Sasuke sighed, leaning his head back against the wood and looking up into the black of the closet. His night vision had definitely improved. Even just the tiny amount of bleak gray light that seeped in at the corners of their doorway was enough to let him see the crack that spidered its way down past his shoulder. His sense of smell had doubled as well, tripled when his mouth opened. The smell of iron in the small room was nearly over powering.

Sakura's quiet breathing was soft, almost silent but for the small hitches when her eyelids fluttered. She had managed to fall into a somewhat restless sleep in the hours they had been sitting there, sparing the risk of her new claustrophobic attacks. As he watched, her figure shifted in the darkness, the toe of her shoe bumping his ankle. Her eyes opened, squeezed shut, and her next breaths were more forced than they had been. Finally, he felt her relax, lapsing into sleep again, and he released the breath he hadn't known he had been holding.

He reached out, hand fumbling towards where Naruto was, knocking her ribs before sidetracking to her arm. Still alive, but her skin had gotten much colder than it should have been, restless breaths rattling her small frame. He'd always been small, but in this form, he (she) seemed so much smaller. She was hovering in the limbo of sleep, not quick conscious, but not awake either.

Footsteps coming towards them. Sasuke stiffened at the unfamiliar voices that were speaking, too low to be one of the copious amounts of children he'd seen, and he hadn't seen a man hanging around the house. Leaning back, Sasuke felt himself accidentally nudge Sakura's arm.

In a second, Sakura was up. Her head rammed against the ceiling and she sat down again with a squeak, her breath speeding up, though from pain or realization that she was back in the cubby hole, Sasuke couldn't tell. He heard the voices go quiet, footsteps come closer. Perfectly still, he gripped Sakura's arm in a way that was sure to leave bruises. Naruto's fingers twitched as she came a bit closer to consciousness.

"-you hear that?" A click and then white light shone through the crack on the floor where the hidden door was. In it, Sasuke could see one of Sakura's eyes, bright jade green, and wide in fear. Trapped in a hole with no where to go, and no chakra to rely on in a pinch. A ninja's worst nightmare.

A loud snort. "It's a closet. No one would be stupid enough to hide in there." Another voice answered, deeper and gruffer than the first. Another click, and the light vanished once again. Sasuke stayed frozen until his eyes readjusted themselves to the lower light level, then let his fist release from it's deathgrip around Sakura's bicep. She was still stiff as a board though, and her breath speeding up far too quickly.

Sasuke leaned close. "Close your eyes!" He hissed at her. "You're outside. Blue Sky."

A loud gulp from beside him in the darkness, fingers finding his and clinging as it her life depended on it. "I don't know how much longer I can stand in here." She whispered feebly back.

"Not much longer." He hoped.

"Sasuke?" This one was from Naruto. Sasuke used his free hands to feel his way up her arm to her cheek, fingertips tracing over her eyebrows and feeling her lashes flutter. A sign that he was listening.

"... Am I blind?"

"We're in a closet." Sasuke said and sighed. Sick and weak as she sounded, at least she had enough energy to joke a bit.

Naruto's face crinkled beneath his hand in what he assumed was a smile, then relaxed as she lay back. No doubt she'd been awake when he'd tried to calm Sakura (who was steadily cutting off the circulation to his hand.)

Light came again as the closet was opened, and with it, the trap door. Sasuke squinted, shielding his eyes with a hand from the suddenly painful amount of light.

An unfamiliar boy, only about ten, peered in from beneath a mop of black hair with bright blue eyes. He couldn't get a word our before Sakura was shoving herself out, in the process managing to squash Sasuke's hand with her heel.

The boy stared after Sakura who was skidding around, probably looking for a window or something. Then he turned his eyes to Sasuke, wide and scared by the glare he received in return. They shifted to Naruto quickly, widened, and his mouth opened.

"She's hurt." He said, a slight accent hanging in his voice, lilting and round. Sasuke's stare didn't waver. Naruto looked overly pale in the sickening white light, and didn't say anything.

"Kakesu!" It was the girl from before, cream ears flattened so low to her skull, they nearly disappeared in the folds of her hair. She hurried over, shooing away the boy swiftly and ignoring his complaints.

