It's been so freaking hot that it's been impossible to sleep. So, I guess this is a good use of my time if I can't manage to fall asleep. So please, feel free to take advantage of my heat-induced insomnia. Honestly, the environment has a bigger effect on my health than anything else. This is also the one place that I manage to catch the flue every second week of September, like clockwork. I can literally time it each year, it's that regular, flu shot or not.

So, let's visit with another person suffering from exhaustion, shall we? Poor idiot Kakashi...can't stay out of trouble to save his life.

And points to anyone who identifies the people in her dream. Hint: the connection is in the first chapter.

Tazuna's house is larger than I thought it would be. Then again, I suppose that's a good thing, considering that he's got five guests. And one of them is currently laid up in bed. Though he's recovering, thanks to my hourly ministrations.

But, as he's been asleep for quite a while, I've been napping in his room, waking up periodically in order to tend to him again. But even with potent medical ninjutsu, there's only so much that I can do for his exhaustion and chakra depletion.

And then, there's also the issue of what happened with that tracker ninja. It's been distracting me for a while, keeping me from getting too bored while watching over an unconscious jounin.

The way that the needles were placed, the immediate lack of vital signs, and the boy's sudden appearance. All of it only makes sense under a few specific conditions. Which means that either the boy is far luckier than he allowed us to believe, or he was already informed. And if it is the latter, then it means that he deceived us.

But I can go on thinking about all of that after I take a nap. I'm due for another one in about five minutes anyway.

It's a sunny Thursday afternoon, which means that two of my favorite people in the world should be paying me a visit very soon. I run through the grass, barefoot and smiling. "Shi-Shi! Chi-Chi!" I wave my pudgy little hand through the air, trying to catch the attention of my favorite uncles, well, my uncle's little brother, and their cousin. But I call them my uncles anyway. They usually visit me once a week, and since they're a lot closer to my age than my other uncles, they actually like to come and play with me. It's hard to get to them, because my short little legs will only get me so far so fast.

Finally, I have both pairs of eyes on me, both pair similarly dark and deep. And below them are soft smiles, shining just for me. I love their smiles. They make me feel warm and happy.

The taller of the two crouches down as I get closer, his arms spread wide and his dark eyes gleaming. "Come here, Cia!"

I pick up the pace, as much as I can, and barrel into his arms. Though I hardly budge the older boy at all. Not that I really expected too, after all, at three years old, I weigh no more than thirty pounds, compared to his eleven years of age, and nearly eighty pound body. I'm half his height, and less than half his weight, making me barely more than a stuffed animal to him. "Shi-Shi! I missed you!"

His arms wrap around me, and he straightens up, lifting me high off the ground. "Sorry, we've just been really busy lately. We just got back from…training, so we came to visit you."

"Yay!" I snuggle cozily against Shi-Shi's neck.

My hair must tickle him, because he starts giggling a little. "Cia, that tickles! Go easy on me!"

Spurred on by his laughter, and undaunted by his protests, I nuzzle against his neck a little more, rubbing my brown curls against his skin. "Shi-Shi needs to smile more!" And this is how I plan to make that happen.

He hefts me up a little higher, settling me on his arm and against his shoulder so that I can see him smiling at me. "I think I can do that."

Satisfied with the glowing smile on his face, I turn to Chi-Chi. "You need to smile too!"

His lips twitch a little, and his smile brightens a bit. "Okay." He takes two fingers and pokes my forehead. "You're such a demanding little princess."

I link and raise my hand to rub my forehead. "Hey…that wasn't nice…"

He chuckles and gets on his tiptoes, pressing a kiss to my forehead next. "I'm sorry. Is that better?"

I giggle again, pressing a kiss to his cheek to return the favor. "Yeah…I love you Chi-Chi." I press a kiss to the other boy's cheek as well. "I love you too Shi-Shi."

Shi-Shi laughs again, and the music of the two of them laughing is such a soft and sweet sound. I love it when they come to visit me. Chi-Chi always talks about how he has a little brother, and that I should be his friend when I grow up. I can't wait to meet him. I hope he's nice…

I reach my arms out to Chi-Chi, a pouty look about my face. "Hold me!"

He chuckles a little, reaching his own arms out so that he can bring me close enough to wrap my arms around his neck. Even at only nine years old, he can hold me just as easily as my young uncle. "Did you miss us that much?"

I nod, pulling a little on his long hair. "Shi-Shi said that you would teach me jutsu! I wanna learn jutsu! I wanna be like Daddy and my uncles!"

He looks over at Shi-Shi worriedly. "Jutsu? Is that really what you told her?"

