"I just don't know what to do, Aki... she won't talk to me, she hasn't even come home since it happened..." the smoke-haired woman gazed at Sasori sadly, then rose her hand to trace the contours of her lover's cheek.

"Don't worry, Sasori. She'll come around... she's probably just feeling stressed and a little betrayed." Aki said quietly, "I know that that's how I felt when my Dad started dating again, and I had it much easier than she does."

Sasori frowned, and Aki slowly pulled the red haired man into a hug. He hid his face in her neck, worry twisting his stomach painfully. "Just give her time, Sasori."

She then pulled away, and left, closing the front door behind her, and leaving a still distraught Sasori on the couch. It was three days since Hotaru had walked in and witnessed an intimate moment between Sasori and his -up until then, secret- lover, Aki, and Sasori had seen hide nor tail of his imouto since. The ANBU operatives that had been guarding her had been sent into disregard; none of them could find her either, and while Sasori usually would feel prideful of that fact, at this moment he was cursing it. He somewhat wished that his fellow Akatsuki members hadn't all pitched in to help train Hotaru, because then she wouldn't be so good at hiding herself.

There was suddenly a loud knock at the door, and Sasori got up and answered it, expecting it to be Aki having forgotten something. But instead of his dark-grey-haired girlfriend, two ANBU in masks and cloaks barged in.

"Hey!" Sasori protested, "What's going on?!"

"We would like to search Hotaru-san's room." one ANBU said, and Sasori glared at him.

"What? Why?!" he demanded, and the ANBU didn't react.

"Hokage's orders." Sasori bit back a retort, and moved out of the way. The two ANBU went up the stairs, and bangs and clatters were heard as the room was searched. They came back down again empty-handed, and left without saying anything to the Chunin.

Sasori immediately ran upstairs to check, and saw Hotaru's room in perfect order. That was weird.

Thinking nothing of it, Sasori went back downstairs again, flopping onto the couch. However, a few hours later, when he went out to run a few errands around the village, he couldn't help but notice people staring and whispering more than usual. He only caught single words, like 'sister' and 'akatsuki' and 'shameful'. He growled, not liking them watching his every move, and ran over to the Hokage's office.

"Sasori? What is it?" Tsunade asked, and the man just growled and marched up to the blonde woman.

"Just what is going on around here?!" Sasori demanded, slamming his palms on the desk, "Why's everyone suddenly whispering about Hotaru wherever I go?! And why did two ANBU bust into my house under your orders, only to walk out empty handed?!"

Tsunade sighed, she had expected this sooner or later. She sat back in her chair and folded her arms, then looked up at Sasori with stern, caramel-coloured irises.

"We got a tip off that Hotaru had lied about where she was when she left a few years ago. The only way I could keep Danzo and the council happy was to have ANBU search her room. The search was fruitless.." Sasori didn't say anything; he could tell that the Godaime wasn't finished yet, "Except for one thing." Tsunade rummaged in one of the drawers of her desk, and pulled out a plastic wallet, containing a torn scrap of material, black, with the beginnings of a red shape on it, the completed edge outlined in white. Sasori kept his expression blank, but in his head he was cussing all of the words he could think of. "This was found inside a locked box underneath Hotaru's bed. The box was locked with a complicated jutsu, which even the ANBU struggled to break. Luckily, we did have a Nara on hand to crack the code. But, it raises the question..." Tsunade shook the bag once, "What's so secret about this scrap of material that Hotaru would go so far to hide it?"

Sasori, again, said nothing. He knew exactly what it was. A torn off piece of Hotaru's Akatsuki cloak. He had told her to dispose of it before they came back to Konoha, but obviously she had grown attached to it. She must have cut a piece off before burning the rest.

Tsunade just eyed Sasori expectantly, but he returned her steely gaze. He growled, "I'm not going to sell out my little sister."

Tsunade sighed, "I didn't think you would..." Tsunade looked slightly sad, "I suppose I wouldn't have either... but this is important for the safety of the village. You need to confirm if this piece of material is what we think it is."

Sasori masked his expression once again; damn, they knew? Hotaru, you are in deep trouble now.

