"Look at that, Senpai! That place has dangos! Let's take a small break!" I squealed, rolling my eyes under my mask. I swung my arms around like the dim-wit the Tobi-guise is. How much more time until I can finally be alone and let this façade just drop? It's so annoying. "We've been walking for like forever; I'm totally beat!"

"Like Hell you are," I heard Deidara mutter as I scampered up the road towards the small shop. When he plopped down beside me, he said, "Seriously, you're such a carefree guy, hmm."

As carefree as I could, I replied airily, "But, Senpai! We're looking for a Bijuu to capture, but we have no idea where it is. Might as well just take it easy, hn!"

After a pause, just to irk Deidara, I added, "Come to think of it, which one was it again?"

"Sanbi! The Sanbi!"

"Ichibi, Nibi, I am Tobi!" I stared at Deidara through my mask's eyehole, watching his eyes widen in disbelief, then narrow in irritation. "Badum, pssh!"

"Here you go. The dangos are done." An old lady padded up towards us, and placed two plates of dangos down onto the floor in between Deidara and me.

Squealing, I said while picking a stick of dangos up, "Whoa-ho-ho! The dangos look so yummy! Let's have a taste."

Beside me, I heard Deidara grunt in slight surprise. I smirked. He thinks he'll get a peek under this mask? Good luck with that, kid… Just to fill up the silence, I said happily, "Time to eat!"

Slowly, I shifted my mask up my face, bringing the dangos closer to my mouth. At the last moment, I whipped away from Deidara. I snickered inaudibly as I pictured the face Deidara was making at me.

I munched on the dangos.

They were actually pretty good.

"It's so delicious! This sauce is great! Not too sweet, not too salty! This is perfection!" I whipped back around and slipped the mask back over my face, a now empty dango stick in my hand. "That was great."

I had to work to keep the smirk out of my voice.

Ah, tricking this little boy is so much fun…

All of a sudden a brilliant idea popped to my head. This was sure to make Deidara squirm. Turning my body to face the inside of the shop, I whispered while pointing at a pig-shaped lantern thing, "Senpai, Senpai! Look, look! That looks exactly like your artwork doesn't it? Could it be that your works of art are…" I shifted my pitch of voice from the low one it was before to an annoying high-pitched one. "A cheap rip-off?"

Deidara's reaction was immediate. He lowered his head and began to tremble in anger. Subconsciously, a grin spread across my face. I tried to wipe it off my face, but each time, it stretched back into place. I decided I'd leave it there.

"You piece of shit…"

I made an odd, strangled noise from the back of my throat. Quickly, I created a shadow clone, sending it off to run as fast as it could to continue up the path we'd come up from, and stepped into the dimension I had made for myself years before, watching the scene unfold.

"I'll blast you to Hell!"

A large boom sounded, and I closed off the portal's connection to the ninja world, just in case some debris managed to find its way into the portal.

Checking to see whether or not I was alone as a precaution, I took off my mask and laughed freely.

Oh, God, pissing people off is so much fun…

I chortled some more, before straightening up my composure and replacing my mask. I stepped back out into the ninja world.

But not before I felt a strange dissonance – a ripple – in the air.

What the hell?

I was floating. Floating in mid-air. It was so peaceful.

Below me, an air current rushed pass and rocked me gently in my bed of clouds. From somewhere faraway I heard a sweet, lilting tune. My heart wrenched. My mother used to sing me to sleep with that melody…

The dream tilted and flashed into a nightmare. The clouds disappeared, and the heady, soothing feeling of peacefulness vanished, leaving bitter fright in its wake. No longer was I lying in the sky.

Instead, I was steadily sinking into red, burning hot lava.

The lava didn't hurt physically, was what I tried to convince myself of. It was a dream, after all. But the lava did hurt physically, even if I couldn't actually feel it. My physical body was slowly peeling away, right before my very eyes, layers of skin, than muscle, than bone showing through. I tried to scream but found I couldn't. I reached up a hand, finding it as a skeleton. With trembling finge- bones, I touched where my throat was supposed to be.

