An Author's Note: If you have read any of my other work you might say that this thing that I am writing here resembles a certain early work called "The Beasts of South Park" (yeah, I know, have to get back on the ball on that). And, you would be right about it. What can I say? I happen to like werewolves (as long as they are not pedowolves). Sue me. No, in fact, don't do that. I make minimum wage. Wouldn't be worth it.

Anyway, I am new the Naruto fandom in general, though I have started to read the manga and watch a little of the show (mostly reading the manga, though, due to the fact that I work in a library. Handy, no?). So, any inconsistencies you find are mine.

I don't own Naruto. If I did, there would be much less Saskue and a bunch more Sand ninjas. In fact...if I owned the series would probably be about the Sand ninjas. And Emo Boy would get a kunei to the face.

On that note, enjoy.

Chapter One

Attack in the Night

Night in the desert was a beautiful time. You could see every single star and name every single constellation in the wide, open expanse. The only feature that could be seen, besides mounds and mounds of sand dunes, was the scraggly tree line in the distance that marked the border between Suna and Konoha.

However, stargazing was not on the schedule tonight.

It had been a while since Gaara, the Kazekage, had been on a mission of any type with his two siblings. Most Kages didn't go on missions, though it was not totally unheard of. In this case Gaara felt it was necessary. After all, it had only been recently that the demon inside him, Shukaku, had been taken from him. Testing himself in a real mission seemed like a good idea. He had been training almost every day since "the incident" (that is what everyone seemed to be calling it), but training and actual combat were two different things, and Gaara was determined to make sure that he still could preform in case of a crisis. Better to make sure he was fit for combat in a mission beforehand, then have an emergency in Suna and find himself lacking.

And it was not often that he could spend quality time with Temari and Kankuro, seeing as how Temari was spending most of her time on diplomatic missions, Gaara was almost always busy with his new greatest enemy: the paper work, and Kankuro was...doing whatever it was puppeteers did while not on missions. Gaara really had no clue, seeing as how the puppeteers were almost as secretive about their inner workings as the Konoha ANBU were. He had a suspicious feeling it might have something to do with reviving more dead people. You never knew. They were kinda creepy.

However, this mission was a concern for both nations. The Suna council had not be entirely happy that their leader was going to be off for a night fighting...whatevertheyweres, but could really not complain to much about a Kazekage that was willing to go out and defend Suna's interests out in the field.

"So where are the attacks occurring, precisely?" Gaara turned to look at Temari, who had spread out a map on the desert floor. It depicted not only the Land of Wind, but also the surrounding countries.

"From what I heard, there have been several of them, mostly directly on the border between us and Konoha." Temari pointed at the general area. "I heard some rumors that there might have been more in the Land of Rain as well, but they really aren't talking much. It's not missing-nin, unless they have started to run around on all fours and leave big dog tracks."

"And you are telling me that Leaf ninjas still can't find these things? Even with their best trackers?" Kankuro snorted.

Temari shrugged "From what I hear all the dog boys could smell was wolf. Not demon or even chakra, just a bunch of wolf. And no one can seem to sense anything from the attack sites."

"The last attack was here, in Suna, on one of our oasis towns." Gaara said grimly "And not just livestock this time. From what I heard the entire place was torn to pieces. It is obvious these creatures, human or otherwise, have no respect for borders. It it not just one kingdom's problem."

Gaara grimaced. The Land of Rain was being annoyingly contrary about this entire deal. Almost from the start of the attacks Suna and Konoha had began to work together, even though joint teams of Sand and Leaf ninja had turned up nothing. The Land of Rain, on the other hand, refused to even admit that any of its villages had been attacked, though the rumors kept flying over the border at a scary rate.

With the Rain ninjas acting like there was nothing wrong it seemed like it was up to the Leaf and Sand ninjas to get to the bottom of this. They couldn't cross over to the Rain lands, but the search was still going on in other kingdoms. With word that the last attack had been on Suna land that meant they could search without having to worry to much about passports and such. Both Suna and Konoha had agreed to let their various ninjas cross the borders unimpeded because of the attacks. After all, if there enemy did not respect the border then it made no sense for a ninja to sit around waiting for clearance and such while their prey happily skipped over a border and then vanished.

