I don't own Naruto.

Knock knock knock

"Enter."

Creak

"Sorry to disturb you sir, but I have a message for you."

I took the folded piece of paper from the young servant and waited until the door was shut to undo the protective seal. It was a short letter but long enough for me to get the point; I had another mission tonight.

I immediately grabbed my black hooded cloak and reached for my katana. I only stopped to burn the note before stepping into one of the many hallways of headquarters. I wordlessly made my way through the dimly lit building and turned into the main meeting room reserved only for the most prestigious of us. Only fifteen people were even allowed in there: my ten colleagues and the five council members.

"Good evening Sasuke."

"Evening, Neji." I passed by the light-eyed man who had addressed me with a slight inclining of my head. Had it been any other person who had spoken my name so casually his head would have been rolling on the floor at this moment. Alas it was Neji, though, and not an unsuspecting and innocent servant. I so love putting people in their proper place.

I took count of the people who were already present, noting that both Shino and Kiba were not yet at hand; something that was not unusual for the latter mentioned but extremely out of character behavior for Shino.

After counting every head in the room I concluded that eight out of the ten of us were ready.

I sat in silence to wait.

Soon a very flustered looking Kiba and a silent Shino walked in.

"About time you two." Shikamaru said mid-yawn. "Thought we were gone need to start without you."

"Sorry Shika." Kiba scratched his neck sheepishly and took his place next to Haku while Shino silently placed himself between Gaara and his brother, Kankuro.

I sat at the head of the table; Neji on my right and Gaara on my left. There were eleven chairs at the oval table, one of which was empty as it was for the lowest rank of the council members, Zabuza.

His seat was at the foot of the table, though his rank should have placed him in my seat. Zabuza chose to sit at the foot despite this. No one really knew why but I suspected it had to do with the convenient placing of the lowest ranked member of our group, Haku.

Sai nudged Shikamaru with his elbow, trying to keep him awake at least until our mission was explained. The two of them plus Yamato were the second to lowest rank before Kiba and Haku.

Shino and Kankuro were dead in the center of the hierarchy while Neji and Gaara were the most senior. Besides me, of course.

Zabuza finally entered, jagged teeth aligned in what I took to be a smile. "Good evening everyone." We all politely nodded our greeting, my nod more slight than the others'. Zabuza sat, taking a longer glance than necessary at Haku. "I assume you all know why you are here tonight. It's more unusual than not to be meeting here before a mission but we have a rather unusual situation tonight. We will need all of you for this one."

"What, another fire? Mass killing?" Neji asked indifferently.

"No-"

"Second holocaust?" Kiba interrupted. He promptly apologized as he saw the look on the councilor member's face.

"No. This is something we haven't seen in a long while. Not since Gaara."

Zabuza glanced at the stoic redhead, as did we all. "I'm sure you three remember." He nodded at Gaara, Neji, and I. We had been new recruits at the time of Gaara's death. We knew. He again nodded at Kankuro. "You too, I'm sure."

Kankuro nodded back solemnly and whispered, "The demon."

"Naruto come on, the hospital isn't that bad." Choji rolled his eyes at his friend while munching on a potato chip.

"Yes it is! It smells weird. Besides the people are scary."

"Well yeah…usually you're hurt when you go to the hospital, genius."

"I'm not talking about the patients. I'm talking about Sakura!"

"You're scared of having your own friend as a nurse?"

"Yeah, who knows what she'll do to me; they have lots of pointy stuff at hospitals. She's just waiting for the chance to finally kill me."

Naruto clung to the car seat, refusing to let go. Choji tried to pry his friend from the car by force.

"I doubt she'll kill you for just a few wisecracks, Naruto." He said, finally managing to get Naruto out of his car.

As he dragged the blond into the massive building the loud mouthed boy wailed, "Nooooooooooo, Choji! Please?!"

"Shut up Naruto."

"But-"

"No excuses. If you fight anymore your heart just might give out!" Naruto finally sighed and let himself be dragged along.

"Damn my weak heart."

"Demon?" Questioned Shino.

No one answered him. We wanted Gaara to talk. Of course waiting for a word out of the redhead always proved futile so Neji decided to speak for him after a time. He was closer to Gaara than anyone else had ever managed to be, even his brother.

"It's a strange anomaly born into a normal child every so often. Gaara's death was about a hundred years ago, demonstrating how uncommon it really is. These demons usually have names, we called Gaara's-"

"His name was Shukaku." Gaara's low voice sounded, startling everyone. His head was tilted down so we could not see his face but even if we had I'm sure we wouldn't have been able to read his emotions. Sometimes it was even as if he had none. "He was the monster inside my head. Even still I can hear him, if only distantly. They stay he is gone. Dead. But his whisper keeps me up at night even now."

There was silence around the table. Even Kiba looked solemn for once.

"This boy is like that. This demon's name is Kyuubi. Your mission is to kill the beast before killing the boy. And be careful, the demon will be able to see you although the child will not." Zabuza broke the silence. We all nodded our understanding. "I hope you don't mind, Sasuke. I will have Gaara lead this one, although you may do the talking." I nodded again, taking a glance at the redhead, hoping that he would cooperate. Even after all these years of working with him, he was still unstable.

"What is the name of the target?" I asked, seeing as Gaara didn't.

"Uzumaki Naruto."

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