I'm happy to see that all of you enjoyed the last chapter and were fairly surprised, so another yay. And now, for the second Reunion chapter. Interesting things head this way.

At three in the morning, Konoha was dark, silent and peaceful. It was one of the rare nights when no shinobi were returning from important missions in the very middle of the night, so the rooftops were empty of all but the ANBU patrol group, which remained unseen as its' members did their rounds. The sky was cloudless, and the moon provided a view of Konoha that would make any watchers wish to protect such a place.

From the balcony of his home, Danzo looked over the village with the air of someone reminiscing on the times of their youth. Anyone who didn't know him personally could've mistaken him for a simple man, declining in his old age and trying to enjoy the changing world at its' most peaceful. However, his benign appearance belied his true intentions.

Danzo was waiting.

Three days ago, the event he'd been anticipating for nearly two months had finally commenced. His Root members were already stationed in Wave by the time the last stragglers had arrived, and since that time, he had received several updates on a four hour basis. Although he'd had some idea of exactly how large the Karibi clan was, even after being cut down during Whirlpool's destruction, the numbers he'd been sent were staggering. There were more Karibi members than Hyuuga, and almost half of the eighty-six were children and teens, not to mention expectant mothers.

The sheer possibilities presented in those numbers almost made him shiver. His current forces were by no means small, especially for an organization operating out of the shadows, but fourty or so young, malleable children with special abilities were a boon. Even better was the chance to have some of these children from the moment they would be birthed into the world, to be raised and molded solely by he and his ideals with no outside influences. He was one step closer to creating the perfect soldiers. It was almost a given that some of them would fail to survive the training, but with so many, there would be no huge loss for him.

When he received the report stating that all the children were kept in one place, he almost laughed at the way things were playing into his hands. You've always managed to slip my hands before, Ruriko, he thought with malicious glee, but there is no saving your family now! Twice, you've avoided death... But they always say the third time is the charm. You've been a thorn in my side for far too long...

A cloud of smoke silently appeared next to him, and the grim smile on Danzo's face widened. He took the rolled up scroll from the Stork summon with no words, and quickly read the report, left uncoded since it was being delivered securely.

All the troops were in place and the plans were cemented. His Ne was ready to move. Turning to the back of the same paper, Danzo gave his own affirmative, and sent it off with the summon.

The operation will commence at 2300 hours.

On the third day of the reunion, six days since her family had arrived and two days after they first began teaching the children about their clan's bloodline limit, Sakura woke up feeling such dread that she almost threw up on her bed roll. Managing to restrain the impulse, the pink haired girl curled up into a ball, forcing widened eyes to close again as she tried to calm herself down.

When she'd managed to slow her own breathing down to a normal pace, she sat up and scanned the room slowly. The waning moon reflected off her mint green eyes, giving her a catlike appearance, but nobody was awake to see it. Why am I awake? Sakura wondered even as she crawled out of her blankets and began tip-toeing her way over the piles of other children on the floor surrounding her.

Even though she asked the question of herself, Sakura already knew the answer. Something bad was going to happen... She just didn't know what. Sakura was intimately familiar with her gut feelings, and even as a six year old, she had the memories of a decade of conflict swimming around in her head. She'd learned to trust this feeling a long, long time ago.

Slipping out of the room and into the darkened halls, Sakura began making her way toward the kitchen, figuring she would get herself a cup of milk. Chances were she wouldn't finish the drink, but it would give her hands something to hold as she pondered what could go wrong and what she could do to stop it. There's always something I can do, she thought, trying to encourage herself. Even as a child... There's always something...

At the doorway to the kitchen, Sakura stopped, realizing that the light was on. She could hear low voices murmuring in serious tones, and without being cognizant of her actions, the girl pressed herself into a corner that couldn't be seen from the doorway and sent a trickle of chakra to her ears so she could hear what was going on.

Her mother was speaking. "...didn't know the boy's name at first. He's in a... special position in our village." Nadeshiko's voice seemed to tremble slightly, and Sakura wondered who she was talking about. Naruto? "Our leader takes many measures to protect him. Most people in the village knew he existed, but he was never taken into the public until this past year or so, when he began schooling. Sakura-chan has class with him... And a few months ago, she was telling me about her new friend, and you can imagine my surprise when I heard the name Uzumaki."