That had happened at least three times to Naruto. Every time the thing he had been chasing had crossed a Rain/Fire border. This, of course, just served to piss Naruto off more and more.

"So, when are they going to meet us?" Kankuro asked, already becoming slightly bored. They were supposed to be meeting three Leaf ninja here: Kakashi, Neji and Hinata. Kakashi because of his ninja dogs and the two Hyugas because, even though the Byakugan seemed to be useless, the Leaf ninjas seemed to think that if they kept trying the thing it might work. They thought that if they caught the trail fresh enough then they would have to find something.

Gaara was not so sure anymore. Although everyone in the Leaf village and half of Suna thought that the culprits were using some sort of genjutsu, no one could detect any type of chakra in the area. Gaara was certain that whatever the culprits were using it was something that had never been encountered before. It was very disconcerting.

Gaara was about to speak when everything went quite. Now, the desert is a fairly quite place, but that does not mean that it is devoid of noise. There were plenty of creatures making some sort of buzz or chirp or squeak in the night, but now, all of a sudden, they stopped.

This might as well have been an alarm bell to the three Sand ninjas. Gaara shut his mouth and listened hard.

Hard listening, however, turned out to be a tad redundant. The howls that began echoing through the night were loud and clear. Not to mention the fact that there were multiple voices awowowowowing out there.

"Seeing as how we doing get large packs of wolves out here I suspect that might be our creatures." Kankuro said with a nasty grin.

Gaara nodded "Temari, think you can spot them?"

Temari nodded. Within a few moments she was up in the air on her fan. After circling around a few times she was back.

"I see something. About ten of them. They are right on the border heading east. I can't really see what they look like, but they are not running like any wolf I ever saw."

"Human then?" Gaara asked.

"Well...if they are then they are very large and hairy people. It's really hard to describe."

"Well, we wanted a fresh trail. Not going to get any fresher then this." Kankuro said.

"Temari, see if you can find Kakashi's group and lead them to us. Kankuro, you and I are going after them." Gaara said.

Temari flew away and Kankuro and Gaara began heading towards the howls. Gaara glanced at his older brother. Kankuro had only just manged to fix one of his puppets, the Crow, after his battle with Sasori. Although Gaara knew Kankuro had somehow manged to get a hold of the former puppet master's discarded shell, Kankuro was, apparently making 'adjustments' to it, and the other two puppets were still being repaired. So, it was just Kankuro and the Crow. Gaara was not to concerned, though. The Crow had always served Kankuro well enough in the past. The fact that it failed in their last battle was just bad luck, not any reflection on Kankuro's abilities with his puppets.

Soon desert sand gave way to the tree line. Now the two ninja could hear the crashing and banging and howling in front of them quite clearly.

"Not big on stealth are they?" Kankuro grinned.

Their prey was making a lot of noise...almost as if.

Gaara stopped abruptly. "Wait a minute-" Something, it looked like a small piece of circler wood, was just sitting there on the forest floor...almost as if...

The thing blew up. A small explosion of flashing light and smoke. Thankfully, they had caught on early enough. Gaara could see the forest literally lighting up in front of them, though none of the explosions touched either ninja.

"Guess they really aren't just animals after all." Kankuro noted.

"They've probably doubled back." Gaara said, listening hard. It was true, the prey were not just animals. And, if they were smart enough to lay traps like this, then this entire thing had to have been a set up.

To bad the beasts were up against ninjas, or it might have even worked.

"Hey, Gaara, you hear that?" Kankuro said. Gaara nodded. It was...chanting? Some sort of bizarre, guttural, deep throated language that Gaara could not even began to decipher. He and Kankuro stood back to back, each one preparing for whatever attack they would be facing next.