Shi-Shi shrugs. "She wants to learn. And it's not like she doesn't have the potential. She is the daughter of the head of the clan that's been here centuries before the Leaf. They've got powers that the rest of the village can't even understand."

"Yeah…but that's not the point…" Chi-Chi looks me right in my bright green eyes. "You can't learn jutsu yet…you're too little. You need to learn how to use your chakra first. You'll do that when you go to the academy."

"Academy?" I tilt my head. "What's that?"

He smiles softly. "A place where you'll learn to do jutsu, and where you'll make lots of friends."

"Friends?" As the sheltered and protected daughter of the clan head, I'm not allowed off the estate yet. That's why these two come to visit me. "I want friends…"

Friends sound nice. Then I look up at Chi-Chi, pulling on his hair again. "Chi-Chi, I wanna be pretty like you when I get big!"

He blinks, and behind me, Shi-Shi starts cracking up, laughing like a maniac. "She wants to be pretty like you! Looks like you'll be brushing her hair and helping her with her makeup soon."

Chi-Chi scowls a little at Shi-Shi, before turning back to me with a smile. "Don't worry, I'm sure that you'll be much prettier than me when you grow up."

"Yeah, but be careful around boys. They'll chase you if you're too pretty." Shi-Shi smiles, though I'm not entirely sure why. though it earns him another scowl from Chi-Chi.

I love these two so much.

The sound of a person approaching rouses me from my unsettling dream, calling my attention towards the door. I rub my eyes and sit up straighter against the wall. Jeez…it's been a while since I've had a memory dream about those two… But the dream also hurts, because the two of them are long gone now. And I'll never see them again.

Distracting me from some rather depressing thoughts, Tazuna's daughter, Tsunami, walks into the room to check on me once again. "Is there anything I can get you? Something to eat? Or maybe something to drink? You haven't had anything since you arrived."

I shake my head. "I'm fine, my chakra levels are holding steady thanks to my naps." In truth, I've been using my chakra to suppress my hunger. I'd rather not impose on these people more than I have to, especially after seeing the poor conditions that the people in this land have to live in. I can manage myself for now.

"Alright…" She doesn't look so sure abut my answer, and I can hardly blame her. From what Tazuna said, I gather that she's got a kid of her own. Which means that she probably doesn't want to see someone as young as me not eating.

But as she turns to leave, Kakashi groans a little, stirring right out of sleep. "Ugh…I think I overdid it with my Sharingan."

"You think…?" I deadpan a little at his weak assertion. "I'd say that you more than overdid it."

"Hm…" Tsunami walks towards the futon, leaning over a little to get a good look at Kakashi. "Waking up, huh? Are you alright?"

"I've been better." Kakashi shifts the covers, sitting up painfully. "It'll be a week before I can move normally."

"See? It's better if you don't move, so just lie down." Tsunami's voice may be gentle, but she has quite a way with being demanding without seeming to be.

Kakashi sighs. "Right." He glances at me, before lying back down and covering himself back up with the blanket.

I slide over to him and slip my fingers under his headband. "You're a little feverish, but that should go away once you've gotten a bit more rest." Though I'm not sure if I should… That's not a scene I want to see again…

Kakashi nods a little, just as Sasuke, Sakura, Naruto, and Tazuna come walking in. And Naruto is the first to heave a sigh of relief. "Look, Sensei's coming around."

"Listen, Sensei…" Sakura walks over and kneels down on my left side, staring at Kakashi. "Your Sharingan is amazing and everything, but if it puts that much strain on you, maybe it's not worth it."

"Sakura…" There's a fondness in Kakashi's eyes that seems both happy, as well as sad. Though I don't know nearly enough about him to fathom the reason why.

"Huh, well, you did just take down one of the most powerful ninja assassins, so we'll be safe for a while." Tazuna, though gruff, seems relieved and much less stressed out. He's also not cracking any jokes, which means that his crass humor is more stress relief than actual humor.

"Right… but you know that boy with the mask? What about him?" Sakura seems suspicious, or at least worried about what happened back in the forest. And I can't say that I blame her.

Kakashi's eye gains a gleam of focus. "He's from the elite tracking unit in the Village Hidden in the Mist. Those masks are only worn by the most elite shinobi."

"What exactly do they do?" As academy students, there would only have been brief mention about the workings of elite ninja. There are just some things that we're not allowed to know, classified intel and such. So it's no wonder that Sakura wants to know.