"But Akemi-" He whined. A pair of scruffily pointed black ears atop his head swiveled around.

"No. Go away." Akemi, the girl said quickly and nearly shoved the boy-Kakesu- out the door. She turned back to Sasuke and her face softened considerably.

"You can come out now. They're gone." She said speaking as though a loud noise would scare him stony, Sasuke let his lips tighten to a thin line, slid his arms beneath Naruto and eased them both through the door and into the open.

He couldn't help it when his eyes began their automatic skim for escape routes. Open door to the left, the one he'd come through, though now it was full of curious children. A second door across the room from him, closed, but it probably led to another room. Wide window against the wall beside him, though there were no latches or bolts. It didn't open. Sasuke sent glares at the children, watching them scatter. If worse came to worse, their only certain escape would be through that door.

"What have we got here?" An older woman, smile lines wrinkling her face, came in, tying an apron around her middle. Sasuke recognized her as the one who had waved them inside, and watched warily as her deep set eyes measured Naruto grimly where Sasuke had lain her on the floor.

"She took a bullet. Around here on her shoulder." Akemi said, kneeling down on the ground next to Sasuke, her hands motioning to the general area of where the blood was seeping down. She smelled of clorox and wheat. Sasuke's hands tightened to fists where they rested on his thighs. Neither of the women noticed. Thankfully, no one tried to shoo him out as Akemi had to the boy. Sasuke was sure the result would not have been pretty.

Finished tying her apron, the woman set to work immediately, gripping a knife between her knobbly fingers. Sasuke's spine stiffened and he half stood, when the woman brought the knife near Naruto's throat, blood surging in his ears. She pressed it to the hem of her shirt, slicing an angle enough to expose Naruto's shoulder. Sasuke's throat constricted,

Sasuke had seen his fair share of spilt blood, deep wounds and ripped stomachs before. When his first kill had come along, not long after he'd left Konoha, he'd retched, listening to Orochimaru's laughter, like the slithering of snakes across grating, but seeing the woman's eyes gray and pale, the splattering of blood from his kunai plunged into her throat, and the way she'd coughed more up on his arm. When he'd gotten stronger, he'd tamped down everything that made him "weak." Slicing and dicing, dislocation and pulverization, he'd seen enough gore to make some medic ninja envious. This though...

Kunai knives made neat slashes, Swords made clean cuts, shuriken made single divets. "Bullets" made one, perfectly circular and utterly sickening hole, the skin around it purpling and bruising, skin flayed and torn to make a ring of dead, sagging, puckered flesh.

"Definitely a bullet. Probably still in there, seeing as there's not enough of an exit wound for a clean hit." The woman "tsked" quietly as she probed around the area. "Bullets these days... probably split apart when his hit muscle tissue..." She muttered and "tsked" again. Without looking up, she waved a hand around. Sasuke leaned back to avoid being flicked with the spare amounts of blood on her fingertips.

"We need a bowl of lukewarm water, clean dishrags, the scissors I keep in the specialty drawer, Hana's long tweezers, and some needle and thread." She rapped out. Akemi jumped up as if a bee had stung her, running from the room and calling out around the house until feet were beating like thunder against floorboards.

Sasuke settled down into a crouch, forearms on his knees. "Who are you?" Courtesy demanded he be polite to an elder, gracious to a host when being shelted. Courtesy did not demand that those rules apply in a possible hostile situation, and as far as Sasuke could read, this could turn into one at any moment.

"Chiyoki." She looked up, measuring him from his head to his feet, a frown creasing her face. She looked back down at her probing. "Brown Bear anima."

Chiyoki grunted as she tore more of Naruto's shirt away, and suddenly, Sasuke was very aware of the fact that Naruto now did indeed posses breasts. Gulping nervously, he focused on Chiyoki's hands working to shift Naruto's torso around. "Help me roll her onto her stomach. The force went through her, but the bullet is near the entrance." She grunted.

Sasuke leaned forward, placing his words in his mind carefully before heaving Naruto onto her stomach. Naruto wimpered lightly and Sasuke tried not to wince. Even with high pain tolerance, this must have hurt a lot more than she was letting on. Sasuke licked his lips, eyes flickering at Chiyoki before looking back down at her hands. "So a bullet comes from...?"