A sudden rustling and it appeared. Leaping out of the bushes like a furry missile, the beast came at them. It was large, about twice Kankuro's hight and twice as wide, though not fat by any means. In the shadows it was hard to make out, but it was hairy and smelly. It stood on its hind legs like a man, but it had the head of a wolf. It looked at them with mad, red and yellow eyes and lunged at Gaara.

Though Gaara no longer had his automatic sand shield he could still manipulate the sand. He quickly formed three sand spears and hurled them at the beast. To Gaara's surprise the wolf batted them away and kept right on coming. Focusing as hard as he could he formed a sand shield over himself as the beast hit him with the force of an onrushing train. The thing slashed with its claws and ripped through the sand like it was not even there. Gaara was stunned. He knew his powers had been greatly reduced, but this! This was unbelievable! He could feel the things' claws ripping into his shoulder and blood starting to drip down his arm. Gaara was to busy being astounded to do anything more.

"Gaara!" Kankuro lunged at the beast...but Gaara knew that was defiantly not Kankuro. No, his brother was once again preforming his oldest and most reliable trick. It was not really Kankuro that was lunging at the beast, but the puppet Crow. When the beast turned to attack what it thought was Kankuro it would find itself facing a trap-laden puppet. The real Kankuro was right now tied to the back of his puppet.

Gaara was disappointed in his sand's feebleness, but he did not expect Kankuro to fail.

Only...

When the Crow dove at the beast Gaara expected the wolf to attack the puppet. And indeed when the wolf caught the Crow in midair and drove it to the ground Gaara expected this fight would turn out just as all of Kankuro's previous ones had turned out. However, the wolf did something unexpected. It tore into the bandages on the Crow's back and with one swift motion hurled a very surprised Kankuro out of his hiding place and directly into a tree.

At first Gaara could not believe this was happening. Sure, Kankuro had only brought one puppet...but surely the thing that the wolf had tossed had not been his brother? No one had ever manged to pick out Kankuro from his puppets! His brother was a master at this type of genjutsu...

But these creatures did not seem to be following the rules, were they?

The creature leaned over Kankuro, sniffing him as if it was trying to make sure that, yes, this was indeed an ninja and not another puppet. Or, you know, a log. Then, to Gaara's anger the creature grabbed Kankuro and ran off into the shadows.

Gaara glared at the retreating figures. There was no way he was going to let this stand! Pausing a moment to wrap some cloth around his arm he began to follow the creature's trail as best he could.

Kankuro had been stunned by his meeting with the tree. Literally stunned. It did not help things that, when he awoke, he could not see a thing. Some enterprising someone had both blindfolded him and tied his hands behind his back.

Also, there was more of that chanting going on.

That was not a good sign. That was so not a good sign.

He heard something whimper, then a pained yelp. The chanting grew in volume.

Gritting his teeth, Kankuro tried to wriggle his hands around to loosen the bindings. Apparently someone was watching him, because he was abruptly kicked in the stomach. He doubled over in pain.

Okay, so that was not going to work. Maybe a substitution?

But before he could do anything he was grabbed and hauled to his feet. What felt like the mouth of a bottle was pressed against his mouth. He grunted. They wanted him to drink something? A poison maybe? Oh that was not going to happen!

He turned his head away, but a pair of huge hairy hands gripped his pounding head and held him still. Even as he struggled his mouth was pried open and something was poured in.

Blood! They were forcing him to drink blood! Gross! Despite his best efforts a bit of the stuff got down his throat. Apparently it was enough. For a few moments his body went totally limp and he could not move, even though he wanted to. The only thing that seemed to be working was his throat, and that was busy working the...blood down into his stomach.

Then the pain hit. It felt like being repeatably stabbed in the gut with a dagger. Kankuro doubled over in pain. The creatures dropped him to the ground. He tried to stand, or at least sit up, but a terrible weakness had overcome him and all he could do was writhe and moan in pain.

He felt someone pat him on the head, as if trying to comfort him, then he heard dismissing, patronizing laughter and more words in that horrible language. It sounded like they were mocking him. Then crashing noises and the beasts left him there in the woods.

Then, silence.