There was a pause, and some shuffling, as if people were nodding in agreement or moving closer.

This time, it was her grandmother speaking, in thoughtful tones. "You say he is an orphan, ne? If the name was chosen for him by your leader, it may be a coincidence. On the other hand... The Leaf and Whirlpool were close, when it still stood. Your leader must know the names of the clans that resided there. He wouldn't use Uzumaki, the name of our former Daimyo, so freely. Still... There is no real proof."

There was silence for about a minute, before Nadeshiko spoke up, hesitantly. "There is... Some proof. Something that only the Uzumaki have... held, ever. And only in Konoha."

Sakura stifled a gasp. Okaa-san can't be telling them about the Kyuubi?!

"You can't mean..." Ruriko's voice lowered even more, so much that Sakura could barely hear it, even with chakra enhancing her ears. "There was a third Uzumaki jinchuuriki?"

There was a series of muffled gasps around the table, and three more voices seemed to break in at the same time, 'but how could they have the sealing knowledge for that?', 'is he one of Mito-sama's descendants?', and 'is he stable?' melded together into a garble of words.

The thump of a fist lightly hitting the table quieted the room once more, and Nadeshiko spoke slowly, "I can neither confirm nor deny your beliefs." But everybody knew that was essentially a firm 'yes.'

"A survivng Uzumaki..." This voice sounded a bit shocked; she thought it was her aunt Saeko. "It's true then. I had thought they were all lost, after the village's destruction."

"I'm not sure the boy knows his heritage, or even his burden. If I had to guess... I would say that he didn't. That nobody does, except perhaps the Hokage and those in his confidence."

"The child needs to know," Ruriko said firmly. Her voice brooked no arguments. "There are still hidden places, left untouched, in Whirlpool. With his blood, he could unlock the seals and learn his birthright and his history."

"Is it really a good idea to bring that kind of knowledge into the world again?" Nadeshiko spoke up softly. "I still remember little things from before the village was destroyed. The Uzumaki were awe-inspiring protectors of our village... But that same awe came hand in hand with fear. If anyone were to guess that the boy had such abilities as well... How could I help lay such a burden on a child that's already protecting us all?"

"And if it was Sakura?" Saeko interrupted.

"What?"

"If it was Sakura," her aunt continued, voice determined, "Would you still wish to keep her abilities from her, knowing it could protect her one day? Or if Jinya was the orphan, the child with no idea as to his roots, would you want someone to hide away his history? Even if it might bring strife to his life, would you allow them to take away his birthright?"

Nadeshiko's voice trembled. "I... No," and then, stronger, "No. Definitely not. But... What can we possibly do?"

A door opened down the hall, and Sakura jumped, hurriedly withdrawing her chakra from her ears and pressing herself further into the corner. Why does that always happen at the most inopportune time?! Inner Sakura raged while Sakura forced herself to look sleepy and make noisy footsteps as she wandered into the kitchen.

At least we managed to find something out, Sakura thought, curling into her mother's arms as Nadeshiko scooped her up and carried her over to the refrigerator for a glass of milk. Who would've known that there was anything left where Whirlpool used to stand? Naruto always wished for something of his family...

Objectively, what she'd just learned was good news. The fact that she'd heard it at all was even better. But even as Sakura was shooed back to bed, paper cup full of milk in hand, it was hard to remain optimistic.

Even with good news, her dread had only increased since she first awakened.

"Alright, Sai-kun, show me Ram." Mei smiled when the black-haired boy clumsily moved his hands into the correct seal. "Great! Now, remember how you found that energy yesterday morning? I want you to find it again, and hold it there until I come back from helping Moeko-chan over there. I'll be right back!"

After watching the tall redhead jog of to another part of the lake where all the children were practicing, Sai looked down at his hands in the strange, complex position, and then looked over to Sakura, who had already made it past this stage two days ago. He was supposed to be gathering his chakra so that he could use it on the paper in his pocket and make it do something, but he didn't remember how he'd found the energy yesterday. His cousin had helped him.

Almost as if she sensed his struggle, Sakura stopped moving her hands through different seals and moved closer to him. "Do you want help finding it again, Sai?" The pink haired girl asked with a smile.