The point of view where I was viewing my nightmare unfold abruptly switched, and I was watching millions of bodies corrode and sink under the magma. Screams pierced the hot unbearable air and died as suddenly as they came as the red hot liquid ate through the throng of people. I knew my face was contorted into rage, panic, and absolute dread. My hand – now, strangely healed, not that I was complaining – reached out unconsciously towards the writhing mass in the pit below.

Up until now, the bodies had no faces that I could clearly make out.

But just then, everybody had the same faces, same features, same everything.

The lady over there – my mom. The same white blonde hair, tan face, crinkled-from-smiling blue eyes; except right now, they were staring at me in horror. I could just make out the words she was mouthing.

"Why aren't you saving me?"

To her left – my kid brother. Tousled dirty blonde hair, pale face, bright blue eyes, and out of place freckles; he too, was staring at me.

"Why aren't you protecting me?"

A ghostly image of my dead father appeared beside me. "There's nothing you or I can do about this." He turned his ethereal face towards mine. "Besides, we all belong in the Hell anyways. Humans and Sin. Sin and Humans!"

He cackled manically before poofing into nothing-ness.

There were other people now too, down below. People I hadn't seen before.

There was someone who looked to be like a long lost cousin. Bright blonde hair and bright blue eyes. The person's left eye was covered with some mechanical contraption. He or she was howling, reaching, grasping for anything that would help him or her out. There were decaying mouths on his palms. I turned my gaze from the person before I could see anymore.

There was another person that was half black and half white, and had a disintegrating Venus Fly Trap around his upper body. He didn't say anything, wasn't squirming. His eyes were already glazed over.

Another, another, another.

A pale man with slicked back platinum blonde hair almost whiter than mom's.

Another pale man with raven black hair and red, pinwheel eyes.

A man in a mask that seemed suspended over the chasm, but kept on falling in to the burning scene periodically and wailing like a banshee.

A woman with light blue hair and charred paper covering her body.

A carrot-top man who had piercings all over.

Strange puppets that were attached to shimmery strings that were controlled by another ghost – that eccentrically, looked like a puppet himself – with bright, flaming red hair the shade of the lava.

A man with stitches everywhere and who was fighting with taunting spirits for something – is that money? – even as his own body parts began to fall off.

A man with a blue complexion and fins on his cheeks. A sword that seemed to have a conscience of its own tried to float to the blue man, but was repeatedly yanked back by some invisible force. The blue man cried.

And finally, an emaciated man whose face was devoid and empty of emotion even as he sank deeper and deeper into the deadly liquid. However, when I focused on his eyes, they were flat, dead, and I saw how sad he truly was.

I couldn't take this.

I can't take this.

"And, why exactly, can't you take this?" A voice asked me. It was fluid, soft, and smooth as honey. But there was an undertone that reminded me of the rough earth, the crackle of lightning, the whip of a tornado. "If you can't take even this then I'm afraid you'll just die."

I sobbed. Is it possible to sob in a dream? I sobbed. "I don't want this."

The voice sneered. "Hell, cupcake, I don't want this either. Did I get what I want? No. So deal with it."

The tears ran freely now. Was this my subconscious talking to me? How rude. This is my dream. I decide what happens.

"Go away!"

"Sorry, cupcake, no can do." The voice sounded almost amused. "Funny you should try taking over control of your mind when you're sharing it with a room-ie though. I don't quite think that that's… fair."

In a flash, I was down in the writhing mass of bodies once more, my skin charring, peeling, dying, falling. I gasped, and once more, found I couldn't. I couldn't cry, because my tears evaporated even before they left my body.

It was the most horrid feeling ever.

The voice traveled down to me again. "Look up here, cupcake!"

Let me die already. Let this end. Let me wake up!

"Nu-uh, not yet." Two fingers tilted the skeleton of my face up. If I was disintegrated already, why could I still see? "Take a look at these, and remember them."

Two emerald green eyes slowly opened in front of me. They both flashed and crackled, like they were charged with electricity. A few moments later, they turned a mossy green, and I could've sworn I saw a squirrel appear in both eyes before darting away. What the hell? There aren't any squirrels here.

"Remember my eyes well, cupcake." The eyes lifted slightly, as if the person owning them were smiling. "Now go to sleep."

The two fingers that had lifted my skull up turned into two hands that pushed me down all the way into the lava.

