Sorry it's been so long since the last update. RL has really, really been kicking my a$$. 'And the hits just keep on comin'', as the saying goes. Anyway, I hope you find something to enjoy about these chapters 25 & 26.

Thanks much for your patience ^^

-Jono'

Sakura

What on EARTH could have happened to Naruto! worried Sakura who sat with thoughts mired in a syrupy-thick mix of anger and anxiousness. It's been over a week…almost TWO! What's he doing? He must have really gone crazy thinking he could just fly off on his own personal mission.

The girl frowned and shifted, deep in preoccupation; she'd hardly been able to even think about anything else since she'd found out.

Chuuya and Inari were no help. Despite their gushing gratitude for her help the two remained steadfastly silent about anything else. This was more than little-kid obstinacy (although there were boatloads of that). Both were filled with a sense of mission that could not so far be shaken by any of Sakura's efforts, whether through heartfelt pleas or outright threats, to find out anything more about what her teammate was up to. Their devotion to the yellow-headed idiot was at once maddening and yet at the same time kind of inspiring, almost heartwarming.

Yeah…almost!

Of course it hadn't taken much deductive effort on Sakura's part to figure out that whatever it was involved Haku. After all, both kids were from Wave Country, someone who clearly had both skill and infinite patience had taken the time to teach them the ninja arts, and Naruto had just returned from visiting the unlikely constable not very long ago.

But what could be happening in Wave Country that would keep Naruto a whole week! the pink-haired girl continued along on a train of thought she was powerless to escape. Even HE'S got to know that two little kids can't cover for him THIS long. Everyone's starting to ask questions.

"Sakura?" a voice called to her as if from the farthest reaches of outer space, penetrating slowly through thick atmospheres of vexation.

The kunoichi blinked and found her empty-eyed gaze directed out the window and far away from her assignment. The fish on the desk in front of her, resting bleakly on parchment and surrounded by elaborately wrought seals, wasn't any more resuscitated now than it had been when she'd started. In fact, the poor thing was probably riper for dinner than for resurrection.

"Are you all right?" inquired Lady Tsunade with guarded curiosity, one amber eyebrow raised, as she looked in from the lab doorway.

Sakura let her thumbnail fall from her mouth not having realized before now that she'd been worrying it. In her lap rested the Fifth Hokage's own personal textbook with its margins crammed full of useful notes and all the really important passages in brackets. The young ninja turned slowly toward her master then delivered a faint, belated smile.

"Oh, sorry Lady Tsunade," she stammered, "I guess my mind was off somewhere."

The ninja-lord frowned with maternal understanding. "You've been working pretty hard for a long while now. I don't usually say things like this but you should take some time off to relax. Adequate rest is just as important to learning or training as anything else, you know."

Sakura returned a feeble nod. "I will, Lady Tsunade…and thank you."

The Hokage shot her a grin, took a step to leave but then stopped and added: "Oh, and will you check on Naruto again? It's not like him to be sick, let alone for so long. Really I should have sent medical-ninjas to drag his orange butt to the hospital by now, kicking and screaming if that's what it comes to, but it keeps slipping my mind." The woman winced then laughed confidingly. "I have to admit too I've kind of been grateful for the break – Naruto NOT annoying me about his next mission or reminding me how he's going to be the Hokage one day or getting into a fight or argument or trouble of SOME kind. But now the quiet's starting to really BUG me."

"Um, sure, Lady Hokage," Sakura replied, twisting a length of pink hair, "of course."

Tsunade straightened in thought then folded her arms over her ample chest. "It's so strange," she pondered aloud. "I mean, I KNOW he's not lazy…CRAZY, yes, but not lazy so there's no way he's faking it just to get out of having to go on missions. Anyway," added the Sannin who gave her student a clever look, "being that you're an aspiring medical-ninja now, I'll leave the matter of this particular patient…to you."

Sakura suppressed her reflex to cringe. "Thank you, Sensei," she managed in a half-hearted tone.

Once Tsunade had gone, Sakura closed her textbook then her eyes and sat for a while with the tome cradled against her chest, feeling almost ill. Rising slowly, the girl paced then to the window and directed her imploring, emerald-eyed stare up through the trees as if the answer might be found somewhere in that leaf-veiled, Konoha sky.

What am I supposed to do? she lamented, burning with frustration as her teeth clenched fiercely. Naruto, I SWEAR I'll kill you for putting me through this. This is all YOUR fault!