Chiyoki glanced up, surprise marring her features and forcing her mouth into an "o" shape, before she burst out into cackles of laughter. "Don't know what a gun is? Boy, where are you from?" She said, still chuckling and shaking her head.

Sasuke's discomfort doubled. So easy to see through them... If they'd been anywhere else, blending in would be second nature, but here, they were just so out of place. Sasuke brushed A bit of Naruto's bangs out from her eyes to mask his jitteryness. Akemi came in, balancing water as best she could without having it slosh over the edges of the bowl, setting it down placidly besides Chiyoki. A fistful of dishrags from the back of her skirt was deposited as well, before she was jogging back out.

Chiyoki watched her go before answering in a low tone. "Bullets come from guns, and guns are weapons that are not to be messed with." She pulled her hands away and rested them on the apron, leaving crimson smudges on the gray fabric. She pinned Sasuke with her gray eyes, are as flint and serious as the death. "They are not to be used lightly."

And then the seriousness disappated, replaced with a worried sort of determination and focus as she dipped a rag into the water and began to wash the drying blood away from the wound, unsticking black cloth from where it had been matted against Naruto's skin. Naruto squeezed her eyes shut, breathing quickly through her mouth as Chiyoki tugged a thread from the wound. She'd been so quiet. Quiet Naruto was not good.

Sasuke sat back again,thinking over Chiyoki's words. Anything that made wounds like this was bad news. So far everything was looking like bad news; they didn't know where they were, didn't know the weapons used, and stuck out like sore thumbs, Not to mention Sakura had disappeared to who knows where.

"Here." Akemi came in again, this time with tweezers, scissors, and thread and needle at hand. She set them next to the bowl an a white cloth to keep them from touching the concrete floor, and settled near Naruto's feet, careful not to jostle her. "How bad?"

"Not as bad as it coulda been," Chiyoki said, almost to herself, eyes not lifting. As Sasuke watched, she lifted a a sliver or blood covered metal from the hole and made Naruto hiss. "But the bullet seems to have split on contact. The 24-30 bullets are getting more common it seens, to be used by the BR. There's a large chunk lodged between the clavicle and the scapula near a tendon. It's gonna be a pain to get out." Chiyoki went silent, and Sasuke quietly thanked the months he'd spent in Kabuto's labs for a strong stomach and anatomy lessons.

The work was grim and silent, aside from the occasional murmur from Chiyoki, or squeak from Naruto, who was looking so white, Sasuke had started wishing she would just pass out. The bleeding had started again and had pooled on the rug beneath her, staining it a dirty reddish-brown. At somepoint, Sakura came back in, looking flushed, windblown and very very nervous. Sasuke met her eyes. All clear?

Clear. Sakura gave a nod, hair swishing around her chin. Her wings fluttered a bit behind her and Sasuke was suddenly reminded with stark clarity the fact that everyone here was part animal. Shoving the though back, he eyes Sakura again, a quick, barely conceivable toss of his head to the left where they had come from. Door?

A slower nod, eyes shifting up, indicating that the only way out was up. Great.

"I never caught your name." Chiyoki said suddenly. Sasuke's eyes shifted from Sakura's to Chiyoki's where they were still focused on Naruto. She was threading a needle quietly, and it was almost as if she hadn't asked the question at all. Sakura dissappeared back down the hallway, this time toward the left. More scouting. Sasuke stared down at Naruto's ashen face, ignoring the look Akemi was giving him.

"Sasuke." He swore internally. It was Anbu standard to give an alias, but this world had shaken him up enough to jar him out of well-worked in habits.

Chiyoki nodded sagely, burning the length of the needle with an oddly shaped lighter. "And who might I be working on?"

Sasuke hesitated. Didn't matter much in this world he guessed, since they had no record here. "...Naruto." At her name, One of Naruto's eyes cracked open, looking flat and bloodshot. The corner of her mouth twitched in a half-hearted smile, then relaxed again.

"Naruto? What an odd name for a girl." Chiyoki said and set about work sewing up the torn bits of skin, now freshly trimmed and cleaned. It was still bruising, but it looked worlds better than it had before. Same couldn't be said for Naruto.