I woke up screaming bloody murder, my chest heaving, and my whole body sweating like I'd just taken a bath in lava. No pun intended.

The voice and the eyes of my dream; they sent shivers down my spine and made my brain go haywire. I was afraid to open my eyes. What if I found that I was on the tip of a gigantic cliff, and was about to tumble down into the lava below from those cold, slim hands?

But my senses told me otherwise. Soft grass cushioned my body, not bubbling magma. The air felt cool and breathable, unlike the ashy, disgusting air in my dream.

I sluggishly opened my eyes, blinking rapidly at the brightness beyond my lids. I reached up to rub my eyes, but my arm felt like someone had replaced my muscles and bones with a dozen bags of sand. I let the limb fall back to my side

Where am I? I wondered offhandedly. Wherever I was, it sure was comfy. Am I at home?

But when did mom remake the tiled floor of our house, the furniture and beds of our house, into grass?

I slowly re-opened my eyes, testing their sensitivity to the bright light of the sun. Eventually, after much cursing and heavy blinking, my eyes adjusted enough and I could make out my surroundings without having to squint like an angry creeper.

I was on forest ground, in a meadow of some sort. My mind was still fumbling and disoriented from my frightening dream – were those green eyes over there staring at me? Get away! – and it took a while for me to realize that my surroundings were not familiar.

I fell asleep - or did I fall unconscious? - near a waterfall, no? I don't know this place... Where's my stuff? Wait... If I don't know this place, that means I've never been here, which means...

I'm not at home anymore.

I let loose another ear-piercing shriek. This time, instead of a dream, my fear sprouted from the prospect of never, ever being able to find home again. I won't be able to see mom again, my brother again, my friends again, my dog again…

"Someone, anyone, help!"

FIRST THINGS FIRST. DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT 'SERAMTHGIN' IS SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT? IF YOU KNOW, SAY IT IN A REVIEW AND YOU GET BRAGGING RIGHTS.

NEXT THINGS NEXT. ANNE MIGHT SEEM A BIT PANICKY IN HERE. AND SOMETHINGS MIGHT CONFUSE PEOPLE. IF YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE, DROP ME A PM OR REVIEW OR SOMETHING THAT TELLS ME WHAT CONFUSES YOU, SO I CAN TRY AND CHANGE THE WORDING IN THE CHAPTER FOR FUTURE REFERENCE AND OTHER STUFF. SUCH AS EXPLAINING WHAT YOU GOT CONFUSED ABOUT.

LAST THINGS LAST. I KNOW I'M AN EXTREME DOUCHE FOR COMMITTING THE CRIME OF 'NON-UPDATER'. MY SINCEREST APOLOGIES. AND I ALSO KNOW I'M A DOUCHE FOR COMMITTING THE CRIME OF 'EXTREMELYLONGA/NSHUTTHEHELLUPAUTHOR'. MY SORT OF SINCERE APOLOGIES.

Don't own Naruto. Yet. I'm planning to overthrow Kishimoto and turn Naruto's characters over to their rightful fangirls. WHO'S WITH ME?

Ah yeah, and thank you: deathnotefan1, blackcatgirl, XxBishxX, and Suki77 for reviewing! You guys rock!

Ah yeah, and thank you: Midnighter67, Suki77, TheParadoxicalOtaku, and XxBishxX for favoriting! You guys make my days ten times better!

Ah yeah, and thank you: blackcatgirl, Lil' Bunny Lynn-Lynn, Midnighter67, Moonlight Kyuubi, phoenixyfriend, Suki77, and XxBishxX for story alerting! Man, if it weren't for you guys… This still would be in the making! And probably wouldn't be up for another ten years!

I owe it all to you guys! And cookies!

So, like, hey. How you doing? This took hell to upload (not really) and I'm about to cry from over working (tch, yeah right) and my eye sight just dropped by a million degrees because of spending so much time editing and revising and perfecting this (in my dreams). So you'd better appreciate this and leave a review! (I'd be surprised if anyone even VIEWED this much less REVIEWED it…)

Uh, yeah.

Have a nice day/night/noon/afternoon/morning!~

Sending vodka and sunflowers,

Ami