The anger was real but beneath that lurked a deeper, underlying fear – that her impulsive teammate could have gotten lost or hurt, kidnapped or killed. Weren't there some very serious bad-guys called the Akatsuki on the hunt for him and who almost GOT him when he and Jiraiya went to bring Lady Tsunade back to the Leaf Village after Lord Sarutobi's death?

Sakura drew a deep breath and tried to regain some sense of calm.

Naruto's a lot more resourceful, stronger, luckier and smarter than anyone usually gives him credit for, she told herself then amended: Well, more resourceful, stronger and luckier, anyway. And he just has this…this WAY of getting out of bad spots somehow.

Whatever he's up to in Wave Country couldn't possibly be harder than some of those other missions he's been on, right?

The young kunoichi's emotions settled slightly but then just as quickly veered back.

Usually Kakashi-sensei was there…or Master Jiraiya to help when things got really serious.

Sakura's green eyes widened then rolled as she considered what she was doing to herself with all this immature and stereotypically-girlish vacillation.

You've got to stop this, she tried again, trying to clear the warring thoughts from her head. Naruto is just a little late. That's all. He told Inari and Chuuya he'd be back in a week and you KNOW how he is about keeping his word.

He just got delayed, the genin considered hopefully.

It happens.

He'll be back any minute and then everything can go right back to normal.

Suddenly, Sakura's temper flared; the tendons in her right fist creaked as the girl raised it and clenched hard. AFTER I break every last bone in his little blond BODY! CHA!

She went slack then as another current of thought assailed her: and if he's not back?

The laboratory suddenly felt dreadfully, oppressively still; the muttering voices of the other students and interns trailing away from down the hall, distant and phantasmal.

Meanwhile, said her conscious which rose within her like a restless spirit, she'd lied to her sensei; lied to the Hokage…or, at very least, had withheld the truth. Not that she'd never done anything like that before but never about anything as serious as this.

Lady Tsunade had sworn to die defending the village if necessary, had agreed to pass on her knowledge to Sakura and take her on as her disciple student. It was an honor. More than that it was a pledge of trust and faith – a declaration of belief that this undistinguished little thirteen-year old girl with pink hair and NO accomplishments of any kind past the good grades she'd always earned at the academy would somehow prove worthy of the Legendary Sannin's generosity.

Sakura's fingertips tapped a frantic rhythm on the window sill.

Get a grip, she urged herself at last. You're way over-thinking this. Everyone covers for a friend sometimes. Everyone.

From her memory rose Kakashi-sensei's bracing words; the most serious thing, the deepest and most heartfelt wisdom the often inscrutable jonin had ever imparted: 'Those who abandon their friends are worse than scum.'

Come on, thought Sakura in a comforting way as if she was trying to coax herself off a ledge, what are you really going to do, rat out your own partner…your friend?

The word echoed in her mind. Naruto really was a friend, wasn't he.

She closed her eyes. Thinking about it, it sure seemed like he'd been a lot better friend to her than she'd ever been to him. He'd saved her life how many times now and almost always at extreme personal risk to his own. And, in turn, how many times had she ever done anything for him or even bothered to offer her strange, hyperactive teammate so much as a kind word?

You OWE him, girl, the genin concluded sternly. You need to suck this up and make it work somehow. This one time you have to come through for him. This time YOU can save HIM…even IF it's just from his own stupidity.

Yeah! Sakura told herself with an air of satisfying finality. Just saying it that way resonated through her mind like the tone of a bell – one clean, crisp note that cleared away all the dissonance.

Turning smartly from the window, the young ninja felt lighter. At last it was done. She would go home now, enjoy her mom's thoughtfully-prepared dinner, get a good night sleep and then figure out how to stall, well, everybody in the Hidden Leaf Village until Naruto's return.

Her certitude lasted almost until she got home.

Along the way as she walked little doubts started to trickle in, bit by bit, like rain through the rusting canopy of her resolve. A lot of it wasn't anything she could put her finger on but only the vague, uneasy sense that perpetuating Naruto's house of cards was only going to make things worse…for him, for herself and for those two well-meaning little kids.

Tazuna and Tsunami, and Chuuya's parents must be out of their MINDS by now, she thought.

So now Sakura found herself standing in front of a door, frozen on the threshold literally as well as figuratively. If she entered, she was betraying her partner and friend. If she walked away, she was betraying both her sensei and her own conscience. That's kind of what it came down to, didn't it? There was no in-between.

The door swung inward suddenly, startling Sakura and ripping her from her thoughts.

Shizune, looking down at her armload of documents instead of where she was going, almost bowled the girl over in her haste but stopped just in time. Ninja reflexes were often useful like that.

