Alone, Gaara made his way through the trees, until he finally saw the Operation Anime headquarters coming into view. He wasn't concerned about the girls trying to follow him this time. Instead of simply leaving in silence, he told Itachi to make sure everyone knew that he wanted to be left alone for a while. For some reason, he trusted the Uchiha to pass the message on once they eventually noticed that he'd left again. Hopefully that would buy him enough time to do what he needed to do without the girls worrying.

Gaara approached the back entrance to the OA base, the same one that they'd used during their last raid. He couldn't help but wonder if the group had hung onto that key they'd snagged last time, not that the ninja needed it. Quickly glancing around to make sure he wasn't being watched, he trickled some sand into the lock, opening the door for him.

Slipping inside, he made sure to keep a sharp lookout for OA members. It didn't take long, though, before he encountered one as he turned a corner — the two of them spotting each other at the same time.

"Hey, what are you- uagh!" The OA member tried to speak, before Gaara's sand quickly poured out and surrounded the man, preventing him from attacking. "Wh-what do you want?!" the OA grunt trembled, though Gaara tightened his grip when the man tried to struggle.

"I don't want to cause much trouble." Gaara spoke monotonously. "I just want you to tell me one thing."

"Argh… what is it?!"

Gaara narrowed his eyes, taking a deep breath before posing his question. "What do you do with the bodies?"

The grunt looked back at him, confused. "Huh…? Why do you need to- augh!"

Gaara tightened his sand. His eyes only narrowed further as his patience thinned. "Just tell me." he pressed on. "What happens to them?"

Meanwhile, the otaku group at Taylor's remained mostly silent as all their usual chatter remained suppressed by a mix of negative emotions. Kaito sat on the couch with his legs folded up in front of him as he grieved silently, Rin sitting beside him with nothing she could think of to say. Alyssa, likewise, sat across from them, glancing around the room awkwardly as she couldn't think of anything to say, either. Taylor had already explained everything she could to Kiba, who seemed to be having some trouble absorbing it all as he, too, sat in awkward silence, not knowing what to say to those who had been hit worse as even he could barely understand it all. The Uchihas were probably off sulking somewhere. Taylor wanted to get more information from them about Gaara, but, they didn't say anything other than 'he said he wanted to be left alone', and they didn't seem to know anything more than that, nor did they want to be pestered.

The otaku who seemed to be in the worst shape, though, was Grace, curled up in a chair with a worried expression plastered over her face. Taylor couldn't help but notice.

"Listen, Grace. I'm sure Gaara will be fine." she tried assuring her. "He's strong, remember?"

"Yeah, but…" Grace sniffled, seemingly on the verge of tears. "Why does he keep running away? What's he trying to do? And what if OA's involved?!"

"Maybe it has something to do with… his brother?" Kiba suggested.

"Yeah, Grace." Taylor chimed in. "Maybe he just wants to… think about things."

All Grace could do was whimper sadly and pull herself into an even tighter ball, her worries still not leaving her.

Gaara stood in a dark hallway, in front of a menacing black door. It seemed that it didn't get much use. Of course, not that it would need much use. No one needed to walk where he was headed. The only people sent to this place had other means of getting there, so he'd been told.

He clutched the handle, and the door creaked open. Almost instantly, Gaara threw his arm in front of his nose. An unbearable stench emanated from within. He had anticipated it, knowing what was beyond, but somehow he didn't expect it to be so strong.

Not wanting the escaping scent to attract attention, he quickly made his way inside, closing the door behind him and sealing himself into darkness. With his free hand, he felt along the walls for a light switch. Finding one, he watched as dim lights slowly flickered on, illuminating the concrete staircase in front of him, only leading down. He steeled himself before moving forward.