Sakura slid open the door, finding Sasuke's eyes, mouthed a quick, Twelve rooms total, and shut the door again. Chiyoki spared a glance over her shoulder, then at Sasuke with a quirked eyebrow.

"That's Sakura." Sasuke said before the woman could ask.

"Flighty one, isn't she?" Chiyoki asked. Sasuke nodded. Akemi was pretending to look busy rinsing out rags in the red colored water of the washbowl and listening in quietly. She was making him uneasy just sitting there and listening in with no contributions. His mind supplied him with it's paranoid answers. Spy.

Seeing his shift in attention, Chiyoki smiled at Akemi, face creasing warmly and fitting everyone of those smile wrinkles. "Akemi dear, we need some bandages." She said. Akemi gave her a somewhat hurt look, but complied either way, standing up with the bowl of water and flouncing from the room. The door shut harder than necessary, and Chiyoki finished her stitching, tying a tiny, neat, practiced knot, and wiping her hands on her aprom, smudging it further.

"You three aren't from around here." Chiyoki stated. Not a question, not a query. For the life of him, Sasuke could not tell what was going on behind her dark gray eyes. A small sigh, not one she could have heard, and Sasuke tore his eyes away from her and let his fingers skim the air of Naruto's shoulder where the fine stitching was set in a nearly perfect row. "Obvious?"

Chiyoki snorted. "You didn't know what a gun was." She said and shook her head. "Plus, police only give chases like that when they're after unknowns."

"Unknowns?"

"Folk not registered in the system that runs our fair city." Chiyoki's voice held a certain bitterness and she waved around at the walls as if indicating the whole of the city that was bustling outside the building. The sun was just dipping below the horizon outside, painting the overcast sky a purplish blue. Akemi came back in with rolls of linen held delicately in her palms. One of her ears twitched at the topic of their conversation.

Chiyoki took the linen and set about wrapping Naruto's shoulder while Sasuke moved to prop her body up. She'd finally fallen into a feverish sleep, her eyes still scrunched and eyebrows furrowed in a way that made her nose bunch up at the bridge.

"Everyone in Shinrin City is registered in the computers and tracked wherever they go. People unregistered: unknowns. Invisible to the system, and therefore a 'potential threat'."

Sasuke's jaw clenched. Perfect. Now they had no way of moving about the city to gather information either. They'd have to gather as much from the confines of this place and then... then they'd...

Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose. God, things looked bleak. He and Sakura would have to find some sort of game plan... find a way to register themselves without being given away or being directly pinpointed.

Chiyoki grunted as she pulled herself up, oblivious to Sasuke's thoughts and using a nearby chair as a brace. Akemi gathered up the extra materials quickly, rolling them into an unorganized bundle in her arms and avoiding meeting Sasuke's eyes. Chiyoki nodded at her, clasping her worn hands together. "Akemi will show you to your rooms." Seeing the worried glance Sasuke tossed at Naruto who he's scooped up into his arms once again, she smiled. "Or room, if you want to keep an eye on her during the night." She added. Sasuke sent her silent thanks.

Akemi led them out into a long hallway lined with rooms on either side. There were indeed, twelve, along with three bathrooms, four closets, a pantry, and a door that led up a set of stairs. Looking into one of the copious occupied rooms, Sasuke saw a pile of five year olds scrunched together in an effort to all get a good look at a picture book that was placed in front of them.

"Why are there so many... children?" Sasuke asked, peering into another room to be greeted with the sight of three giggling girls on a bed a crouched over a flat glowing pad of light, watching what appeared to be two other people talking.

Akemi looked over her shoulder at him. "Nana takes in anyone off the streets. We act as a halfway house for runaways and orphans." She shut a door with two boys whooping and yelling over a large black cube, fingers flitting over hand held controllers as they jumped about. "Even the authorities see it as a sort of haven." A shrug of her too thin shoulders. "They don't bother us much."

Two doors down and she opened up a messily spray painted, dark brown door that had some of the wood chipping off at the corner. "You can stay in here." It was small, but comfy, with light blue walls and a two mattresses settled onto the floor, covered in slightly musty, but well worn blankets. "Sorry that two of you will have to share, but as you can see, we're a bit short on beds and rooms." She said and her ear twitched backwards, knocking some of her hair around her face. She blew at it irritatedly.