"Oh!" the Hokage's adjutant gasped slightly then paused to catch her breath. "Sakura, I didn't expect to see you. Did you want to see Lady Tsunade?"

Sakura gave the woman a dumfounded look. This time the customary question wasn't really that simple to answer.

Seconds ticked by. Shizune's face turned increasingly puzzled.

No, Sakura thought to say with an easy, facile smile smeared over her face, I know she's busy and I'd hate to interrupt. I'll just talk to her tomorrow. But though her stomach twisted into painful knots, the young kunoichi instead hung her head and, with an expression tense with pain, nodded.

Aya

Captain Ao fixed his lone eye hard on the senior lab technician who all but withered under the intensity. "Do you really mean to say that you've isolated ten completely different pathogens, all lethal, from the specimen Miss Sakamoto brought you last week and NONE of them are responsible for what's going on out there?" the jonin railed in disbelief.

In the wake of Krishenay Rahaman's massacre of his late master the Mizukage's own guards, the one-eyed mist-shinobi named Ao along with the stunningly-beautiful Mei Terumi had questioned Aya intently. Though thorough, the whole experience had been surprisingly gentle, lasting only a few hours, owing in part to the former hunter-ninja's total cooperation in which she'd admitted to having saved Haku's life back in Wave Country, withholding the fact of the fugitive's survival ever since and assisting him yet again when he'd reappeared unexpectedly in Kirigakure with a story about trying to save it from some vague but immediate doom – a doom that was starting to come to pass.

The technician, disconcerted at being confronted suddenly by two high-ranking jonin, looked helplessly toward Aya who could only shrug. "Y-yes, sir, that's exactly right," he explained with a hard swallow, standing by his report. However frightening the ANBU Captain might be, given the militaristic features of his face, blue hair cut in a crisp, chisel-slant, talisman earrings and piratical black eye-patch, what the medical-ninja knew was far worse: "All the diseases we cultured from the blood and fluids on the handkerchief resemble known pandemic strains but they've been, I don't know how I should put this, refined somehow. They're all much more dangerous, much more contagious. I'm talking by orders of magnitude!"

Mei Terumi's demure, devil-may-care laugh broke the mood as she remarked: "Ten plagues, you say. How very."

"But none of them show up in any of those who've died since the outbreak began."

The distractingly-voluptuous woman tossed her mane of very long, reddish-brown hair then turned serious. "I assume you and your staff have taken steps to make sure none of them get loose? After all, things are bad enough as they are."

"Um…uh, yes, ma'am," he stuttered, whether due to her rank and reputation or the stupefying power of her figure, it was hard to tell. "The cultures are being stored in separate level five containment vaults – the most secure we have."

"And what about this eleventh plague?" the kunoichi continued probingly. "Do you have any answers on it?"
"No, ma'am, nothing yet, but we're working on it. We hope to know more once we develop cultures taken from the corpse the ANBU recovered after the attack." The man looked to make sure his audience knew which one he meant – the decapitated body of a shinobi who had been identified beyond doubt as a member the Tsujita clan, a bloodline thought to have been hunted to extinction until just days ago. The technician frowned, a little overwhelmed. "We'd have it by now but it took us awhile to thaw out," he explained. "Both it and the head were hard-frozen when we got it and we couldn't rush the process."

Mei nodded though clearly she'd hoped for better news. "Do the best you can," she instructed, "keeping in mind that a lot of lives are on the line, maybe even the entire future of the Hidden Mist Village. If your department needs anything at all in the way of resources, let me know and I will see to it that you have them." The medical-ninja bobbed his head that he understood. "Also," added the jonin, "double the guards on those containment vaults. I'd hate to leave what sounds like the most deadly biological weapons ever developed without appropriate protection.

"Do let me know as soon as you come up with any more information."

"Ms. Terumi," Aya ventured with hesitation clear in her voice while the lab tech bowed and hastened away. This was all so new to her – being in Kirigakure, dealing with these strange and very powerful people whose eccentricities seemed baffling, their moods unpredictable. More than that, this Mei Terumi, who Aya knew nothing about, had, in an astonishingly-cavalier way, swept into the void left by the Fifth Mizukage's still-unannounced death. Still, she continued: "I don't mean to make excuses in advance but you ought to know that we're not very well equipped to deal with an outbreak of this sort." The young mist-ninja's dark eyes darted up then sank shyly. "The medical sciences never were a priority in the Hidden Mist Village. If you were sick or wounded and not strong enough to recover, you died, and that's how it's always been." She fell quiet and was surprised at being given leave to continue. "That there's a medical corps at all is almost an afterthought."

