They run in silence, until they think Orochimaru is far enough away. They stop and sit down.

Kira lays on her back saying, "Finally! I thought we'd never stop running!"

Kakashi leans against a tree to rest and says, "Naruto. Where is Sakura and Sasuke?"

Naruto is sitting on his bottom, leaning back on his arms as he says, "They stopped at a stream, so it shouldn't be far."

Kira smiles and says, "Good! I'll be able to find it. I am from the Mist Village you know."

"Then lead the way," Kakashi says.

Kira nods happily then takes off taking the lead. As they continue to run, Kira gives direction of which way to go. 30 minutes later, they come close to the stream which Sakura and Sasuke were resting at.

As Kira finds it she says with joy, "Yay! I found it! Foot soak and sleep, here I come!"

Kakashi smiles as he replies, "That sounds great! Let's hurry then."

Kira sweat drops as she replies, "You mean we weren't! But this is as fast as I can go!"

Naruto stares at her in surprise as he says, "What are you talking about? Before we left, you were going much faster than this."

Kira stops along with everyone else as she replies, "Well, when I got angry and was fighting Kabuto by myself, I used up a lot of energy. So now I'm barely keeping up with ya'll two."

As Kira ended her sentence she lets her body slump and her head fall.

Kakashi walks up to Kira and says to Naruto, "Naruto, you take Kohana and Kira will get on my back."

Kira looks up at him in shock as she replies, "What? But, Kakashi you don't have to do that."

Kakashi gives her a smile as he says, "It's no problem. Besides it's the least I can do."

As he finishes his sentence, he kneels down and Kira gets on his back, wrapping her arms around his neck, while resting her head on his shoulder. As she does, Kakashi blushes a little before they take off once again. It wasn't long before they got to the stream and landed in front of Sakura and Sasuke.

Once they do, Kira gets off of Kakashi and says, "Since we have gotten some distance from him and I actually think we have managed to escape him for now, I'm going to grab my clothes and take a well-earned bath."

Kakashi nods as Kira walks over to their bags and finds hers and grabs some clothes and walks down the stream. Once she was downstream and in deeper water, she took off her clothes while looking around. She takes shampoo and soap, and she walks into the deepest part of the water. As she stood there, she began to wash her hair then herself. She then looks around to see no one before she walks out of the stream and dries off. After she dries off she starts to put her clothes on. She puts a T-shirt on that said 'Ok, I'm here! So what are your other two wishes?' and a skirt. As she walked back, she saw Kakashi leaning against a tree, Naruto and Sakura who were making sure Sasuke was okay, and Kohana who was on a blanket on the ground asleep.

As she arrived, she walked up to Kakashi saying, "Ok, I'm back!"

Kakashi looks at her shirt while reading it and says, "I like your shirt. Although, I'm not used to seeing you in a skirt, I like it."

Kira blushes as she turns and walks over to her bag and grabs a towel, taking it over to the log which was over by the stream. She lays the towel on the log and sits down with her writing notebook and begins to write. A few minutes later, she lies down, placing her book on top of her face and falls asleep. Naruto fell asleep on his back with his arms and legs stretched out all over the place, and Sakura had fallen asleep sitting up beside Sasuke who was laying down on a blanket beside Kohana, both sleeping peacefully. Kakashi was the only one awake to watch over everyone and to make sure no one tried to attack them.

Meanwhile, Orochimaru and Kabuto are standing at the battle field where they had fought the Leaf and Mist Village ninjas. Orochimaru was unhappy with the results of the battle which also made Kabuto angry.

"My Lord, what should we do now?" Kabuto asked.

Orochimaru grins and says, "We'll return to the village. I want to see if Kakashi and his group are still going to try to attack us."

"And what if they do, My Lord?" Kabuto asks.

"If they do... We'll take Sasuke from them, and also take those two Mist ninjas, and if Kakashi and those other two brats try to stop us, we'll just have to kill them, "Orochimaru said with a laugh as he began to leave.

Kabuto nods as he follows Orochimaru back to the Sound Village.

So now, Kakashi is walking over to Kira. She and everyone else had been sleeping for a few hours and he decided it was time for lunch. They had just had a big battle, and he didn't want them getting sick and passing out later on. He gently lifts the book off of Kira's face and sets it down to the side. He looks at her face and feels memorized by the way the sun hit her gentle features. Kakashi began to blush as he stared at her face and he swallowed.

"Would you stop staring at my face, Kakashi?" Kira said.

He jumps back and says, "Ah! I didn't know you were awake! Uh, I... um..."

"Just... Uh, what did you want?" Kira asked as she opened her eyes and looked at him.

Kakashi stands up and puts his hands in his pockets saying, "Well, its lunch time, and as you know, after a big battle a ninja should eat. So I was wondering if you'd like to get up and start making food."

Kira sighs and says, "I don't really feel like it, but I guess I will." Sakura yawns as she begins to wake up, and she looks down at Sasuke. He was still sleeping peacefully so she gets up and stretches.

Sakura looks at Kakashi and says, "Sensei, what is for lunch?"

"Whatever Kira is going to cook will be for lunch. I think you've all earned a decent lunch," he said as he helped Kira stand up.

Sakura puts her hands on her hips and says, "Nonsense! She's been cooking for us the entire mission! There is no reason why she should cook for us now after we ran away from battle to protect Sasuke! She's done so much for us, so I think it's time we gave back a little. I and Naruto will cook lunch! Alright?"

Kira and Kakashi blink and shrug.

"I don't care really," Kira says as she yawns.

Sakura grabs a bottle of water and pours a little of it on Naruto's face to wake him up. Sure enough, Naruto jumped to his feet and yelled as he rubbed his face and hair, trying to get rid of the water.

"I hate water! Grr..." Naruto said as he fumed with anger.

Sakura smiles and says, "Naruto, you and I will be cooking lunch this evening so let's get moving! Kira's been cooking for us the entire mission so let's give back a little okay?"

Naruto sighs and says, "Well, I guess so, but next time I'd rather you tickle me or kick me or something, geez."

They begin to prepare the food and Kira grabs a bucket saying, "You know what? I think I know the perfect side dish for this meal. Berries! So I'll go get some. You coming, Kakashi-san?"

Kakashi sits next to Sasuke and says, "No. You go ahead this time, I'll be fine. I don't really want to."

Kira says, "Why not?"

He shakes his head and says, "Just go. I'll go next time. I'm kind of tired."

Kira shrugs and walks away saying, "Alright."

She walks into the woods and thinks about Kakashi.

"Why wouldn't he want to come with me? I don't understand it," she thinks to herself.

She walks through some trees and sees a bushel of berries and smiles.

"Perfect!" she says as she begins to pick them.

Back at the camp, Sasuke began to wake up in pain. His curse mark had started hurting again as he covered it with his left hand.

Everyone looks at him and Kakashi says, "What is it, Sasuke?"

He shakes his head and says, "It burns..."

Kohana wakes up and looks to her right and sees Sasuke holding his neck in pain.

"Sasuke? What's wrong?" she sits up and flinches a little.

Her body was bruised from being punched out of the ground so hard.

"His curse mark is hurting," Kakashi says.

Kohana's eyes widen as she feels an alert for Kira.

"Where's Kira?" she asks darkly.

Everyone looks at Kohana and Kakashi says, "Picking berries."

"Alone? Sasuke's curse mark is hurting because Orochimaru is near! Why would you let Kira go alone?" Kohana yelled as she jumped up, only to fall back down on the blanket from the pain in her legs.

Kira is picking berries happily and she hears a whisper, "Well, well, well. Look what I have found. A pretty little girl out picking some berries."