No, I am not dead. I was just on vacation and didn't have any internet connection. But I am back now so we can all do a little happy dance.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

One Week Later

Itachi and Kimiko had spent the week resting at Yori's cabin. Their wounds were healing nicely, and the stitches would be able to come out shortly. Unfortunately, Kimiko's broken arm would take a month or two to fully heal, and Itachi's sight showed no sign of recovery.

Despite these set backs, Itachi and Kimiko knew that they had stayed to long and needed to come up with a plan to get back to Konoha.

Kimiko walked into Itachi's room with a map of all the countries and spread it out on the bed.

"We need to figure out what direction to go after we leave," declared Kimiko.

"I agree," said Itachi as he sat up, "We've been to complacent."

Kimiko looked at the map, "Right now we're somewhere near the boarders of the Countries of Earth and Rain."

"We obviously can't go straight to Konoha, or any where near Ame," pondered Itachi, "In our conditions, we won't be able to fight or travel for long periods of time."

"We'll have to stay away from Konoha for a while," agreed Kimiko, "We'll have to travel incognito and stay in small towns until our bodies have healed enough to camp on the road."

"If we can make it to Suna, we'd be able to easily get back to Konoha if we could hire an escort team from them," offered Itachi.

"The trick will be getting there without running into Aoi or Tayuya..." murmured Kimiko as she studied the map, "What if we traveled around Bird country and into Wind country. It'll take longer, but it will put a whole country in between the Rain country and us. That way, if they send out extra ninja, it will take them longer to get to us."

"If we use that plan and take in to account the extra breaks we'll need until we've healed, if we leave here within the week we should be home in about a month and a half," calculated Itachi, "It may take a while, but it's the best plan we have."

A knock came at the door, and Yori popped her head in.

"I have to go into town and buy some more medicinal herbs," she explained, "Can you look after Sachiko for me? I should be back by dinner. It's only a two hour walk into town."

"Of course we will," said Kimiko.

"It's the least we could do for you," agreed Itachi.

"Thank you so much!" sighed Yori, "I always worry about her so much."

Sasuke waited silently for the Hokage to speak.

Tsunade sighed heavily as she looked up from her desk, "I wish I didn't have to do this, but Orochimaru has left us no choice. He has to be stopped permanently. Sasuke, your mission is to go under cover and infiltrate Orochimaru's lair. Get as close as you can to him and kill him. Now is the only chance you will have to back out of this mission. Do you accept it?"

"Yes Hokage-sama," said Sasuke stoically.

"Good," said Tsunade, "The official story is that you defected and ran away from Konoha to join Orochimaru. Your reason is that you want to gain more power and, with you being the second son to the leader of the Uchiha Clan, you weren't getting enough power. You may not tell anyone about this mission. You leave tonight, and upon you're return, you will be welcomed back into the village. Dismissed."

Sasuke bowed to Tsunade and left without a word.

Sachiko happily skipped into Itachi's room while Yori walked out the front door.

She jumped on the bed, "So what are we gonna do?" she asked excitedly.

"Well we were planning to work on Itachi's agility now that he's blind, but-" Kimiko didn't get to finish her sentence before Sachiko started to beg to help.

Kimiko wanted to help Itachi, but she also didn't want Sachiko and Him to get hurt. She couldn't figure out how to go about helping him and pleasing Sachiko.

Suddenly, she got a great idea.

"Yes," answered Kimiko, "Sachiko, grab all the pillows you can and meet us outside."

Sachiko scurried off to find extra pillows while Itachi sat their looking as confused as any normal Uchiha could look.

Kakashi, Kiba, Neji and Yamato had been traveling for four days when they found the spot of the initial fight.

After looking around the fight scene, Kiba spoke up, "It looks like they were seriously out numbered," he said. Akamaru yipped in response.

"Byakugan!" shouted Neji, "I can see a total of ten bodies. Eight are Rain ninja and two are from Otogakure. Itachi and Kimiko aren't here."

Everyone breathed a little sigh of relief and started looking for tracks of some sort.

After several minutes of searching, Yamato shouted, "Over here! I found some blood!"

"Well yeah," said Kiba, "There's blood everywhere!"

"No," said Kakashi, who had come over to see what Yamato had found, "This is a blood trail. Let's go!"

All three ninja ran after Kakashi who was intently following the trail.

Kimiko and Itachi were waiting outside the house in a clear space when Sachiko ran out with about a dozen small pillows.

"What are we going to do with all of these?" asked Sachiko eagerly.

"Well, Itachi is going to stand here," said Kimiko as she guided Itachi to a spot several feet away, "and we, are going to throw these pillows at him while he tries to dodge them."

"How is this going to help him?" asked Sachiko apprehensively.

"Simple, he'll be training his ears to pick up the sounds of things being hurled at him, and he'll get to work on dodging them without tripping over anything he can't see," explained Kimiko, "It'll be fun."

Sachiko hesitantly picked up a pillow and tossed it in Itachi's direction. It fell short of its target by about three feet.

"Try again, just throw harder. Like this!" said Kimiko as she nailed Itachi in the face.

Sachiko giggled as Itachi struggled with the pillow, picked another one up and threw it at him.

Itachi hurriedly tried to avoid the pillows pelting his body, "I bet hanging with Shisui gave her this idea," he grumbled.

As Yori entered the dim medicine shop, a small bell above the door tinkled.

Ami walked out from the back room. "Yori! What can I get you?" she asked in a seemingly pleasant manner.

"Oh, just some more of the usual herbs," said Yori.

"You just picked some up two weeks ago why would you need more?" asked Ami calmly.

Yori however wasn't so calm. She had seen the wanted signs for Itachi and Kimiko in the town and knew that they were in trouble.

"Did you hear about those two Anbu everyone's looking for?" asked Ami in her attempt at small talk.

"Y-yes," Yori stuttered a little, "I wonder what they did."

"Here you are," said Ami as she handed Yori her herbs, "Why did you say you needed more so soon?

"Oh, Sachiko had a tantrum again and hurt herself," lied Yori, "Goodbye," she said as she hurried out the door.

Ami waved slightly then turned and went into the back room. She wrote a quick message and tied it to her messenger hawk.

"This goes to Aoi," she told it as it took off.

On the letter were only three words:

I found them.

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