Sai nodded silently.

"Well, do you remember how we started doing it yesterday?" Sakura asked. She held a hand up to stop him before he could protest that he didn't remember. "Just think about it for a little while. Guess a little if you want. Okay?"

With a hesitant nod, he tried to think back to what he'd done. Sai didn't like thinking too hard about things, because people always tried to rush him or made fun of him for going slowly. But Sakura is nice, the boy reminded himself. So he thought, and after almost three minutes, he thought he had it. "Sa-ku-ra?"

She looked up from her hand seals again and gave him her full attention. "Yeah? Do you remember now?"

"Yes-ter-day we... Closed our eyes and ignored the sounds... And tried to find the warmth." It was a statement, but it sounded a bit like a question. Sai thought that was all they had done, but he was unsure. But Sakura's sudden smile reassured him.

"Yup! You got it!" She leaned in, as if to impart a secret, and told him in a not-so-quiet whisper: "If you do that while you hold the paper instead of holding the Ram seal, you can get to know what yours is faster!"

"Oh. Okay. Thank you, Sa-ku-ra."

Watching as Sai took her tip, Sakura couldn't help but smile. It took him a bit of effort, but she knew that he would get it this time. Of course, the rosette already knew that his main affinity was water, just like she'd already known that her chakra affinities were water and earth. Everyone except her older brother had been fairly surprised when she picked up the excercises so quickly, but she did have an advantage over all the other children, at least for the moment.

She wasn't sure her 'genius' would last her when they got around to actually doing Boil and Lava jutsu.

When Mei (she still couldn't really believe that the Fifth Mizukage was her third cousin) had taken them outside the first time, one of the first things she explained was that the Karibi bloodline was based around fire. That had confused Sakura, because she definitely didn't have an affinity for fire-natured chakra. But that was where the bloodline came in to play: while almost everyone in the family had water, earth, or both as chakra affinities, they had a special ability that allowed them to make their chakra act like fire-nature chakra and blend in with their actual affinities.

Lava release was actually a combination of earth and fire natured chakra which created lava, while Boil jutsu mixed fire and water natured chakra, which wasn't actually possible without a special ability because the two elements normally canceled each other out. To create lava, she would have to learn how to create dirt and rocks from her chakra, then superheat it. It was a similar process for the boiling steam techniques, which took creating water, then using fire-natured chakra to raise its' temperature and altered the pH levels to make it acidic.

Technically, if anyone in the family had an affinity other than water or earth, they could still use katon jutsu, since it changed their actual natures to fire for a short while. Theoretically, it was also possible to mix fire with other elemental affinities, but what did fire and lightning create? And wind would simply make normal fire techniques harder to control.

"Sa-ku-ra?"

Coming out of her thought, she looked at Sai again, and saw a slight furrow in his brows that was the only expression she'd ever seen on him yet, besides curiosity. "What is it, Sai?" She asked.

"It's wet." He held up the paper that was sagging over his fingers to show her.

At that precise moment, Mei popped up out of nowhere, squealing and startling both of them. "I'm so proud of you, Sai-kun! You got it! You have a water affinity just like Sakura-chan and I!" As she scooped the boy up and hugged him to her ample bosom, the redhead looked at Sakura with a smile. "By the way, your father is in the house with Jinya, I think he has something to give you as well."

"Okay!"

As Sakura wandered into the house to begin the search for her father, which would be far easier than finding her mother because of his white hair, she wondered what he might have for her. A present, maybe? She wondered. She couldn't imagine why he would have a present for her, but there was no way that she'd turn one down.

After a few minutes, Jinya found her before she found them, and carried her on his shoulders back to their parents' room on the third floor, where their father had been spending most of his time in the past few days.

They entered just as Daisuke was steppping towards the door, and he gave them both a wan smile, looking a bit sickly. "There you are, Sakura-chan. I was just about to go searching for you." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small velvet bag as Jin set her onto the floor. He pulled out a short gold chain with a cherry blossom shaped locket on the end. "This is for you. I was going to wait until New Years', but it seems that I have to leave today and make a journey to Rice Country because of a diplomatic incident."

Sakura pouted, and kept it from becoming a full frown as the feeling that had stayed in the back of her head since that morning came to her notice again. "Okay, otou-san. When will you be coming home?"

