfway down the hall before falling against the wall. She didn't weep; she didn't know how anymore.

Karura collapsed, huddled at the crook of the floor and the wall. The war…her sister's death… She finally knew why. She had always wondered what had happened to the Sandaime Kazekage, and now she knew why. And she wished she didn't.

She hurt. She hurt horribly. But she didn't feel betrayed. She had always known what Sasori was capable of; she had always entertained the suspicion in the back of her mind. He wasn't an innocent.

"I will tell you anything, if you ask me."

She should have asked him then.

Karura folded her arms around the thin, scrawny knees drawn up to her chest. In that moment, she knew that she was alone.

.x.X.x.

She locked the bathroom behind her, and stared up at the mirror. Karura wanted to see her face, see what others saw of her and in her.

What she saw staring back at her was a stranger.

Karura didn't recognize the face staring back at her; there was another woman wearing her skin.

There were no lines around her mouth, and she wondered how many years it had been since she last smiled.

.x.X.x.

The first time Karura caught Itachi throwing up blood in the same bathroom, she didn't panic. She didn't scream or beg to know what was wrong with him.

For the first and last time in her life, she marched resolutely down the hall and pounded on the door marked 'Tobi'.

She was going to find out what was wrong with that strange kid.

.x.X.x.

The remote village in Kusa no Kuni was caught in the pale, hard grip of autumn; the grasses were orange and wilting, and tawny leaves carpeted the ground.

She, with Itachi and Sasori with her, stared at the fair-haired boy before them.

He was even younger than Itachi had been, smaller too. He had long light blond hair, and pale blue, slightly slanted eyes smudged liberally with kohl.

Karura drew her fan, opening it so one royal purple star was visible and holding it so her hands rested on the top and the bottom on the ground. Itachi tensed; in the Hiruko shell, Karura couldn't tell what Sasori was doing.

"Who the hell are you people?"

Karura stared impassively at him. "We are members of an organization named the Akatsuki. You will come with us."

"Make me." Deidara grinned nastily, holding up the palms of his hands so the mouths there could lick their fleshy lips.

Itachi's eyes flashed red.

.x.X.x.

Two years later, snow fell in Tsuchi no Kuni, covering the world in white. Snowflakes caught in hair and clothes, soaking the dry and sending them to their deaths of pneumonia.

Karura stood outside the familiar inn, braving the cold for once in her life. All around, it looked as though a spear had pierced the side of the sun, causing it to bleed red blood on the plain far below. The snow shined with crimson light.

Footsteps crunching in the snow alerted her to the presence of another. Sasori came and stood beside her, staring at the snow.

"January nineteenth," she whispered to him. "Our son is ten years old today."

Sasori nodded. "Yes." He turned and looked at her. "Yes, he is."

As they leaned in, finding each other as they always had as lips locked and breathing slowed, Karura was hit by how different everything was. Even this, while still sweet, had some new, agonizing quality about it. It was different. Everything was different, and even this, Karura had a hard time recognizing.

.x.X.x.

Kakuzu and Hidan joined the two teams at the inn a week later.

Though both had been in the Akatsuki for several years, it was actually the first time Karura had ever met them.

"Those damned heathens! I was right to send those bastards down to the hottest pit of Hell when I did!"

Karura quickly developed an intense dislike for Hidan, did not respect him and was relieved when he went upstairs to bed. Itachi and Deidara were also asleep, in separate rooms.

As for Kakuzu, Karura was willing to reserve judgment.

Karura, Kakuzu and Sasori stayed downstairs, the only stragglers left in the dining hall after all had gone up for sleep.

Kakuzu was a strange man, if the coal black stitch marks on his arms and his glowing, acid green eyes were any indication. He had a dark, rough voice, and Karura was faintly reminded of a menacing black bear she had once encountered in a Tsuchi forest.

"How old are you two?" Kakuzu asked them shrewdly.

They told him. He was thunderstruck, thunderstruck because neither of them seemed to have aged a day since they had joined the Akatsuki a whole fifteen years ago.

When she was younger, Karura had wanted forever, demanded forever. She had never realized what forever was.

Now, she had forever, had eternity. Not in the literal sense, but in a way so much more profound than that. She had eternity, and she didn't want it anymore.

The cup of life was bitter. It was almost too much to bear.

.x.X.x.

Karura gaped in shock. It was the first time she had seen Konan in years.

The woman was still youthful, though not as much as Sasori and Karura. Her wide eyes had narrowed considerably; they were weighed down with secrets and sorrows and solitude, so alone that they cracked. Her face was no longer stoic, it was empty and somber, a chiseled thing that held no life in it at all. Karura looked at her and knew what it was to become a mask, to put up something to hide herself from the world and then to turn around one day and not be able to find what she had hidden in all the mess and chaos and heartbreaking pain.

Konan reached for her hand. "Karura, I am here to tell you something. Please listen to me. If you fall out of love, it will be the most painful experience of your life. It will dog and torment you, haunt you until your dying day. It will take you apart and steal from you everything you hold dear, everything that makes you, until there is nothing there anymore but a scar."

Karura was taken aback by the suddenness and spontaneous nature, but looking at her deconstructed face, Karura realized her own situation, and how much worse it could have been, if she had been like Konan.