As if with on a second thought, her eyes brightened."Oh! Dinner will be at six. Call me if you need anything!" She said. Her soft blue eyes nearly closed with her sweet smile. "I'm a Lamb Anima, in case you wanted to know." She said when Sasuke eyed her ears once again. It suited her.

Akemi closed the door behind her as she left.

Sasuke brought Naruto over to the bed, setting her down lightly on the covers and trying to figure out a way to maneuver her so he could place her under them.

"Sasuke?" Sasuke turned to the door where Sakura was looking in. "I think I like my wings." She said, brushing her fingers against the feathers softly. Sasuke sighed. Of course that was what she would come up with at a time like this.

Sakura blushed at the blunder and came in fully, leaning on the door to close them in. "How is she?"

"Fine, hopefully." Sasuke said and rubbed a thumb across her too pale, whiskered cheek. "Help me get her under?"

"You like her, don't you?" Sasuke stopped, one arm underneath Naruto, and looked at Sakura.

"What?"

"You like her."

Sasuke blinked at her, dumbfounded. What was she talking about? "Sakura, I-"

"You do."

Sasuke's mouth shut with a click. He slid his other hand around her and picked her up, waiting as Sakura moved around the bed and tugged down the sheets. She pulled them up over Naruto when he set her down again, and continued.

"I noticed it when Naruto got hurt." Her eyes went to the wrapping on Naruto's shoulder. "But before that too. Just the way you acted around... him." Now she was talking about back in Konoha, but that couldn't be right. Naruto was a guy, and so was Sasuke and-

Sasuke cut himself off there with a frown. So were Kakashi and Iruka. So was Sai. It wasn't that that mattered... but this was Naruto. What made "her" different from "him?"

"I was wondering if you'd do anything," She said with a sad smile and tugged the sheets up farther, covering Naruto's shoulder so that, if they hadn't known better, it would have seemed as if she were merely asleep after a long day of training. "Seems you didn't 'til now." She laughed drily. "All if took was a near fatal wound, I guess. Typical guys." A wince. "Sort of."

"Try not to hurt her when you tell her, okay?" She asked, her hand heavy and warm on Sasuke's shoulder. Sasuke didn't say anything, just stared and Naruto's sleeping face as if trying to erase the dim pain lines etched into it.

Sakura sighed, hand dropping away from his shoulder. The door closed with a click.

Quietly, Sasuke dragged a chair that was placed in the corner over to the edge of the bed, sitting down, and rubbed her face, checking to see if her body heat had risen more. He stared at the pad of his thumb where it had run over Naruto's cheek, over the slightly raised, bumped up lines of her whiskers. Her cry, all that blood, staining the carpet, covering her jacket and soaking her shirt. Her pale face when the needle went in and out of her shoulder again and again. Girl or not, Naruto was his teammate, not a love interest, nothing more than a sparring partner, right? Sasuke scowled and drew his hand away to glare at the wall. Falling in love? Impossible.

Impossible.

In the end, they are still ninja. A first priority is to secure safe surroundings, something people (including me) don't always remember when bringing Team 7's professions into account. They are, first and foremost, trained killers of the government.

I'm sorry if I made people seem more unfriendly than they used to be, but the feel of this society is supposed to be more hunted than I portrayed it in my first draft.

A few appearance changes (none too big... Chiyoki's eyes are gray now... Akemi is blonde now. etc), some convo switchups. Stuff you probably won't even notice too much.

Sorry this is a bit late... I know I said every Wednesday, but I forgot that I was going away the week after I said that... -.-' So, consider this my "Wednesday Update." Except on a Sunday... Ah, well.

Look forward to the next one! (reviews are much appreciated lovelys!)

CHAPTER TITLE: Hide

Names:

Akemi- Bright/ Beautiful

Chiyoki- Thousand Generation Child

Kakesu- Blue Jay

Shinrin- Forest

Song of the Chapter: Никто кроме тебя (Nobody But You) - *it's in Russian*

Word Count: 4,234 (I swear the chapter gets bigger when I edit. I started and the word count was low 3,000s...)