"Big brothers are supposed to look after their younger siblings, no matter what!" Sasori growled again, and Tsunade was stunned by how het up he was getting. Usually, whenever he came for missions and such, he was stoic and uncaring. "I've spent my whole life protecting her, do you think I'm going to stop now just because she's being penalized for a crime she didn't even commit?!"

Tsunade frowned; Danzo wasn't going to like this. She agreed with Sasori one-hundred-percent, but the council and Danzo both had a huge amount of ANBU under their control.

Tsunade's eyes widened as several ANBU flooded into the room and went for Sasori. He, however, was quick to react, and fought many of them off with ease, being an ex-S-rank missing-nin. But as he reached for his leg pouch to get the scroll for his puppets (he had gone back to using ordinary wooden puppets so that he could stay in Konohagakure with Hotaru), the scroll was kicked out of his hand. His arms were firmly grasped, and his elbows pulled together behind his back. A tug on his arms forced him onto his knees from the pain, and he grunted as three or four ANBU secured him there so that he couldn't move. He wondered briefly why he was facing the door, but that question was answered as an old man with his left eye and arm wrapped in bandages, and a walking stick in his left hand.

"Danzo! What is the meaning of this?!" Sasori heard Tsunade shout from behind the scene. 'Danzo' looked over to her.

"Calm yourself Tsunade-hime." the woman growled, but did as she was told, and Danzo looked down at Sasori with disgust.

"Ex-rogue ninja Akasuna no Sasori... I presume you aren't going to tell us what we want to know willingly?" Danzo asked, and Sasori just growled at him. Danzo smirked, then turned his head, "Ibiki-san, your presence is required."

Sasori's expression remained a dull frown, but on the inside, he was shocked. He had been on several missions with the interrogator, and had thought that the two of them were friends at least. But as Ibiki entered the room, his expression was that same frown that seemed to be permanently etched into his face. But then, Sasori wouldn't have expected any different- for Ibiki, work and personal life were like two whole seperate worlds.

"Please take Akasuna no Sasori through to the interrogation room. Use any means necessary to find out what we want to know." Danzo said, and Ibiki just nodded, then turned and walked out of the room. The ANBU forced Sasori to his feet, and near-enough dragged him after the interrogator.

Tsunade watched as they all disappeared out of sight, irritation portrayed on her features. She glared up at Danzo. "You're going to ruin everything." she ground out, but Danzo just looked at her blankly.

"I have it under control, Tsunade-hime." Danzo said slowly, exiting the room after his ANBU agents.

* * *

"Has he said anything yet?"

Ibiki shook his head, closing the door that hid the captive quietly, "As expected, no matter what we do to him, Sasori-san will not speak."

Danzo glared at the interrogator, "There is no need to refer to prisoners with such honorifics. He is scum." the old man hissed, before turning and swiftly walking away. Ibiki frowned after him, then locked the door, eyeing the ANBU guards around the room warily. He got the oddest feeling that he was being watched...

Shrugging it off, Ibiki sighed. 'Must be the late hours...' he thought to himself, leaving the building to meet his purple-haired fellow jounin.

Hotaru narrowed her eyes, scowling as she left the building also. She had been amazed that her technique had worked, since she had had doubts when she had first recieved a tip-off from some unknown source that she could make herself invisible to the naked eye by using the Hikarigan to absorb the light that would usually hit her body. The only issue was, light still wouldn't reach behind her, and since she still created a shadow, she had to move carefully.

Keeping close to the walls, she went around the back of the building, and focused hard. She tutted. Of course they weren't stupid enough to lock up Sasori on the bottom floor.

She pushed her usually unruly chakra to her feet, considering using her summon, but thinking that that would be a little too noticeable. She quickly leapt up the wall as a few shinobi passed, running up at high speed, until she could feel how close her Nii-san's chakra was.

Taking a deep breath, Hotaru frowned. She didn't like that she had to betray her village, her home, like this, but, at the same time, she was angry that they had pulled Sasori into it. So she tossed away her remorse, securing a high power paper-bomb to the wall, then leaping across to a nearby tree, and detonating it.

