Best conversation EVER (between me and Eleni, go figure): "I am going to creep you for a while, yes?" "Okay, how is this going to work?" "I dunno, I'll just randomly text you and say creepy-and-or-stalkerish things?" "OMG, YAY!!! That is exciting!"
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Dedication: To Eleni. R2-D2 is teh win of teh WORLD.
P.S.: Yes, jimmying a latch does, in fact, work (but not when there's a bolt; that's when it fails).

…---…

If I lose myself to rhythm, doesn't mean I lose control. If I can't dance, if I can't dance then I don't want any part of your revolution… A new dawn waits for us tonight…

…---…

Hinata was the first one to come around. She didn't move, and she kept her breathing utterly slow and almost-dead. She had no idea where she was; her eyes were covered.

So instead, she let her other senses tell her where she was.

She could feel warm bodies on either of her sides; and she knew her friends well enough to divulge each of their breathing. Sakura was on her left, and Temari was on her right, if she was correct. Their breathing was the same as if they had been sleeping; un-pained, and quiet.

Wherever they were was dark, and that was not just only the blindfold; Hinata's eyes were open, and it was still dark, either way. So it couldn't have been morning; not quite yet, anyways. It was also silent; entirely, eerily silent.

Her own body told her much; she wasn't bleeding from anywhere, and in general, she was only a little bit sore. That was probably from when she had slumped to the ground after having been knocked out…

But what had knocked them out? There should have been pain; should have been a strange scent to the air; should have been something.

But there hadn't been. It had been a swift, utterly painless method. A good method for killing someone, Hinata quickly concluded.

She was glad, she had her brain back. Her hands were up by her face, and she carefully, carefully, inch by inch, began to pull the blindfold up over her eyes.

She waited a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the pitch-blackness that surrounded her, and when they finally did, she looked around the room without moving her body from the floor.

Okay, they were alone. It was too dark for a camera to get anything like a good picture, so she sat up, and rubbed her eyes.

Hm, she still had her iPod; it had been tucked in her bra, and she checked the time (her eyes were blinded for a minute as white light shone brightly). Two in the morning. So she'd been out for an hour and a half. Hm.

She stretched, her shoulders popping as she did so. A shiver ran up her spine; it was cold in the room. No heat. She shuddered, and gently shook Sakura awake.

"Hu-uh? Wha' happ'ned?"

Hinata shook her head. "I dunno, but we have to get out of here. Like, now, or we are toast."

Sakura, still half-asleep, only muttered "But I don't like toast…"

Hinata rolled her eyes. Sakura and her weird hatred of most breakfast foods; also the fact that that was all she could think about in the middle of a crisis. "Exactly. That's why we have to get going. Wake Tenten up."

Sakura, though asleep, knew enough to not do something so suicidal. "You do it, Hina, I'll sit on Ino or something…"

Hinata rolled her eyes again, the dark concealing the look on her face. She stood up, stretched again, and kicked Tenten in the side.

Tenten woke up swearing (and so did Ino; Sakura had just sat on her, as promised).

Temari and Karin, the only two left asleep were awoken by Tenten's animated swearing. Hinata rolled her eyes, and slapped her hand over Tenten's mouth. "Are you stupid?" she hissed.

Tenten shut right up at the steel in Hinata's voice. That wasn't something one often saw; Hinata was normally a fairly quiet person.

But sometimes, it was just really bad to piss her off. This was one of those times. And really, she was the only one with a half-working brain right at that second, so the rest of the sleep-muddled girls figured they ought to just let her have her way.

The all went quiet as Hinata held up a hand, and cocked her head the way she always did when she was listening very intently to something.

It was silent, while Hinata listened. Had anyone heard Tenten's swearing? She hoped to god that no one had, but she wasn't counting on it. She pulled Tenten up, and quietly said "We have to get out of here, understand? And we have to be quiet."

The others nodded, finally awake enough to process that they weren't in the safest situation in the world.

Temari was the one to take the lead, still-sleepy Sakura leaning heavily against an equally-sleepy Karin. Tenten and Ino were both holding onto Hinata, too tired to support their own weight.

"Shit," Temari muttered. "Hina, there's no way we're getting out of here, not on our own. Not with these guys as sleepy as they are. It's like… unnatural."

"Think they got drugged, or something?"

Temari shook her head. "I doubt it. I just know that once Ino falls asleep, she needs at least eight hour to function. Tenten's the same, and Karin and Sakura…"

Hinata rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know what you mean. We can't leave them here. That might be bad. And, uh, Anko might, you know, kill us."

"Good point, that."

"Exactly. Let's go."

So, the two girls dragged their unresponsive friends towards where the door was (hopefully). It was so dark; the room felt like every molecule of light had been sucked from its depths into the atmosphere.

Hinata carefully, softly ran her fingers over the door frame, and down, until her fingers found the knob, and clenched around it. She tugged at it gently, quietly ascertaining that it was, indeed, locked.

"Damn it," she muttered, a bit breathless. But of course it would be locked; even a five-year-old would know to lock the heroes away.

But then again, some evil overlord plans were so obvious, a three-year-old could see through them.

"Ino, sweetie?"

Ino stared at her, a half-sleepy, half-stoned look clear on her face. "Whaaaa-?"

"Do you have a credit card on you?"

Ino's brain must have been so focused on shopping that even in her exhausted, needing sleep state, she was able to whip one out from within her bra. Hinata took it out of her hand, and Ino looked a little bit forlorn.