Mei allowed herself a thoughtful hum; the tips of the woman's delicate fingers resting just below her lips. "Yes, I remember. Lord Oku, whatever his faults, felt we needed to at least pretend to keep up with the Leaf Village on that front."

"What does this all mean, though?" asked Ao who started to pace, his prosecutorial thoughts clearly focused on unraveling the problem from another end. "If the Tsujitas and their cohorts meant to destroy Kirigakure and had the means then why didn't they do it? Why hold ten plagues back only to unleash an eleventh?"

Mei shrugged, seemingly amused by the Captain's consternation, then quipped: "Cold feet, maybe."

Ao frowned. "A distraction of some sort, more likely."

"Aya," ventured Mei curiously as she turned toward the junior kunoichi, "you told us that Haku said he was actually trying to stop the plagues from being released. Did he say why?"

The girl shook her head vaguely. "Something about the people being worth an effort to save – that's all I remember."

Ao scoffed derisively and shook his head. "It has to be a diversion, a misdirection. That's the only tactic that makes sense."

"Unless he was successful," countered Mei, thinking aloud, "at least in part, according to Aya's report. Perhaps Haku is not on the side of our enemies after all…or is pursuing his own agenda."

The mist-captain shot her a stunned look. "Of course he's on their side; HE is one of them. It's been very clear all along, even when he was running around with Zabuza, that he has the Aramata clan's kekk-," the jonin broke off and looked away in grim contrition before he regrouped to continue, "…a-and surely you haven't forgotten all the things he and his master did when they tried to take over Kirigakure a couple of years back."

Aya looked back and forth between them.

Whatever faux-pa Ao might have been guilty off, Mei let it pass. "Quite true," she conceded, "but the boy was very young at the time and still is now, really. It seems a shame to hold him responsible for what he did back then while under the influence of a character like Momochi."

The grizzled Captain stared then chuckled with patient yet still deferential disbelief as if even he was unsure whether his apparent superior was deliberately baiting him. "MISS Terumi," he exclaimed, "Haku was hardly an innocent in Zabuza Momochi's coup-de-etat. As a few dozen dead mist-shinobi will attest: your so-called 'boy' was a very willing and active participant."

The woman's brow narrowed as she fixed him suddenly with an icy look. "Careful on the 'Miss' part," she asserted levelly, "or I'll kill you."

Ao's jaw dropped and his eye went wide as he cast a questioning glance toward an equally-shocked Aya.

"Anyway, I'm just playing devil's advocate," Mei went on with cloying, somewhat sultry sweetness as she returned without pause to the subject at hand, "or, in this case, his apprentice's since there appears to be some doubt as to what he was doing here. Besides," she advanced with a carefree wave of her hand, "The Demon of the Hidden Mist killed his entire class of cadets and ended up being rewarded for it by none other than our own Sandaime. With the exception of Aya perhaps, everyone in this room has killed at least one of our own comrades-in-arms."

Aya looked away, unsure if the jonin's comment was meant as compliment or criticism.

Ao grimaced and crossed his arms. "The pre-reformation genin exams, brutal as they were, were hardly the same thing as Zabuza's senseless revolution…or the wholesale destruction of Haku and his team's attack on the village. They're still trying to clear away the wreckage." The man scowled as he thought. "It's as bad as the Kaguya uprising, if not worse."

"Don't get worked up about it. I was only pointing out that fratricide has only very recently gone out of fashion. Our own dearly-departed Fourth killed as many as anyone, including the Kaguya clan for that matter, or rather, had them killed."

Aya couldn't help but think then of her own sensei, Toru, himself executed at the hands of the Mizukage's emissary. Most of the time he'd seemed quite at ease with his role and yet in his rare, quiet and more thoughtful moments, the burly jonin sometimes let slip a glimpse of the private pain that haunted him over some of those he'd killed. Not all of them 'had it coming' as he'd phrased it. Doubtless, Krishenay Rahaman harbored no such misgivings.

"So far," Mei went on, "we have precious little in the way of actionable intelligence but we do have one witness who claims Haku was actually trying to help us…unless his actions were all part of an elaborate charade as you suggest or unless she's lying to us. So, Captain Ao," she asked playfully then canted her head toward Aya, "is she lying?"

The younger ninja again felt the weight of Ao's probing, single-eyed gaze as the stern-faced ninja turned toward her.

"No," the captain muttered with great reluctance, "I don't think so."

