"Katsuna, time to get up." Karin said rolling over and gently shaking the girl. Katsuna may be their age and super happy but on the first night they discovered that she had one flaw. Katsuna was terrified of the dark and need to sleep with someone in case she had a nightmare. Instinctively with Karin reminding her of her mother she clung to her. Katsuna yawned and looked up. "Let's go make breakfast."

"Okay, Karin." Katsuna got up and walked over to the small door and slipped her heels on. Karin copied her and they walked out together into the common room. To their surprise Sasuke was sitting on the table, the messenger falcon from before sitting on his shoulder. "Karin… get out."

"Okay." Karin said shakily and rushed back into the room. Katsuna smiled and walked foreword confidently. "You know it's rude to read others mail, Sasuke."

"You're not from the River Temple and you have Chakra. I don't really care why you're here but I do want to know how you can cloak Chakra, that'd be a useful asset." Sasuke said quickly. "So tell me or I'll go tell Madara."

"I can kill you before you even move, Sasuke, but that's not why I'm here, as for the chakra, it was a painful surgery that took two years to recover from, and I highly doubt you would want to be down that long. Now, my message." Katsuna held out her hand and Sasuke pulled it out of his robes and handed it over. "Thank you."

She opened it and read it quickly. "What does 'K 3 D, he is well' mean?"

"That we're leaving tonight. Don't tell anyone else yet. You'll regret it." She said still confident then smiled and went into her shy quiet voice. "So do you want scrambled eggs?"

"I like poached." Sasuke said and began to walk away as Katsuna went to go get Karin.


"Why does it hurt so much?" Itachi asked as Kaiyomi helped him walk across the floor. He shrugged her off and took a couple of steps on his own. "Let me guess, it's going to take a lot of work to get my muscles functioning like they used to?"

"Yep. If your able to run by tonight then we can leave, I intercepted a messenger bird, Konoha's being attack by Pein as we speak, but the Kyuubi boy's not there." She said. She picked up a needle and jabbed it into his leg. "This will take some of the pain away. Start walking faster and it'll hurt less when the drugs wear off."

"Should I be flapping my arms too?" He joked expecting her to hit him, instead she nodded.

"It'd be a good idea, flex them too. Feel free to wander, just stay out of the break room, I tried to cook this morning and exploded a potato." Kaiyomi said carefully and left Itachi to himself. As Itachi began walking in circles moving as much as he can he noticed something outside the door. "How's there!"

"HELLO! My name's Ruki!" She said bursting into the room. "Hey mister what's with the chicken dance?" Ruki watched him carefully then stood there for a minute before doing them as well. "Is this some training thing? Want to see what I can do?"

Ruki jumped up on the ceiling and began doing it above his head. "How old are you?"

"I'm five, how old are you?" Ruki replied quickly.

"I'm twenty," Itachi, tired of doing that exercise moved on and began looking around. "Do you have a gym around here somewhere?"

"Oh, the work out area, it's kind of Katsuna's but she's not here right now!" Ruki jumped down and grabbed his hand and pulled him down the hall and past two large revolving red doors to see a large gymnasium with a weight room to the side. "You mean like this."

Itachi walked over to some iron horizontal bars protruding from the wall and jumped an inch and grasped them the best he could. Slowly and painfully he pulled up. "Yes… Thank you." Itachi did a couple more curl ups while Ruki watched him carefully.

"Hey mister, wanna race." Itachi dropped down and took a deep breath in; he nodded slowly. Ruki backed up next to him and pointed to the red line just in front of him. "We stay on the outside and the red line's the finish. Three laps! Go!"

Ruki burst out as fast as she could which was equivalent to Itachi's longer stride. Ruki giggling jumped up on the wall and sped ahead. Itachi began to press harder through the pain. Soon Itachi had caught up to her then seeing his abilities returning he jumped up on the wall higher then her and easily took to changing the walls to the point where he was jumping the corners a quarter off the walls each time.

Finishing Itachi stopped and turned around. Ruki turned onto the wall and run up to him. "That's cheating, up can't jump corners."

"How about a 10 lap race, up the walls and across the ceiling?" Itachi laughed and smiled down at the child. 'She's good for training purposes.'


"Leaving?" Madara asked as Sasuke and the rest of the young adults stood behind them, "Just be more careful with your life, I don't want to find you an inch from death like last time."

"Don't worry; I'm not battling solo anymore. I'll keep in touch Madara." Sasuke said and turned around and nodded to his group. They headed out one after another, lastly Katsuna, "Kisame, I left you some raw fish in the fridge, buh-bye!"

She jumped out last and was nearly met by Sasuke's sword, "Now, you have a few things to explain."

"Later, we need to get as far away as possible." She said and uncloaked her chakra. Karin's head jolted. "Sorry to do that so close to you Karin, I forgot you could sense it."

"It feels like Kisame's…" Katsuna smiled and began to dash across the desert Sasuke with sword out followed directly behind.


"Here put this on." Kaiyomi said as they run along the path. She handed over a wig and false beard to Itachi. "Just in case we can't get in through the front with their current guards. I think we'll be fine when I offer my services. We'll be there in two days."

"I'll put it on in two days then." Itachi said and shoved them away in his bag. Ruki who was perched on top of Kaiyomi began fidgeting. "Ruki, are you alright."

"I have to go to the bathroom…." Kaiyomi halted and Itachi was able to stop somewhat close to them.

"Really Ruki you need to say that as soon as it hits, alright." Kaiyomi set her own and dug in her bag for a moist toilette, handing it over the little girl rushed a ways into the woods. "She's cute isn't she? I found her two years ago abandoned, I've been training her ever since."

"She's only five and on the ceiling, when does she get to be a kid?" Itachi asked and Kaiyomi smiled. "Don't tell me that she enjoys training."

"To familiar, eh Itachi?"


Karin was up twenty feet away from Suigetsu who had chosen to take south watch for a while. Juugo who insisted he could go without sleep the entire night chose to watch the North expecting retaliation from Rock country. Sasuke sat at the camp fire prodding it with his sword. Katsuna sat there waiting for something to happen.

"So, why don't you start with a simple explanation of everything." Sasuke said.

"I work for an OCD medical ninja named Kaiyomi, a few days ago we received a rather unusual arrival. Dealing in mostly dead bodies we were surprised to get one an inch from life. He's being rehabilitated and we're meeting up in three days at Konoha." Katsuna smiled. "Apparently, you didn't kill your brother, just beat the crap out of him."

"Itachi's…."

"I have a question for…. It's really dark and…. Can I sleep next to you, I don't like the dark."

"What?"

"Well… I kind of have this phobia of being left alone in darkness which is why I always have someone to sleep with or I don't sleep so would you mind? I can always get Karin…" Katsuna said and Sasuke walked away and cut a branch of a near by tree and dragged it over tossing it on the fire. He raised his hand to his lips and a small stream of fire came out and the log began to burn.

"I'm going to sleep… just don't hit me." Sasuke laid his head down and smiled. 'Itachi's…'