Kakashi nods slightly, which means that he'll be giving up an answer. "The ANBU Black Ops, also known as the Inferno Squad, destroy all traces of a rogue ninja's corpse. The shinobi's body contains many secrets. Ninjutsu, chakra, special medicines used on his body. These are the secrets of his village. If his enemies find them, his people would be in grave danger." It makes sense, especially in the cases involving Kekkai Genkai. "For instance, if I were to die at the hands of an enemy, he would try to analyze my Sharingan. In the worst case, my entire jutsu could be stolen and used against our home village. It's the secret duty of the shinobi trackers to prevent this, to keep the village secrets safe. If a ninja betrays his village, the trackers hunt him down, eliminate him, and obliterate every trace of his existence. That's their specialty."

Kakashi goes about sitting up, so I roll my eyes. "You know, you'll never recover if you insist on pushing yourself before you're ready. And besides, your leg muscles still need time to recover. Even with medical ninjutsu, there's only so much that can be done, you know that." Or at least, I sure hope that he does.

Kakashi raises a hand to his good eye, looking rather agitated. Naruto picks up on it quickly. "Hey, are you okay? Sensei!?"

"Hm?" Kakashi snaps out of it and his eyes find Naruto. "Oh, yeah. To finish what I was saying, tracker ninja deal with the body immediately, on the spot. So there's no room for error."

Sakura blinks. "Is that really important?"

Kakashi turns to her. "Think about it. Do you remember what that tracker did with Zabuza's body?"

Sakura frowns, thinking hard. "We…don't know what he did. I mean, I guess he took it away somewhere."

"Exactly, but why?" Kakashi is starting to turn this into some kind of school lecture. "He should have worked on Zabuza right there, as quickly as possible. Think of the weapons he used for the take-down. Do you remember what they were?"

"Throwing needles." Sasuke's face contorts into a frown of his own, and small crinkles appear between his eyebrows. It's a clear sign that he needs to smile more and frown less. "No way."

"Exactly. None of it adds up." Kakashi turns to me. "You're our medic for this mission, what are your thoughts on how Zabuza was taken down and taken away?"

I grit my teeth and try not to scowl. "You're right about the take-down, the use of needles in that situation was very odd. Only those of us who know the intricacies of human biology would dare to use them, otherwise we might miss our intended target by a half centimeter, or more." I take a few needles from my kit and show them. "We can target pressure points and particular veins, arteries and organs with them, even going so far as to sever nerves. But it takes extreme skill to do that, and I'm not confident that I could do it with the precision that he did, especially seeing as I haven't had a lot of secret practice time. Where he hit…it looked to me like the pressure points in the neck were hit. And if that's the case…well, I would have examined Zabuza myself, to make sure that he was dead. But you know that it's taboo for a medic to examine a corpse from another village without permission in times of peace."

Kakashi nods, but Tazuna doesn't seem to share our caution. "What are you all yammering about? You demolished that assassin."

Kakashi looks over at Tazuna, his gaze very serious, despite only being half visible. "Here's the truth. Zabuza's still alive."

Everyone looks startled, except, of course for me. Though Naruto is the only one to get loud about it. "But we saw his body! Believe it!"

"But, Kakashi-Sensei, you checked him yourself, you said that his heart stopped."

"His heart did stop." Kakashi's eyes flick to me. "But, that was just a temporary state to simulate death. The weapons that tracker used were called senbon. They can pierce deeply, but rarely kill unless they hit a vital organ, but not in the neck.

I nod my head. "I agree with you. I don't think that Zabuza is dead. Incapacitated, certainly, but not dead. That precision was…extraordinary. If it had been off by as little as a few millimeters, or as much as a couple of centimeters, the spinal cord or an artery could have been hit. And those would have caused very different effects. Those needles are not something I typically use, but I could if I had to. They require deadly precision."

"Exactly." Kakashi nods with approval at my analysis. "They're modified from needles used for medical treatments like acupuncture. Trackers are trained to know every detail of the human body. Causing the heart to stop temporarily while keeping the body alive is an easy matter for them. First, he carried Zabuza's body away, even though it's much heavier than he is. Second, he used the senbon, which have a precise effect, and are rarely fatal. From these two factors, we can conclude that the tracker wasn't trying to destroy Zabuza, he was trying to save him."

Tazuna is still skeptical. "Come on, you're over-thinking this aren't you?"

"In countering suspicion, the ninja prepares quickly. Hesitation leads to disaster. Every shinobi knows this saying." With looks of disbelief ringing the room, Kakashi nudges me gently. "Ciara, why don't you show everyone what we're talking about. It might paint them a clearer picture."

"Alright." I turn towards the others and grab Sasuke by the arm.

