Hey everyone. Here's a new chapter. Hope you all enjoy it. Oh, and before I forget to add it like I usually do: I don't and will never own Naruto

The pair blinked at her and both wanted to ask her about her statement. However, they quickly and unanimously decided that their brother's well being was more important. So they, with their brother in hand, quickly shuffled off to Gaara's cabin. Sakura watched them until they disappeared into a room, hoping that she would not later regret healing him.

"Thanks Sakura!" Tenten happily told the medic, breaking her train of thought. The brunette was now standing beside Sakura, a huge smile plastered on her face. "I don't even want to think about what would have happened if you didn't help." As she was talking her mood seemed to darken. "Those cowards, what they did to him. It just makes my blood boil."

Sakura swiftly turned to face Tenten, her eyes flashing as she did so. "Those people were simply trying to protect themselves from you. You came into their homes and started attacking them and robbing them. What did you expect them to do, just stand there and watch? Obviously they would attack any way they could, you'd do the exact same."

The pinkette had to stop in her speech a take a deep breath. Now, calmer than before, she continued. "I know you that already know that what you did was wrong, and that you know that the people that gave Gaara that wound were more in the right than you were. Even if you chose to believe differently. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. I'm alright with that. However, stop talking to me about how great raids are. And don't ever tell me how some innocent person defending themselves against you is cowardly."

The brunette looked at her with the same look that Kiba had given her earlier; the 'I really want to tell you something' look. Before she could respond, Sakura walked away towards her small cabin, shutting the door behind her. She pounced onto her bed and screamed into her pillow. These people were very difficult to befriend. Just when she had begun to like these people, they decided to go on a raid and ruin everything again. It was almost like they were trying to make her hate them or something.

And what the heck were they hiding from her? She could see how sometimes they looked as if they wanted to tell her something, only to decide against it at the last moment. What was so important that they couldn't tell her? And why did they want to tell her about it so badly? Arg, none of this was making any sense. She wasn't sure how long she could take this confusion and conflict before she burst.

That's when an idea came to her. If they weren't going to tell her what was so important, perhaps the medic could find out on her own. She would search the ship. See if anything on it could give her answers. And perhaps she could eavesdrop on a conversation or two.

A small smile surfaced on her face at thought of finding or hearing something that could help her with her problem. Her mind began to fill with ideas for her new plan. Sakura was so focused on her plan that when the door opened she almost felt like a kid getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But then she remembered that whoever it was couldn't possibly know what she was thinking and she calmed down. So she simply turned over and sat up on the bed, ready to see whoever it was that entered the room.

The person at the door turned out to be Temari. "Sakura." She began, "I want to thank you again for healing Gaara. Especially because I know how you feel about him- and the rest of us. I know you probably hated doing it, and although I'm not sure why you did it, I'm sure it wasn't easy for you to decide. So, thank you." With that Temari walked out of the room, not even waiting for a response.

Sakura watched the door shut then stared at it for a few moments. Was there anyone else going to come in? After deciding that no one else was coming in she slumped down once more. It was surprising to see that the great Temari actually had a soft, caring side to her. What next? Find out that Kiba was really a cat person? Ok, she highly doubted that one but on a more serious note, the people here seemed more complex then what she had first thought.

She focused her thoughts back on her plan of sneaking around the ship. So before Temari had walked in, she had planned that she would wait until everyone had gone to sleep, then sneak around the ship looking for clues. If she couldn't find any, then the next day when everyone was around the ship, she would sneak into their rooms.

Was there anything she could really add to that? Not really. Unless she wanted to choose which rooms to go to first. And that wouldn't take very long. In fact, she could probably do that while she was looking around. So really there was nothing left for her to do until that night.