When Mei and Captain Ao left the laboratory, Aya, having been neither asked to accompany them nor dismissed, followed though she was not entirely sure why. Part of it, she felt, was out of pure fear that she had not yet vindicated herself in the two ninjas' eyes for having aided the Demon's Apprentice; that her sentence for that was still to be determined.

Or maybe it was just out of gratitude for their leniency. After having discovered Aya's secrets, rather than turning the kunoichi over for punishment and a much more severe and invasive inquisition at the hands of the mist-ANBU's Truth and Penitence Branch, the strange pair had simply and inexplicably let her resume her duties at the hospital on the condition of total silence.

Part of it, Aya knew, was force of habit. Just as she'd followed Toru-sensei for most of her life, following Mei seemed every bit as natural. Maybe it was her nature to be lead or maybe it was the way this odd, almost hypnotically-alluring woman had taken control during what was perhaps the worst crisis the Mist Village had ever faced.

Part of it, Aya hoped, was that the jonin had a plan. With the Mizukage dead and the village facing an outbreak, under attack by vengeful ninja clans, monsters and even Lord Oku's own emissary, Kirigakure seemed strangely fragile – imperiled now more than at any other time over even its often violent history. Mei and Ao, whatever their peculiarities, were determined, clearly, to save it and Aya thought she really ought to be a part of that.

No, she reevaluated, she should definitely be a part of that. Wasn't it her duty?

Whatever either of their motivations, Aya had been surprised to find herself on hand when Mei, quite calmly, turned over the scroll in which the late Mizukage's body was sealed to the medical examiners, directing them to report immediately and exclusively to her when they'd determined the cause of their lord's death. Since then the former hunter-ninja had watched the woman rise, unofficially, to the very top of the chain of command, giving her orders to both shinobi and the Mist Village's civilian departments alike. The more Mei took command the more sought her out, appearing as if from nowhere, ready to follow her until it became clear after a while that the jonin hadn't just assumed authority; it had gravitated to her as well.

Struggling now to keep up with her de-facto leader as they navigated the hospital corridors, Aya almost walked face-first into Captain Ao's back as he and Mei stopped sharply to pause and look down into a courtyard that had been taken over for use as an infirmary.

"This is unacceptable," Mei remarked with a shake of her head as she reviewed the row after row of cots and the slack or agonized faces below, "people dying in their homes, falling dead in the streets - that someone would do something like this deliberately, however justified they think themselves."

Aya nodded in sympathy, slightly surprised by the pain in the senior kunoichi's voice. It was the last thing she'd expected.

"But if it is the Tsujita responsible it strikes me as quite strange, as you pointed out before, Captain Ao, that they would release only one of their diseases if they had eleven in their arsenal." The auburn-haired shinobi raised her chin slightly, seeming regal and elegant even in her blue, mist-ninja fatigues and high-collared armored jacket. "It's only a detail," she murmured as if to herself, "but eleven just seems like such an unlikely number to me. I find it puzzling too that that's the one unaccounted for from the sample Haku gave Aya just a few days ago.

"Ten, on the other hand," she continued, expounding, "'ten' has a definite poetic significance. That's the number a clan set on revenge would pick, don't you think?"

Though not sure herself one way or the other, Aya couldn't help but want to agree.

"You know what else bothers me?" offered Mei, largely rhetorically. "Although everyone's calling the incident of last week an attack, it was our side that initiated the contact. That assassination team with Yashako, Yamada and that other shinobi whose name I always forget, they must have been informed well in advance that the Mist Village had been infiltrated."

Ao nodded, offering: "True enough. Perhaps the Demon's Apprentice or someone in his party was noticed. Although," the captain couldn't help but add critically, "if they had any idea about the Tsujita's kekkei-genkai or the powers of the other members of his party, they really should have considered the potential consequences and orchestrated their response with that in mind. I thought to ask Yashako about that directly, since she was the team leader, but it seems she's disappeared. No one's seen her since the incident."

The woman gave him an exasperated glance. "That figures," she remarked sardonically, "another complication to add to the stack. Tell your squads to keep searching."

"Of course."

"Meanwhile," continued the kunoichi, "for the Tsujita's part, one might assume that if they and their allies had taken the time to prepare ten plagues to destroy us that they would have or should have figured out a way of stealing in to Kirigakure undetected to deliver them." Mei's eyes narrowed fiercely. "And just how did everybody find out about the Tsujita's involvement so quickly? I find it hard to believe that word could have spread already to every corner of the city when we only just found out for certain ourselves; and we're in charge of the investigation.