Her father's smile looked strange as he replied, "You'll be back in Konoha the next time you see me, Sakura-chan."

"Oh, okay..."

With that, she and Jinya were shooed off, and they both returned to their respective groups for practicing out by the lake. As she was walking back towards Sai, however, Sakura examined the locket on her necklace and found something strange.

Is that a seal?

"Sakura-chan, there you are! Hurry up!" Mei called. "I think it's time for you to actually try the jutsu!"

Smiling, Sakura dropped the pendant back into her shirt and complied. She could always look at it later.

It was ten-thirty in the evening, and officially, it was bed time for everyone under the age of sixteen. Unofficially, even though all of them had been herded into their rooms by aunts, uncles and older cousins, it was still full of noise, especially when music was playing from a CD player in the corner, and the lights had yet to go off. A few of the very youngest children, barely older than toddlers, had been knocked out since earlier in the evening, and seemed completely undisturbed by the noise level in the room.

Sakura was curled up in Jinya's lap, looking but not really watching as he played a fast-paced game of Mahjong with five of their older cousins, including Daisuke the fifth (whose nickname had stuck after someone finally said it aloud.) Her eyes were stuck on the cards, but it was mostly an attempt not to look at her lap, where her shaking hands were gripping each other, trying to look like they were still.

She felt absolutely sick with some morbid kind of anticipation. The pink haired girl kept expecting to hear screaming start up somewhere in the rest of the house, to smell smoke or hear the sound of roaring flames overtaking an old wooden building. The day was over, and as the moon rose, her ability to pretend that everything was fine steadily lowered.

Feeling a twitch in her left foot, the same kind of twitch that signaled the beginning of her hand's nervous shaking, Sakura decided that she needed to get up and do something. It didn't matter what, so long as she wasn't sitting in one place and waiting and fearing and hoping she was just having a bad day.

Jinya looked away from the game briefly as Sakura began crawling out of his lap. "Sakura-chan?" He questioned. "Going to sleep now? PON!" The yell was quite random as he turned away and tossed down two cards to the groans of the others playing the game.

Sakura mustered up a tired looking smile, but shook her head. "I have to go to the bathroom. I'll come back when I'm done."

"Oh, okay. I'll save a space for you... Thirteen orphans! Ha, I win again! Hand it over!"

There was a chorus of quiet curses as people began handing over their money. Shaking her head, Sakura meandered through the groups of different people, stepping over toys, blankets and other children on her way to the door. In the hall, she kept a look out for anyone that might try to send her back into the room, then walked at a slightly faster pace to reach the stairs to the upper floors. She'd long since realized that the first and second floor bathrooms were the busiest.

It was as she was washing her hands and absently splashing water over her face that she suddenly began to feel tired. I should go to bed, Sakura thought, shutting the water off and drying her hands. I'll just go back downstairs to the dining room and go to sleep... Everything will be fine tomorrow when I wake up...

With these thoughts in mind, she exited the bathroom, passing a slow but steady stream of people heading to their various different rooms. Sakura thought she saw her mother and aunts as she walked down from the second floor, but it could've been a completely different set of redheads. Everybody shared so many features in her family.

On the first floor, now, Sakura noticed a group coming into the house from the front lawn. She thought about stopping, and saying hi, but remembered that she was sleepy. So tired... So she just walked towards them, intending to pass.

Very suddenly, a strange thought entered her head. I don't recognize them. And then she immediately dismissed it, of course she didn't recognize them! Everybody was new to her!

And yet, even as she passed them, the thought sprung up again, from Inner Sakura as well this time: We don't know these people. They... don't look familiar, but... Everybody in the family looks familiar. Why don't they look familiar?But again, it was subdued. I'll ask tomorrow, after I have a good night's sleep... But why can't we ask now?We don't know them and we should know them. They're our family.

Sakura stopped with her hand on the knob of the door that led into the dining room, feeling sweat begin to form on her head as one side of her thoughts began warring with the other. She was adamant that she needed to go to sleep, right now, and rest for the whole night. But she wanted to know who those people that weren't her family were doing in the house. But she shouldn't worry because everybody in the house was family, she should just go to sleep. But she wanted to know.