"It's okay, sweetie, she'll give it back as soon as she's finished. Hinata, what are you doing?"

"I don't have your lock-picks, stupid. There's no bolt, either. If we're lucky, we can jimmy the latch free. If not, we have to hope that they won't notice if we throw Sakura through the door, or something."

"Wha-? No throwin' Saku-ra, I'm too pretteh…" Sakura muttered sleepily. Hinata and Temari let out simultaneous snorts of laughter.

Hinata looked at the card in her hand, and then at Temari, and then back at the card. Then she held it out to Temari and said "I'll probably screw it up. Your turn!"

Temari grabbed it with a grin. "Why, thank you. Hold up your iPod, I need the light."

Hinata did as told (Ino, Karin, Tenten, and Sakura all reeled back from the harsh light; it hurt their poor eyes), and Temari slid the card in the tiny slit where wood met metal.

She pushed lightly, and felt the card hit the metal of the latch. Another light push; she didn't want to break Ino's card. That would be worse then death. A sleep-deprived, card-destroyed Ino was worse then an ordinary Ino any day.

Temari smiled when she felt plastic push through, and metal give way. The lock clicked open, and she handed the card back to Ino (who immediately clasped it to her chest, and started whispering to it about how "Mommy loves you, yes, she does, and she'll never let you go, no she won't…" Okay, without sleep, Ino was scary. But an Ino, on drugs -the pain killers, Temari realized- and sleep-deprived, was even scarier).

Hinata looked at Temari, who simply nodded, and turned the knob.

…---…

Naruto's knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

Sasuke, sitting shot-gun, sent his friend a glare. "Calm down, dobe. You'll get us all killed if you don't."

Naruto nodded his stiffly, but his hands relaxed a little. Sasuke's horrible wisdom had always had a calming effect on the younger man, but even so… "Damn, teme, I fucked up. I should have-"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. Naruto was such a dumb-ass, sometimes. "Naruto."

"Huh?"

"It happened. Not your fault."

"But I - I promised her she'd be safe." As Naruto said it, his blond hair fell across his eyes, shadowing the normally bright blue, and his knuckles whitened again.

"And she will be."

Naruto just nodded stiffly again, and followed Shikamaru as the he took a sharp turn right. Naruto spun the wheel harshly, barely keeping control of the raw power that this car produced when in Naruto's hands.

Sasuke just stared out the window. He was used to Naruto's driving; they'd been friends long enough.

But he was not used to the jealousy that was still curling in his gut. That little bitch. How dare she make him feel like killing someone who wasn't her (because, really, it was horrible, but Sasuke had only been barely able to restrain the urge to kill that punk that dare touch her lips)? She was his to torment (well, that was his excuse, anyways), damn it.

Now it was Naruto's voice that was the voice of reason. "Calm down, teme. Sakura-chan's fine. She's strong."

"I'm not thinking about her."

"You're also not a liar." The sarcasm was so thick on Naruto's words that Sasuke almost laughed. Naruto, and sarcasm? What was the world coming to?

"…Hn," he said, instead.

Sasuke could feel the car accelerate; this was a feat, as Naruto's speedometer was already hitting one-fifty, and the only reason they weren't going faster then that was because Shikamaru was leading them to where they needed to go. This was probably a good thing, actually, to be honest.

Because Sasuke really kind of liked his head on his shoulders, where it belonged. He shot a glance up into the rear-view mirror, and caught sight of Kiba's face, pale as Naruto's knuckles.

Sasuke shook his head to himself. Kiba and Naruto, those two idiotic fools were in so deep, they were never coming out. It was almost funny. Naruto had always proclaimed he was never going to fall in love; especially with a client.

But then again, Sasuke knew that Naruto didn't think of Hinata as a client; she was just the girl he was in love with, to Naruto. And to Kiba, Ino was his dream girl.

But Sasuke didn't really have a dream girl.

He just had a violent rosette with a mean right hook. She wasn't much, but she was still his.

And he didn't care what anyone said.

…---…

Laughter broke. "See, Kabuto, I told you. These little girls are wonderfully resourceful. No wonder Anko took them in, so young."

Sakura whipped her head up, and met a golden-eyed gaze. She glared at him. Who the hell did this creep think he was? There was a shadow of a tan young man next to him, with pale hair and glasses, but Sakura paid him absolutely no attention. He was a non-entity.

"Hello there, girls. I'm sure you know me."

They blinked at him, dead pan. Hinata said "Uh… are we supposed to know you??"

The man looked put out. "Oh, did darling little Anko not tell you?"

Sakura continued to glare at him. She was grumpy, she was tried, and she was so not in the mood for this. "Look, jerk, we don't know who the hell you are and we really don't care. If you don't let us out of here, like, now, we will not restrain ourselves and we will kill-"

Temari covered her mouth. "Not helping, Sakura," she hissed.

The creepy, pale-skinned man chuckled softly. "No, not helping at all… Temari, am I correct?"

Temari gulped, and restrained the urge to give him the finger and hiss like an angered cat. He smiled sickly at her, and motioned for them to move forwards.

They didn't move and inch, and he tutted. "Ladies, I would so love it would you come and eat something with me."

It wasn't a question.

It was an order, and the girls shot glances at each other, before nodding slowly, and following the creepy dark-haired man and his non-entity subordinate into the darkest recesses of hell.

Worse; they all knew they were damned.