He struggles a little, obviously confused. "Hey, what are you doing?"

"Quiet down and stay still." I lay on hand on his shoulder, keeping his neck still for me, before pressing two of my fingers to the back of his neck. "The pressure points are here. Hitting them can knock a person out, while piercing them may allow for the kind of state that Zabuza was in. Though that's only if it was done correctly. It will simulate death without actually causing it. No breathing, no pulse, not even a twitch. But not dead. Not yet, anyway."

Everyone is silent, until Sasuke fidgets a little. "You done?"

"Yes." I let go of Sasuke, and cross my arms as he shuffles back over to where he was sitting earlier, keeping a wary eye on me. "If I were in that position, I would guess that shutting down the vital functions was so that he could collect Zabuza's body and revive him later. It wasn't to trick Zabuza, but us. Although, even under the best circumstances, Zabuza will be feeling the effects of that method for a few days. He'll suffer from numbness, a lack of balance, and some dizziness. He'll be staying put for a few days while he recovers. Longer, if he's not as strong as I think he is."

After that torrent of information, Sakura turns back to Kakashi. "Sensei, you said to prepare quickly, but how can we do that when you can barely move?"

Kakashi starts laughing amusedly. "I can still train you." He glances at me. "And if you're up for it, I could train you a little too. I'm interested to see how your abilities stack up against my students."

"Alright." I can see no reason to refuse, so it might end up being an interesting way to kill time. I just hope that it's nothing too basic, because I've been working on the basics for years. Secretly, of course, since no one is supposed to know that I'm actually a whole lot more talented than I look.

"Hold on!" Sakura protests. "A little last minute training won't make us strong enough to fight Zabuza! You could barely defeat him, even with your Sharingan. We have to be reasonable about this!"

"Sakura. Why was I able to stop Zabuza?" Kakashi fixes a stern look on her. "Because you all helped me. You're growing." He flicks his eyes to the unusually quiet blond. "Naruto, you've grown the most."

That quickly puts a smile on my best friend's face. "So you noticed, Kakashi-Sensei? Now, things are gonna get better, believe it!"

"I don't believe it, and nothing's gonna be good!" Our conversation is interrupted by a little kid, probably no more than eight, in a cream shirt, green overalls, and a white and blue hat.

Naruto doesn't take the interruption quietly. "Who are you!?"

Tazuna grins, holding his arms out for the boy. "Ah, Inari, where've you been?"

"Welcome back, Grandpa!" The little boy, Inari, races into Tazuna's arms, burying his head in the old man's shoulder.

Tsunami walks over to the boy and scolds him. "Inari, that was very rude. These ninja helped your grandpa and brought him here safely."

"It's okay, it's okay, I'm rude to them too." Tazuna is far more indulgent of Inari's rudeness than he should be. Though I'm more curious about where it comes from, because this hostility seems a little too pronounced if you ask me.

Inari climbs out of his grandfather's arms and turns to his mother. "Mom, don't you see these people are gonna die? Gato and his men will come back and find them and wipe them out."

"What did you say, brat!?" Naruto jumps to his feet, ready for a fight. "Listen up, do you know what a super-ninja is? Well, that's me, only a lot better. I'm gonna be Hokage! This Gato or Blato or whatever he's called is no match for a real hero like me!

"Huh, there's no such thing as a hero. You're just full of stupid ideas!" The kid obviously has no clue when to shut up, because he's picking a fight with someone who will never let it go.

"What'd you say!?" Naruto looks like he's ready to pounce on the kid for saying all that. So Sakura restrains him.

So I turn to the kid, hoping to ease the tension. "Don't worry about them. As long as I'm here, none of them are going to die. I'm a medical ninja, so I have a lot of skills designed for combat medics. I know how to treat people right in the middle of a battle. So as long as no one gets their head cut off, or their organs ripped out, I should be able to do something."

He scoffs. "If you wanna stay alive, you should go back where you came from." Then he walks right towards the door.

"Wait, Inari, where are you going?" Tazuna now looks concerned for his little grandson.

"To look at the ocean, I wanna be alone." Inari's eyes are defiant, but also pained and sad. Something happened to make him this way, I just don't know what.

With his grandson's exit, Tazuna turns to a growling Naruto. "Sorry about that."

But since this is Naruto, there's no way he's just going to let any of that slide without getting some answers. So, when Sakura releases him a minute later, he storms out of the room, heading in the same direction as Inari. He's planning to confront the kid about everything that he said. And I just let Naruto go, since he has the most right out of anyone to be giving the kid a hard time. And who knows, it might actually do the kid some good.