Her body stilled completely for a second as some thought clicked in the back of her mind, and her hands fell from the door and into the Ram symbol. Calling up the tiniest amount of chakra that she could, she whispered, "Dispel."

The fog lifted from her mind, and her first action was to shuffle backwards into the dark alcove created by the back stairs of the house. Her head was focused on the end of the hall, where the lone group of four that she'd seen had stopped, and the sight almost made her flinch. Those weren't her family members.

They were Root.

As soon as the thought processed, Sakura instinctively pulled all of her chakra into a tight little ball, removing her from their senses. All the dread she'd been feeling throughout the day rose into a tidal wave and crashed over her... And then disappeared. In fact, almost all her emotions were gone as she fell into a battle mindset. All she saw was the enemy in her territory.

Her mind churned. She was six years old and lacked the ability to fight them. She was in a house full of shinobi and civilians with shinobi training. The whole house was under a strong area-affecting genjutsu. The person casting the genjutsu had to be somewhere in the center of the house in order to affect the whole building. That meant there were more than four of the enemy.

If the four in front of her made one group, then the person in the center was most likely apart of another four person group. The center of the building was approximately the middle of the second floor. If there was a group scouring the first floor and one on the second floor, there had to be one more group covering the third floor of the building. That meant twelve of the enemy, most likely. Eight of which were spread out on the floors where her family was sleeping.

It took ten seconds for her to complete those thoughts. In the next two seconds, she was crawling around to the stairs and then running along the wall to hide her footsteps as she reached the second floor. There was one Root member in the middle of the long hallway, kneeling, with another member standing guard over him. The two doors at the very end of the hall were open.

Sakura couldn't fight them but she knew three different counters to genjutsu, and one of them was guaranteed to wake other people up as well. As stealthily as possible, she crawled up to the ceiling and crouched, then tightened the ball of her chakra even further as she prepared the Ram seal. And then, unlike the tiny bit she used earlier to wake herself up, she pushed out as much as she could. "Dispel!"

Whatever chakra she'd been using to stick to the ceiling dissipated, and she came crashing to the ground. Even as the standing Root member began rushing at her, however, Sakura had thought of this part as well. It was the best way to alert people to something wrong, after all.

She opened her mouth, took a deep breath, and screamed.

There was a second of absolute stillness, and then, there was pandemonium. Doors slammed open in the hallway, people came sprinting out in their nightclothes with weapon in hand, and screams began to sound through the house. The Bird-masked Root member was less than a foot away from her when someone she recognized as her aunt Chizuru spat a glob of lava into his shoulder, slamming him into the wall and burning straight through the armor he was wearing to begin eating away at his muscle and bone.

Sakura grabbed the discarded kunai in her hand, then felt herself being grabbed up. She thought it was one of her many cousins, but looking up, she found an Ox masked Root member was using her as a shield in order to back up. Her eyes caught the furious emeralds of an unnamed cousin of hers right before she slammed the kunai behind her and into the member's stomach.

He released her with a grunt of pain, and she realized her mistake right as they went toppling backwards down the stairs she'd come up only minutes ago. For a minute or so, the only thing she was cognizant of was pain, from her wrist that was stuck in the unconscious Root member's grasp, to the gash in her left arm from where the kunai he was holding went flying down with them.

Forcing herself to ignore it, Sakura struggled her way out from under the body and rolled out into the first floor hallway. Just as she pulled herself into a standing position, a cat masked Root member went flying down the hallway, acid bubbling away at his skin from a two-pronged attack by Daisuke the fifth and the younger girl she recognized as 'Iori-san' from a few days before.

And they weren't the only ones fighting. She could see into the doorway of the dining room from her position, and all the youngest children were huddled up at the back of the room as the older cousins and siblings battled a small army of what she thought were earth clones, each in either a Boar or Lizard mask. Sakura couldn't believe she'd forgotten about Danzo's methods of 'recruiting' children into his forces.

She was snatched up again, and this time, the first thing she did was begin to kick and scream. There was cursing from above her, and she heard another voice call out, "Take that one and get out of here, now! She has a seal on her!"