"Then there's Rahaman and his inexplicable killing spree," she added before Ao could comment. "It couldn't be that he's in league with them; could it? The Mizukage's own emissary – a traitor?"

"No," the ninja Captain stated flatly and a little too quickly, drawing both women's' curious glances. "I should have told you this before now, Ms. Terumi, but I made the mistake once of -" he swallowed then spared Aya a look, "'taking a look' at him and found that HE is not a 'he' but a 'they'. Imagine my surprise when scores of un-human eyes looked right back at me. It was the 108 Demons; I'm sure of it. I don't know how the Mizukage bent them to his will but I find it impossible the idea that they could be allied with anyone else."

Both Mei and Aya startled at the revelation but it was Mei who returned quickly to her baseline calm. "I see," she stated somberly. "So that's where Rahaman came from; I did always wonder who or what he was. I had no idea Lord Oku was actually capable of using the jutsu he'd been entrusted with like that or that he'd lack the sense not to use it."

All three ninjas fell quiet for a time during which Aya thought about Rahaman, or rather the 108 Demons. She wondered too what kind of man would bring back monsters like those – an evil long since consigned to the past, relegated to legends and ghost stories. Of course, the expression she'd seen on her Mizukage, Lord Oku's dead face provided the answer plainly enough: a frightened one.

"I suppose we should consider him, well…'them' an S-class criminal now," Ao observed, "to be captured or killed on sight."

Mei shook her head. "No," she insisted wearily. "With our jonin ranks depleted, we're nowhere near strong enough to face them even if we weren't dealing with a pandemic. On the other hand," the woman conceded, "it's probably too much to hope for that they give us time to try and get through the rest of this first. I suppose issuing a warning for everyone to avoid them, pathetic as that is, is the best we can do for now." She smiled with grim fatalism then, for the first time in the brief while that Aya had known her, gave way to uncontained emotion. "Oh, Lord Oku," sobbed Mei with a shudder, "how could you?"

Moving on after a time, Mei began to receive an onslaught of reports from the ANBU teams she'd dispatched earlier. They'd scoured the city but found no other infiltrators. The masked shinobi informed her too that the number of plague victims was rising. Frowning grimly and nodding that she understood, the woman sent squads of rank-and-file shinobi to guard the storehouses, keep an eye out for any signs of outright panic and to bring anyone experiencing the symptoms of the disease straight to the hospital or one of the makeshift expansion clinics for care. Lastly, and this with great reluctance, the jonin ordered a general quarantine – no one was to be allowed into or out of the village.

Aya's heart sank at the news. It was hard to believe things could get so bad so quickly and she couldn't help but wonder if she weren't partly to blame – that things might've turned out differently if she'd only turned Haku and his associate over to the ANBU instead of helping them; if she killed The Demon's Apprentice back in Wave Country in the first place.

The girl looked up from her thoughts as two more masked shinobi approached Mei, each bearing messages. The woman accepted them then sent the pair on their way. With barely contained impatience, she skimmed both, shook her head then tore them in half with a contemptuous, yet still graceful, flourish. Holding the hapless papers up before her in a fan, she then pursed her lips and blew gently at which the documents dissolved into nothingness.

"Our dear councilors, Lord Hirai and Lady Inoue aren't helping," Mei supplied, "trying to direct things from afar without trying to seem or be seen that they're directing things – he from his castle and she from her flagship." The woman allowed herself a slanted, sour grin. "With their egos and senses of entitlement you'd think they'd jump at the chance to play Mizukage."

"I doubt that anyone would willingly enter a plague city," answered the Captain who gave her an appreciative look. "So that's why you haven't announced anything about Oku's death. You were waiting to see if either of them already knew."

"The joke's on me though. Inoue and Hirai are both playing coy which tells me nothing except that this knot is even more tangled than it looks."

"With the Mizukage gone and his two councilors both trying to control things with whispers, that puts you in charge…operationally if not formally."

"So I've noticed," said Mei glumly. "That certainly gives our junior officers plausible deniability with whoever comes out on top when all this is over, assuming anyone survives, of course."

Ao adopted a thoughtful pose – every bit the noble advisor. "A mist-ninja would never be motived by such cynicism," he ventured with only the slightest sarcastic trace and the two shared a conspiratorial chuckle.

"They ought to be motivated by self-preservation at the very least," she quipped, "considering what we're up against – plagues, demons, enemy ninja." The woman couldn't help but laugh as her gallows-humor 'laundry list' of adversaries grew. "Am I missing anything? Oh yes," she piped, "how could I forget – a bijuu!"