Karura squeezed her hand, and smiled bitterly. "You won't have to worry about that, Konan. I…almost wish I could, but I can't. I will continue to love even as he changes and I become something that even I don't recognize. There are some things that can never be undone."

She never saw Konan again.

.x.X.x.

Back in Amegakure, Itachi stared up in slight awe at the foreign church.

Karura could almost laugh at his expression. "I know; I never saw one of these until I came here either. It's quite impressive, isn't it?"

The stained glass windows were unchanged; no expense had been spared on them, in vivid shades of vermillion, purple and gold. A woman in blue smiled down on them, serenity painted on her two-dimensional face.

Itachi closed his mouth. "It's not that, ma'am." That was something about Itachi that irritated Karura; she didn't like being called "ma'am". "I've seen a church like this before, in River Country."

He hesitated, resting his hand against the doorframe, made of solid ebony and gleaming. "There's…something about this religion." He smiled weakly. "Forgiveness for all sins…"

Karura wasn't sure he realized she was there anymore.

.x.X.x.

In another two years, she was left to wonder about Itachi again.

Karura refrained from telling Itachi that his brother didn't look much like him; she was sure it wouldn't have helped.

She sat on the bed beside Itachi's, and thought.

Judging from the words passed between Itachi and that little flock of puffed-up councilors, Karura had to come to a startling conclusion: Itachi had not performed the massacre because he wanted to.

The thought troubled her immensely. It was a new dimension, one that made Itachi a time bomb. God only knew when he'd blow.

She wouldn't say anything about it. If Itachi wanted to torture himself by keeping his brother in the dark, then that was his issue, and Karura would respect it, even if she didn't understand it.

While her back was turned to him, Karura heard the familiar rattle of a pill bottle behind her. She rolled over on bed, and gave Itachi a slightly weary look; the bottle of sleeping pills was gripped tightly in his hand.

Their eyes met. Karura sat up in bed, and reached for her young partner's hands. "Itachi," she murmured, sadly, not unkindly. "Running from the nightmares doesn't make them go away."

He gave her a look so lost and so broken, that Karura didn't have the heart to take the pill bottle away from him.

.x.X.x.

Karura woke up one night, and realized that she hadn't thought of home in years.

It was saddening, but in a way, it was a release.

She didn't know where home was anymore.

.x.X.x.

The darkness swirled around them; thunder rumbled in the far distance. They gripped each other's hands, and would not tolerate eavesdroppers.

"I hope you and Deidara don't run into too much trouble in Suna." For the first time in years, Karura was able to manage a smile, a genuine one.

"Thanks," Sasori returned honestly. "Of course, Deidara will probably turn it into a damned circus," he growled, face darkening.

"How much of a circus animal can you be when you're fighting a jinchūriki?"

"Very much so, trust me."

As he stepped away, Karura got a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. She tried to push it down, but couldn't forget it.

She felt as though it was the last time they would see each other.

.x.X.x.

Inside the Hiruko shell, Sasori was glad his face was hidden when he laid eyes on the young host.

He recognized the boy. Dark red hair, pale, delicate features, small and slightly built. If he opened his eyes they would either been the almost-red shade the Yuuhi clan were famous for or pale sea foam green.

Sasori's only thought was How did my son become a host?

It never occurred to him to try to help the boy. It was too late. Far too late.

.x.X.x.

Karura thought the same thing when she saw him. On both counts.

.x.X.x.

Karura felt the eyes of the Hiruko shell upon her as she stood in spirit on the Gedō Mazō statue.

"Karura?" Sasori's voice was gravely as it always was in the Hiruko shell. "I'd like to speak to you when this is over."

Karura nodded. "Of course." She could hardly keep her voice from shaking.

When she came to miles away, sitting beside Itachi, she struggled to get her breath. Her son's dying face would be a new feature of her nightmares.

.x.X.x.

"Be careful," Karura warned Itachi. "We don't know if the enemy is still here."

From the amount of rubble around the cave in River Country, Karura was sure that this was where the main fighting had gone on.

They stepped into the cave. It was littered with puppets, the roof knocked out in places so that shafts of sunlight shone through brilliantly. But that was not what Karura saw.

She didn't stop until she was standing beside him; her heart was beating so hard she thought it would split in two.

Sasori stood motionless, the tips of two swords barely protruding from his narrow chest.

He was dead. In a sight that was disturbingly fitting, the puppets he had made so many years ago of his parents held the swords that killed him.

So many years ago, Karura might have wept. She might have screamed, wailed, fallen to pieces, sought revenge. But she was not that person anymore. And she never would be again.

"I guess I'll never know what he wanted to tell me," Karura murmured.

.x.X.x.

In her mind's eye, she could still see it.

They were sitting alone on the fire escape, and the only source of light was the street lamp beyond…

---

Okay, a quick (or maybe not so quick) note. The romance ended up kind of taking a back seat in the end. What I really became concerned with was portraying the way Karura (and to a lesser extent, Sasori) changed over the course of the story, which was why I couldn't put this note at the top. I wanted to make her change noticeably, but make it subtle enough that you guys wouldn't really notice it until she did. I'm not sure that I accomplished that, but anyway…

I hope you guys liked this, that it didn't put you to sleep or anything. And I sincerely hope that the length didn't just drain you of energy to the extent that all you want to do after reading this is sleep. :)

With love,

ncfan