Chapter 16

The three of us left silently, making the journey to the office, only for Gaara to meet us outside of the building.

"You're late." He said, glaring at Kankuro and Temari.

I snorted. Of course Gaara would be going on the mission, naturally. After that dream of mine I wasn't sure whether to be thrilled, or embarrassed, so I settled for an awkward mixture of both.

"Sorry Gaara, we sort of got sidetracked." Kankuro said shrugging as if nothing special had occurred and I gave him a sideways look, impressed by how laid back he was after such an intense conversation. Even Temari wasn't making a big deal out of it. Thank heavens for their ninja acting skills.

"Hm." Gaara made his typical sound and began walking towards the gate, apparently having already received the directions. "This will be a large mission, with two squads. The twins will be joining us. They already left to get ready and said they would meet us at the gate."

I groaned, knowing them. "Um, guys, I'd better go get on their butts, otherwise we will never leave. I'll meet you there too." I ran off to go find my two teammates.

I hustled to their apartment, and made it there in a matter of minutes. I hopped in through the window that was always unlocked and strait into pandemonium. Immediately a silk shirt was draped over my head, flung from somewhere in the room, by one of my crazy brothers I assumed.

"Kaoru! I can't find the green one!" I heard Hikaru's loud complaint from under the garish material. I heaved a sigh and picked up one corner of the offending garment, dragging it off my head.

"Guys?" I said quietly, but immediately got their attention as I finished pulling the silk from my hair, the material causing the short strands to crackle and pop and stand to attention all over my head. "What are you doing?"

"Ren!" REN!" They both shouted at the same time and immediately tackled me, pulling me into a Hitachiin sandwich hug, wherein I was the middle of the sandwich. I groaned, and simply let them snuggle as they both smooshed me as hard as they could without actually crushing me. I had been unaware that, by agreeing to become a part of their family, I had essentially signed away all rights to my personal bubble.

"Come on guys, I just saw you yesterday. You're kind of squishing me." I wheezed, finding breathing a little difficult with all their enthusiasm pinned on me.

"Oh but who needs to breath?!" Hikaru announced joyfully as he playfully blew on my still staticky hair that was currently sticking to both of their faces. Served them right.

"Hey!" Kaoru protested as more of my hair ended up on his face when his twin puffed on it. Hikaru laughed at his new beard.

I sighed in defeat as an epic battle over my hair commenced above my head. I let them have their fun for a little while, knowing that they needed to get at least some of their energy out of their systems now, while there was still some privacy. I hadn't yet told the sand siblings about our new relationship, although I was sure they already knew from the crest always around my neck, but my twin's newfound silliness and touchiness would certainly come as a shock to the other team. I was anticipating quite a lot of teasing.

"Okay guys, come on, do you really want to keep Gaara and his team waiting?" I asked, knowing that would kick them into high gear. Despite their fear having eased quite a bit, they were still a little nervous around Gaara, and I could use that to my benefit.

They both abruptly resumed their crazy chaotic packing. "Why'd you have to pick such an uptight guy as your boyfriend?" Hikaru hollered as he swept passed with an armful of who-knows-what.

"He's not my…" I started but Kaoru interrupted me.

"Yeah I mean way to choose the sourest, stick in the mud. What do you see in the guy anyway?"

"He's not a…" I tried again, but Hikaru interrupted.

"It's probably his good looks Kaoru, the dreamy coal rimmed eyes and fiery red hair."

"Guys!" I protested, loudly.

"Yeah, or his bad boy persona, you know girls go crazy over that sort of stuff." Kaoru continued where his twin left off.

"Oh come on…." I groaned, face palming.

"Ha! Yeah! Ever since he's become all nice and stuff, I've noticed quite a few girls have been talking about him at the clubs." Hikaru noted.

"Wait … who's been talking about…" I jerked at this new information, feeling strange anger bubble up in my chest at the thought.

"Oh yeah, that's right! Or maybe it's because he's so powerful. I mean he beat her in their last sparring match and that's impossible to do." Kaoru continued their previous conversation.

"If I'm such a bad ass then why are you trying so hard to piss me off?" I growled, finally getting to finish a sentence. They both blinked innocently at me with their big amber eyes. "Seriously, you two knuckleheads get your asses in gear and finish packing or I'm going to drag you out of here without bags."

They laughed. "That's fine. We'll just buy clothes on the way." They chirped in sync.

"Okaaaay, then get all your GEAR packed. Forget the clothes and hurry up." When they didn't take me seriously I narrowed my gaze into dangerous slits, hitting my limit. "You asked for it." I growled.