Ao glanced at her then answered with an emphatic grunt. "That last was a clever precaution on their part. Without it, none of them would have made it out of Kirigakure alive."

Her expression softened as she turned the matter over in her head. "That's true," mused Mei, "very true…and yet -."

"What?"

"It's kind of way-overkill for a support role, don't you think?"

"How do you mean?"

"Meaning," Mei clarified in a slightly teasing tone, "that that's the part I have the most trouble trying to reconcile: if you have the power of a tailed-beast why bother with plagues at all? Why not use the Nine-Tailed Fox to destroy Kirigakure like it once destroyed the Leaf Village?

"Aya," she continued, turning toward the medical-ninja, "what do you remember about the jinchuuriki?"

"Um, well, he was just a boy," blurted Aya, surprised by the question and trying to be helpful. He was wearing an ANBU mask so I couldn't see his face but I think he was even younger than Haku; smaller anyway."

Captain Ao drew himself up somewhat paternally. "These are all highly-interesting points and observations that we've been discussing but not necessarily useful ones," he concluded with a dismissive wave. "Anything the Tsujita clan, Haku or any of their their allies have shown us is just as likely to be part of a broader strategy to confuse us and keep us from acting decisively."

"Well it's working because I'm certainly confused," admitted Mei without shame as she pinched the bridge of her nose but she emerged from the posture with a smile on her face. "Although you've made your point, Captain Ao, and you're right - confusing situations don't call for confusion in response, they call for clarity. Very well then, here it is: all our emergent problems are what they are and we will simply have to deal with them as they arise as best we can on a case-by-case basis using what resources we have," she stated. "As for the incident in the Piazza del Sangre', since we know almost nothing about any of those involved with the notable exception of Haku we should direct our focus towards him. This whole business appears to revolve around the boy and so we ought to find him and see for ourselves what he knows and quickly."

Ao weighed her words then nodded sagely in agreement. "Hmm," he grumbled in a distant tone. "Having just escaped an ANBU assassination team, not to mention an assault by practically every ninja in the Mist Village, our Demon's Apprentice must be long gone by now."

Mei's smile was sweet but her jewel eyes were dead serious. "Ah, but you two are ANBU ninja-hunters, right?" she advanced pointedly, looking between Ao and Aya. "Start hunting."

Inari

Pencil scratched across paper, leaving in its track a grainy curve that tried to match the contours of the First Hokage's heroic jawline. Neither he nor his three companion ninja-lords, Nidaime, Sandaime and Yondaime looked much like the way they were represented on the monument that overlooked the Leaf Village, tending here to be bug-eyed with overly dark and prominent eyebrows, jagged scribbles for hair, and complexions rough with smudges and eraser crumbs.

Inari chewed his lip, demoralized even further by the indefensibly poor quality of his artwork. Hard though he tried, he just hadn't been able to think of anything better to do – anything he hadn't already done to the point where he was sick to death of it anyway.

The ten-year old rested his head on a palm, pushing one cheek up into his eye, and looked over at an equally-bored Chuuya who sat across the dining room table from him, flipping playing-cards into a distant bowl with a vacant expression on his face. He, at least, was actually getting pretty good. Inari gave forth with a mournful sigh and wondered just how much longer he was going to be stuck here in Naruto's apartment.

When the plan had first come up, kind of spur-of-the-moment after he and Chuuya had told Naruto of Haku's plans to try to head off a bunch of pissed-off ninjas trying to destroy Kirigakure and of Mari's plea for him to help, it had really sounded like staying for a while undercover in the Hidden Leaf Village would be fun…like an adventure. Now though the place seemed more like a prison and, despite the Wave Country boy's earlier eagerness to go on a 'real ninja mission', the only thing he wanted now was to go home.

A knock sounded at the door.

Chuuya huffed miserably, picked up his cards and slouched off without a word or wasted effort to go hide in the base-cabinet under the sink. The drill had become so practiced and routine he didn't even have to think about it anymore.

Inari's chest rose then fell then he put his hands together in prayer.

"Please be Naruto," he begged the ceiling as memories of his mom, Grandpa Tazuna and everything he knew and loved about Wave Country flooded him. "Please, please, please, please, please," he repeated, thought about it then added one more in case that one would be the one to move the balance, "PLEASE, be Naruto."

Weaving his fingers into what was now a very familiar seal, the bridge-builder's grandson again transformed himself into a pajama-clad and very sick and weary-looking Naruto Uzumaki.