So that left the question of what to do now. Within a few seconds, Sakura was given her answer when she heard footsteps walking towards her cabin. Sakura sat on her bed in complete silence until she heard footsteps coming closer to her cabin. But as she listened, she heard them pass by her cabin. Considering the fact that she was planning on eavesdropping later anyways, she decided to go investigate. She crept out of the cabin and saw Temari talking to Neji. Before either of the two could see her she hid behind a few pieces of cargo that were close to her cabin so if she needed to make a breakaway to it she could. The pinkette knelt down and listened to them.

"How is Gaara?" Neji asked.

"He's stabilizing. Thanks to Sakura he should be on his feet by tomorrow." Temari replied. "So, when we were on the raid did you drop off the message or do we have to go back?"

"I sent it." Neji replied. "We're still on schedule."

"Gaara will be happy to know that." Temari replied. "Now we can proceed to the Heilig palace. It's a good thing too." She added. "I hate going on raids. I'm glad that we don't have to go on them anymore."

"All of us are." Neji replied.

With that they said their goodbyes, then both went their separate ways on the ship. As soon as she thought the coast was clear, Sakura raced back towards her cabin and shut the door behind her. She leaned back on her door, her heart going a mile a minute.

At first she had just thought this was just a cliché raid, where they go in to vandalise and all they take is money. But apparently it was anything but that. Apparently the point was to send a message. In fact Temari and Neji had just admitted to not liking raids. Then why go on one? Why not just send the message without going to all that trouble? And why was this message so important anyways?

She slumped down so that she was sitting down, her back rested on the door. Listening in on their conversations was supposed to ease her confusion, not make it worse. The pinkette could only hope that tonight things she would be more successful.

What was so different about this place? Where was this place? Gosh, she didn't even know what the place was called. And, the worst part was that, with all these questions, she had no way of finding out the answers.

It felt like Sakura had to wait forever for the night to come. She had spent the remainder of the day in her room, pretending to be sulking about what had happened earlier that day. After shovelling down her food she went straight back to her room and tried immediately tried to get some sleep. It would be about six hours until she could be certain that everyone else was sleeping. Unfortunately Sakura only managed to get about an hour's worth of rest which meant that she was wide awake twiddling her thumbs for the remaining five hours.

When the time finally came to get up she hurriedly got up and crept out of her cabin. Hmm, where to start. Well she could go to the rooms closest to her cabin first then gradually go farther. However starting at the other end of the ship and working back to her room could work too. Sakura chose the latter.

She glided as quietly as possible to the other side of the large boat. A little bit of guilt rose up inside of her as she did so. They had been kind to her lately. And here she was sneaking around behind her backs. It almost felt like she was betraying them or something.

The princess tried to shove this feeling away by thinking of all the bad things that the pirates did. Kidnap her, destroy Tora, go on a raid just to send a message. That helped ease her remorse quite a bit. And the knowledge that snooping around might help her stop feeling confused wiped out all remaining guilt.

Sakura reached the end of the ship about a minute later and she began to automatically walk towards the first room that she saw. However, just as she was about to walk into it she heard a loud snore being emitted from the room and jumped away from the door like it was on fire. Ok, maybe she shouldn't go into that room. And it would probably be smart to think about what room she's going before she enters from now on.

The first few rooms that she did visit brought up next to no answers. There were no scrolls, no maps, or anything else that she could use. The pinkette couldn't even find any clues after she had spent a good twenty minutes searching each room. It was quite disappointing.

The next room she looked in didn't give show any clues either (unless you call finding the place where Akamaru kept his bones a clue). It was the fifth room that the medic had searched. And by this point she was starting to get quite frustrated. She was also beginning to feel an urge to just give up and go back to sleep in her room.

Fortunately for her, she was able to find something interesting in the next room she looked in. It looked like some sort of meeting room. Its main features were a long table, quite a few chairs and a small world map up on a wall. Sakura had searched the place vigorously but was unable to find anything of use. That is, until out of the corner of her eyes she saw a small bottle on a ledge near the end of the room.