Sakura was inclined to try and figure out what that meant, but not when she was being carried towards the door faster than she could see. They were intercepted by a man with long auburn hair in a low ponytail, and Sakura went tumbling to the floor, where she immediately crawled to the side and narrowly missed having her small face smashed as the Karibi man went slamming into the wall above her due to a well placed kick.

Bleeding and exhausted, her half-hearted roll wasn't enough to get her away from the Tiger masked Root member as he growled and snatched at her with his good hand; the other appeared to be on the floor a few feet away from her, still oozing blood. No, no, not Danzo, no, she couldn't help but think as she was lifted by the collar of her shirt. She was sick and tired of being repeatedly snatched up and dropped.

Understandably, she broke into full out sobbing when a familiar flash of white hair appeared in her vision and she heard her brother growl out, "Let her go!" He followed his words up with a barefooted roundhouse kick, which impacted the Tiger mask so hard that both the porcelain and something in Jinya's foot cracked.

Jin didn't seem to notice the pain as he followed through, grabbing her into one of his arms and simultaneously dropping in a low sweeping kick that sent the Root member crashing hard to the ground. His other arm came up to support her under her legs, and he slumped back against the wall, panting. But he didn't stay there long. After only a second of rest, he rushed back towards the dining room.

The Boar and Lizard clones had dispersed, and all that was left was a group of frightened children and the coalition of Mei and Saeko driving the two original operatives away from the back of the room, trying not to use any jutsu where they might hurt the children.

She was still crying and clinging to her brother when, at some unbidden signal, he began forming seals and preparing to send a jutsu at the two Root members' backs. Daisuke the fifth and Iori seemed to appear out of nowhere to either side of him, both forming hand seals as well.

There was another invisible signal Saeko and Mei suddenly jumped back, both using what Sakura recognized as a popular earth jutsu that raised huge walls of dirt which hid them and the children completely from sight. At the same time, her brother and the two other teens cried out a garbled technique name.

Three streams of lava, each of varying size, formed midair before shooting at the two Root members that had nowhere to dodge. The impact was loud and messy as the smell of things burning began to fill the air. The two large earth walls fell, and Mei was there, releasing a water jutsu onto the lava which hardened it into rock, leaving both of the enemies to fall to the ground with a good deal of their skin burnt into slag and hard rock encasing them.

Jin dropped to his knees, cradling her, while Mei only spared them a glance before rushing off to deal with the sounds of fighting coming from up the stairs. Saeko immediately began checking on the children behind her, both doing a head count and searching out whoever might be injured among them.

Quite suddenly, however, there was a spike of chakra from somewhere deeper into the house, and everything seemed to get extremely silent. And then there was a sound like rushing water, except that it very much wasn't.

The sound came from the inky black seals rising out of the walls, floors and ceilings of the house in the most inconceivable of places, which then took on the look of a speeding train as they glowed and then started moving. The most interesting and relieving part was that where the seals were moving, every member of Root was being dragged along as well, like trussed up pigs.

Even with seemingly every enemy either captured or killed, however, the chaos continued. The children were led outside, with those unharmed or mildly injured being put under the watch of the civilian members of the Karibi clan while all the injured, children or otherwise, were being taken around to the lake, where the grounds were steadily being covered with blankets and healing supplies.

A team of ten healthy shinobi was quickly assembled and then formed into a patrol to scout out the forests and land surrounding the house for any stragglers or accomplices. Another group of civilian members was compiled to go out into the town and start getting water, bandages and other supplies, as well as cleaning products. There was a group to take care of burn wounds. Another was formed to start making some quick meals to give the exhausted people sustenance.

The clan as a whole was undergoing several headcounts, family by family, and then looking for stragglers. All the pregnant women had to be checked over and watched; one woman, Karibi-Harue Yuki, had gone into labor from the shock of it all. Nearly twenty of the shinobi clan members, including their grandmother Ruriko, were inside and powering the house's defense system which had been activated earlier as well as guarding the prisoners in one of the back rooms on the bottom floor.

The sun was beginning to rise when things had finally gotten somewhere close to calm, and it was at this time that Nadeshiko found her children out by the lake. Jinya's right foot was wrapped tightly in bandages, and he was cradling Sakura, who had bandages on both arms and around her head, with a stormy expression stuck somewhere between deep worry and leftover anger at the thought of his little sister being hurt.