The stench, of course, only grew worse as the ninja continued to descend, soon growing so thick that the air around him just felt like it had a certain dirtiness to it, as if the foulness in the air could be perceived through more than just its smell. Nearing the bottom of the staircase, he saw a darkness at the end of the tunnel. The string of lights ended there. As Gaara reached the reached the basement floor, he turned and grimaced at the dark mass poured out in front of him. While no lights properly illuminated the OA basement, it was still far from complete darkness, and while it sickened him to even imagine it, he knew full well what he was looking at.

Corpses. Dozens, even hundreds of corpses, all thrown onto the cold basement floor to rot like garbage- no. Not even garbage. Even garbage would receive better care, being packed up and taken someplace. These characters had been treated even worse than garbage. Buried only in technicality, being below-ground, they were left with nothing but the clothes they'd been murdered in to cover their exposed, rotting flesh. The few streaks of light coming in from the stairway landed on just a few mangled faces — cold, stiff, and still frozen in expressions of agony and fear. With the poor lighting, Gaara couldn't make out many details further into the distance. And he was glad. At his feet, the ninja saw squirming mounds of ants crawling about, and he could only imagine what other sorts of insects had already begun to feast on the… riper bodies.

Sickened at how horribly mistreated the bodies were, he clenched his fists in anger. Still, just knowing what happened wasn't his goal. He still had work to do. Unfortunately, it wasn't manageable when he could barely make out any of the bodies. Reluctantly, he reached towards the light switch near the entrance to the room, and flicked it on.

"Guys, has anyone seen the cat?" Len spoke up as he entered the living room, the concern clear on his face as he proceeded to look around couches and chairs.

"She's probably with Sasuke." Alyssa spoke up. "She usually stays pretty close to him."

"Yeah. Hell if I know why." Sasuke growled as he entered the scene, the tiny kitten curled up on the ground next to his feet. "She keeps following me around but won't stop trembling like that." he told them apathetically.

"Wait what?!" Len exclaimed, rushing towards the creature. "What's wrong with her?!"

Sasuke shrugged. "Hn."

He started to walk off, leaving the cat just shaking there, making herself small. Her head perked up slightly when Sasuke started to leave, but she was soon distracted by Len's presence. "Are you ok?" he asked, reaching out to her. The cat only tucked her head in again, growling sadly as she curled up into an even tighter ball. "Guys, come over here!" Len called. "I think there's something wrong with the cat!"

The lighting in the basement wasn't fantastic, with only a few, spread-out lights giving the place a very dark, dingy feel, only complimented by the sour sight of the rotting corpses as even the brightly-colored hair and outfits seemed so dirty and decolored. Regardless, Gaara braced himself and continued forward.

He struggled to navigate through the pile of bodies, not wanting to step on anyone, though that was virtually impossible with so many mangled bodies in one tangled mess. He tensed up as he saw something moving in his peripheral vision, followed by a dull thud. But he quickly relaxed as he realized it was only another body hitting the floor, as none of the OA workers ever needed to enter this place themselves; they just dropped the bodies in from various chutes above. He grimaced at the thought.

It took him a while, but eventually, he managed to find what he was looking for. Slowly, he stopped at a particular corpse, and turned the character over so that he could see his face. He'd been pretty badly bruised, and his face paint was smudged — he must've put up a good fight — but in the end, he'd wound up down here like all the rest of them. Gaara looked sadly down at his brother, anger boiling inside him for the people who would not only so cruelly tear Kankuro's life away from him, but also leave him to rot in a horrid place like this.

Gently, Gaara bent down and cradled his brother in his arms, lifting him out of the mess of bodies beneath him. He wasn't entirely sure what to expect, coming here, but having seen all this, his mind had been made up for sure. I need to give him a proper burial. he told himself. I don't know what I'll do exactly, but… anything is better than rotting in this awful, awful place. Holding Kankuro protectively, he stood and turned towards the staircase. He had to get him out of there.

A/N - Happy 4th anniversary, Glomp! (Er, counting from the start date of the original roleplay, anyway.) (And even then I'm a day early but who cares.)