Thus disguised the boy shut his eyes, repeated his prayer silently then dragged himself over to open the door.

"Oh…hi, Sakura," he offered with slight disappointment though it wasn't really at all bad to see her again.

The pretty, pink-haired girl, standing in the doorway again in her favorite dress of red piped with silver, gave the transformed Inari a fleeting smile.

"Hi, Inari," she offered with a strange glum awkwardness then paced inside.

Inari shut the door and dispelled his jutsu as a worried look fell over his young face. Something was definitely up. He'd never seen the kunoichi so downcast, not even when faced with the prospect of having to fight Zabuza Momochi, the Demon of the Hidden Mist back in Wave Country when they'd first met.

The ten-year old watched the young leaf-ninja wander around the combined living/kitchen/dining area of Naruto's apartment absently for a few moments before she turned back toward him.

"Sit down, please, would you, Inari?" she asked with the laden seriousness of a grown-up then went to knock on the kitchen countertop. "You too, Chuuya."

The chubbier boy poked the cabinet door open, peeked curiously then spilled out onto the floor.

"Look, I-I really don't know how else to say this," Sakura began once they all sat gathered at the little dining room table. She then took a deep breath and added at last: "it's over. They know."

The two boys exchanged a series of quick, uncertain looks.

"W-what?" sputtered Inari in bewilderment. "What do you mean, Sakura? What are you talking about? WHO knows?"

The girl's pink brows knitted as she folded her hands guiltily in her lap. "The Hokage, Lady Tsunade."

Chuuya's dark eyes bugged slowly with comprehension. "YOU!" he cried, exploding to his feet with such force that the chair under him flew back and went clattering across the floor. "You sold us out! You TOLD!"

Inari gasped, not wanting to believe it, but the expression on Sakura's face confirmed the truth. A sensation took him, like cold hands gripping him from inside. "B-but," the boy argued reflexively despite sensing how pointless it was, "you helped us."

"I know," murmured Sakura. "I'm sorry."

Chuuya froze for a moment and blinked, utterly speechless; his breath huffing like a train. "Traitor," he cursed vengefully at last, cheeks red and tears starting to flow. "Lowlife traitor!" His pitchy howl shattered the air as he stormed in a circle before whirling again toward Sakura. "I KNEW we shouldn't have trusted you - worthless, pink-haired WITCH."

"Shut UP, Chuuya!" barked Inari with equal rage though it didn't last. "Just shut up, ok?"

Part of him felt that he should back up his partner, join him in his justifiable fury. But Sakura had helped save his life, his grandpa's life. How could she be anything but a friend no matter what?

Inari looked up at Sakura plaintively. More and more as the days had dragged on he'd wished for all this to end but never like this; never-ever like this. "So what happens now?" he managed in a squeaky rasp, doing his best to wring the unseemly, childish and un-ninja-like emotion from his voice.

Naruto's teammate hung her head with a pitying look that made Inari feel even worse. "She wants to see you."

"Oh, so you're supposed to bring us in, huh?" a resurgent Chuuya growled. "Like you COULD!"

Inari felt his head roll loosely on his neck. "Chuuya," he cautioned tiredly.

"What, Inari? What?" his teammate remonstrated and rounded on him, slamming both meaty palms down hard on the tabletop. "What are we gonna do? Are we just gonna give up? Just like that?" he roared into Inari's ear, flecks of foam spilling from his peeled-back lips as he flailed his arm in contempt. "Would Naruto just give up? Huh? Would Sensei?"

Gritting his teeth in the heat of his partner's rage, Inari felt his own rise up and fill him. "Shut up! Just shut up!" Inari screeched as he leaped from his seat, seized Chuuya by the shirt and shook the bigger boy hard with chakra-backed strength. "Don't you EVER throw it in my face like you're better than me! That you care about Naruto and Haku more than me! It's over! Just get it through your thick, freakin' stupid head; it's OVER!"

As quickly as Inari's anger flowered so too did it die out. Dropping his teammate, the fledgling ninja felt his body crumble out from under him like a sand castle in the tide. It was all he could do to steer himself toward his chair before he fell back into it. His strength, born of frustration yielded to an unkind realization – the worst imaginable.

"However it happened," he explained, as much to himself as to a stunned and reeling Chuuya, trying and failing to hold back tears, "the leaf-ninjas know about us which means our mission is over and we…we f-failed."

Silence fell like a pall as the finality of his words registered.

"Come on guys," muttered Sakura in a hoarse whisper. "We'd better get going."

Thanks for reading!