The woman's already reddened eyes watered again as she scooped them into a hug, kissing both children on the head repeatedly, her throat too sore for her to get out more than 'I love you' and 'I'm so glad you're both alright.' She also spared a somewhat tighter hug for Sakura, whispering, "Oh, my baby, you saved us all..."

Sakura, for her part, was exhausted. She'd cried out all the tears she could and used up all her emotions and all her energy. Overall, she was happy that her family was for the most part alive and well, if injured, but she was too tired to even think. At the same time, she was afraid to go to sleep, fearing that she would have nightmares after the past few hours.

So she stayed curled up in her brother's arms, let her mother kiss and pat her as much as it would take to reassure the woman, and hoped that the fight had been the end of the entire horrible ordeal.

It would hurt to consider that anything worse could still be coming.

Two days had passed. It was New Year's day and although parts of the house were still in shambles, for the most part, everyone was doing their best to make the air as festive as possible, considering the circumstances. There had miraculously been no deaths for the family, but some people were still teetering on the edge, clinging to life as best as they could. More than a few shinobi careers had been put on hold for a long while, and maybe even ended, depending on the severity of the injuries.

Despite it all, however, the whole family had grown closer to each other, and they were pushing forward. Brightly colored pictures were drawn, bandages were painted with the colors of the rainbow, food was constantly being made, and every game one could think of was being played somewhere on the property. People put on acrobatics shows or used low-level genjutsu abilities to play out stories for everyone to watch. If somebody had an idea on a way to lighten the mood, it was immediately put into play.

Inside the house, teams of people were cleaning up rooms and doing what they could to repair the massive collateral damage that had been inflicted to the walls and floors. Groups of girls traveled into the house over and over to see the newest addition to the family, Karibi-Harue Kisshou, whose name meant 'lucky omen.' The baby boy and his mother had both survived the early birth without any complications.

Behind all this, of course, were the less than pleasant parts of 'pushing forward.' Like dealing with the prisoners. Although everybody was aware that they were still somewhere nearby, nobody except a select group of people was aware of their location. Nine Root members had died either during the fighting or in the aftermath, and their bodies had been dealt with personally by the collective parents of all the children who'd been threatened during the ambush.

Ruriko and one of her older sisters, Yura, had personally dealt with the remaining three prisoners. They were specially qualified for this because, for them, it wasn't the first time they'd encountered members of this special force. In fact, they had clashed with Root twice before, both times in the defense of their homes and lives. While Yura had always been targeted because of her position as a well known shinobi diplomat, Ruriko was pursued with slightly more force.

This was because besides Shimura Danzo, Ruriko was quite likely the only person in the world that had the ability to unlock the seals that every Root member carried on their tongue, keeping them from sharing any information that they might have. In her youth, Ruriko had been apprenticed to the Uzumaki clan of Whirlpool, who were best known for their abilities as seal masters. It was also the reason that the Uzumaki had been so viciously decimated, when other families from the village had been allowed to get out alive or surrender without being hunted further. They were simply the most dangerous to the eyes of the shinobi world.

After the removal of their seals, the interrogation of the prisoners was swift and brutal. After plucking every bit of information from their minds, from the location of their base and their purpose to their individual favorite colors, two of the prisoners were executed. One was left alive, although not for much longer, and being kept in the darkened basement of the house.

And it was here that Haruno Sakura stood, trying to confirm something that she'd overheard earlier yet refused to believe, and honestly, still didn't believe despite the proof before her eyes, unconscious and chained up with shackles and seals. Her mind just couldn't compute whatever was going on. She didn't even notice the fat tears rolling down her face.

"...Nadeshiko doesn't need to know. He told her that he was called off for a diplomatic incident, and that is what she will believe. My daughter tries to be strong, but she has always been fragile, and I will not let her or my grandchildren suffer with this knowledge for the rest of their lives. We will heal his body and leave him in Rice Country for the patrols to find and bring back to her, the victim of a bandit attack. It's better that way, Yura. For everyone involved..."

Sakura wished she had the chance to believe that as well. But that was impossible now. Is this what my changes brought...?

"...Otou-san..."

A/N: Yup... Twisting and changing and bending and breaking. Haruno Daisuke was the Root plant. Also, I'm sorry that I suck at fight scenes.