Upon looking at it she saw that it was a medicine bottle. A brown bottle with a small label on the front. Since the medic lived by the ocean, she was quite used to treating people with seasickness. And that was why she recognized the type of medicine almost immediately. It was a medication that she herself used for people who could not easily adapt to the turnings and motions of a boat at sea. The was a small note at the back of the bottle drink only when necessary, and by necessary I mean less than three times everyday Kankurou.

This was odd. Why would pirates, people who spend their entire lives on the ocean, need medicine for seasickness? True they could have brought the bottle for her in case they thought that she wouldn't be able to handle the waves, but then why have the note at the back?

She found more strange clues as she continued her search. There was a letter from a girl wishing Kankurou luck on his mission. Why would anyone wish a pirate luck? Especially on a 'mission' that included kidnapping someone, destroying a town, and blackmailing royalty? Sakura found another letter like this addressed to Kiba, saying that a lot of people were counting on them. Why would someone be counting on them?

Sakura came to her final stop on her search. Hopefully this would help ease her confusion instead of increasing it like the rest of her search did. Her small hand reached out, grabbed the knob on the door, and slowly began to open it when she heard heavy breathing coming from inside the room. The medic froze. Oh crap! This was Gaara's room. If he found out that she was snooping around the ship...she didn't even want to think about it.

The best things to do in this situation were probably to shut the door, sneak back into her cabin, and attempt to get some sleep. But if she was thinking about the best things to do, then she wouldn't be out here in the first place. She could just sneak back into her cabin after this. And she highly doubted that she would be getting any sleep tonight.

Besides, with the injury that Gaara had, he would probably be out of it for a while. So she decided to slowly open the door more and walk inside.

The first thing the pinkette noticed was how bare the room was. There were no personal items or things that showed Gaara's personality anywhere. No pictures, no notes, nothing. The entire room was made up of a bed (which the redhead was currently sleeping in), a dresser and a small desk. The guy must not like decorating very much.

Considering the fact that there obviously weren't going to be any clues anywhere else in the room, Sakura went over to the desk. On the top there were only some pens, a book of maps, and a stack of paper. Her gaze traveled down and she saw that the desk contained some drawers. However, when she tried to open them, she saw that they were all locked. Great.

Her emerald gaze moved around as she tried to look for the key in the darkness of the room. It had to be here somewhere. As she was looking, she moved her arm and her elbow hit the book of maps, causing it to fall over onto the floor in a very loud thump.

Sakura's eyes widened and, without a second thought, she leapt as silently as possible to the other side of the desk and knelt down, hoping that Gaara wouldn't see her. However she was surprised once again when she was met with the sound of the redhead's heavy breathing. How could he still be sleeping? Sure she was glad and extremely grateful that he was, but at the same time it baffled her. Even a heavy sleeper should have woken up from that sound.

The pinkette took the dropping of the book as a sign to end her little escapade. So she quietly placed the book back onto the desk, and then went back to her own cabin. It was at that moment that she finally realized that her cabin was quite close to Gaara's. Was there a reason for that? Hmm, maybe because he didn't trust her and wanted to be able to watch over her closely. As much as she didn't like that idea, it did make sense.

With that Sakura shut her door and crawled into her covers. When she lay comfortably underneath them, she thought with disappointment about her search. Not only did it not help her ease her confusion, but it was counterproductive and only increased her stress.

Now she wasn't even sure if she should continue her search tomorrow. Not if she received the same results that she had tonight.

Maybe she should just give up the search entirely and just act like they were normal pirates. Sakura scratched that idea almost as soon as she thought of it. Considering how bewildered she was now, even if she wanted to try and forget about her confusion, she wouldn't be able to do so.

The pinkette yawned and brought up a hand to cover it. For the first time that night feelings of sleepiness were starting to form. Maybe because she had been running on adrenaline for much of her search. She snuggled deeper inside her bed and shut her eyes. She'd think more about what to do next in the morning. Apperently Sakura was incorrect before; she did sleep that night.

So what do you guys think the pirates are hiding from dear Sakura? Place your ideas in a review and I'll let you know if you're close. Bye now