Before the smoke could clear, Hotaru sprang through the newly formed gap, praying that she had gotten the right room. She didn't want to cause any more damage than necessary. And, hopefully, this would attract the attention of all of the guards.

Relaxing, Hotaru released the chakra from her eyes, allowing colour to bleed into her figure. She heard a gasp, and felt herself being pulled into a bone-crushing hug.

"Imouto! You're okay! I was so worried!!" Sasori pulled away and eyed her carefully, checking for any external damage. Hotaru just growled, boiling with anger.

Sasori's face and body were bruised, blood trickling from numerous lacerations, and a split lip. Burning red marks ringed his wrists and ankles, and sure sign that he had been bound while writhing in pain. And he went through all of this because of her.

"How could they do this to you?!" she demanded, the old, hot-headed Hotaru re-surfacing, having been locked away during her time in the Akatsuki, where a sassy and impertinent attitude could very well lose you your life. Sasori just glanced at the particular wound she was looking at; a deep slash that had torn through the material of his shirt and onto his shoulder. He shook his head, gripping her shoulders as the sound of footsteps and shouting filled the room from outside.

"Never mind that! You have to get out of here! If they see you, they'll capture you right away, and lock in jail for years, or even sentence you to death! You have to run!" Sasori panicked, pulling her closer to him as thumps resounded on the door that the rebound of the explosion had jammed shut.

"Not without you being free! You don't deserve this, it's my fault! My idiocy caused this!" Hotaru shot back, and then her eyes darkened, and she straightened up and pulled herself from Sasori's grip. "I'm going to turn myself in."

"What?!" Sasori hissed, "But you didn't do anything wrong!" he grabbed her shoulders, and shook her. She didn't meet his eyes. "Are you insane?!"

Then, with a final clatter, shinobi flooded the room, surrounding the siblings. They aimed an assortment of weapons at the pair, but one in particular caught Hotaru's eye. An adolescent male with a large white dog.

"Put your hands behind your heads! You're caught, there's nowhere to run."

Hotaru met Kiba's eyes defeatedly, and went and stood before Ibiki. "Take me to wherever the hell it is criminals go."

"Is that a confession?" Ibiki seemed mildly surprised, having expected the hot-blooded kunoichi to fight till she lost consciousness. The redheaded female just nodded.

Moving closer, the interrogator reached for Hotaru's arm, only for a small piece of debris from the explosion to fly past, making him retract his arm quickly.

"Stay away from my sister, bastard." Sasori snarled, fists clenched. Quickly, before any of the shinobi surrounding his could react, he grabbed Hotaru's arm and tossed her over his shoulder, kicking the few shinobi between him and the large gap in the wall. The other ninja went into a frenzy, all chasing after the duo as the elder launched himself(and his sister) out of the gap, putting a large distance between themselves and the jail tower with that one jump. He put Hotaru down, and grabbed her wrist, forcing her to run with him.

"We have to go rogue, Hotaru." Sasori said, angling for the gates. Hotaru growled.

"No. I can't let you leave your life behind for me." Sasori just smiled at her as they passed the gates.

"I left you behind once. I'm not making that mistake again." He said, and Hotaru stared at him in surprise. Sasori then grinned. "Now hurry up and summon Kainani, this old-timer can't run much longer."

Hotaru smirked a tiny bit at his joke, and started forming the hand-signs, pulling the necessary scroll from her pouch.

Despite Sasori's words, a tiny part of him started to tear apart at what he was leaving behind.

Aki...

---

Can't write any more, my Dad's bugging me to get off the computer. GOD writing this was weird. I usually update on my iPod touch, so this was new to me. I actually have italics now! :3

So how's this chapter? Good? Hopefully. Cuz I honestly don't know where the fuck I'm going with this. should turn out interesting, though LOL.

And do I sense a bit o' the hatred for Sasori from Danzo? Wonder what crawled up his ass and died. Just sayin'.

Weeeelll, vote and comment, and, if you reeallly love me, FAN!!

Lol that was just me playin' with the bold and italics ;D

Sayonara, suckers! ;)