I snapped forward, grabbing them both by their ears and dragging them to the bathroom. I let them go once there and tossed them both a bag. "Put your toiletries in there." When they started fussing with hair products and shit I snarled and grabbed both of their toothbrushes, their hairbrushes, shampoo, soap, and a few other necessities, already knowing where everything was from having to do this more times than I could count.

When it came to packing, they were not fast, and if the mission required speed, I always took over and pulled their shit together.

"Here. Take these." I shoved the bags in their arms and then dragged them back out into the main room, by the scruffs of their necks this time, and quickly located their toolkits, again knowing where they kept all the important stuff. I filled them, and handed them off to my two obedient puppy dogs. They knew that when I was in this mood, they'd better turn into puppies or kittens, and simply do as I say. Or bad things would happen. I had been known to crack their heads together on more than one occasion.

After gathering everything together I pushed them both out the door and locked it, using my spare key that they had given me. Probably for this purpose. Despite their fussing and protesting, I knew that they actually appreciated my interventions sometimes. They both had obsessive problems and some anxiety, so they were actually incapable of making fast decisions when it came to these sorts of things, and my taking charge actually helped them immensely.

As I started speed walking towards the gate, one twin lingered behind, "Oh wait I forgot …"

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did … it was on…"

"The dresser behind the mirror. I know where you keep your meds Hikaru. Don't worry. Third inner pocket on the right of your bag." I soothed, expecting him to need his anxiety medication.

He was the more exuberant of the two, but he was also the most mood-swingy. And occasionally he had panic attacks, so he never left without his emergency medication. I always made sure that he had it, and even usually carried a few spare with me, just to make sure. I took care of my boys, even if I did it roughly sometimes. I loved the damn knuckleheads after all. It had taken a while for me to let myself care about them as much as I wanted to, but after they truly showed me how much they cared for and trusted me, to actually make me a member of their own family, I let them in. They truly were my brothers now, and I loved them as such.

Even if occasionally I wanted to strangle them with their silk shirts.

We eventually made it to the meet-up point, where the other team was waiting impatiently. "Damn what took you guys so long?!" Kankuro immediately hassled.

"Keep your pants on Kankuro. I just had to get these two packed." I jerked my thumb back at the two puppies still meekly following me.

Temari raised an eyebrow, noting their passive demeanor. She had had a few encounters with them before, and knew how hyper they usually were. "Um … what did you do to them? It looks like you broke them."

"Oh don't worry, they're fine. They just needed a little assistance is all." I ignored their offended looks and the way Kankuro snickered behind his hand. I gave him the stink eye, shutting him up real quick. No one laughed at my twins.

"Alright, so now that we're all here, what's the mission?" I turned to Gaara, since he had received the instructions.

"We will all go to a small village, several days east from here. There have been disturbing reports of Shinobi going missing, all with wind-type chakra. That's why we have both Temari and Ren, who are both very powerful wind-type chakra users. You two will act as lures, while the rest of us are the trap. First, we need to gather information about the kidnappers. If it appears that we are outnumbered or at a strategic disadvantage, our orders are to retreat and report to the council, who will either send another squad as back-up, or give us other orders. This is a reconnaissance mission first, capture second."

We all nodded, though it was obvious none of us were happy about Temari and I being used as lures. This whole scenario was way too similar to the mission where I had been the bait, and that hadn't turned out so well for me. In fact, I was getting a really bad feeling about this one, all my instincts saying 'OH HELL NO.'

The lure ploy was one that, as far as I was concerned, almost never ended well. I couldn't help but wonder if this was some sort of grand plot to eliminate all the threats from the village by the village elders in one go. In other words, Gaara and the people who would obviously stand behind him, which would be his siblings and me, and my team would stand behind me. I met Temari's eyes, both of us probably thinking similar thoughts. I could see she was worried too.

This was bad. Very, very bad. We couldn't ignore direct orders, but I really wished we could. We all set out at a run. As shinobi, there was nothing we could do about our suspicions. We were duty-bound to follow orders.

After a day of running we pitched camp. We were still in the desert, so we pitched a large desert-style caravan tent, the most convenient accommodations for this sort of mission. It was mostly tight enough that it was difficult for the sand to get in, and Gaara fortified it further with a layer of his sand shield, which would double to keep our body heat inside the tent, to ward off the freezing desert night.

It was drastically different from the last time the six of us went on a mission together, which had been during the whole Chunin Exam debacle. All of us were more mature, and certainly lacked that particular brand of murderous animosity that Gaara used to possess, which made everything much nicer. It was much more convenient for us to be able to camp this way, instead of in separate tents. It allowed for more body heat to accumulate in a small space, which was why generally these sorts of tents were used when traveling in the desert.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the best set up for me, considering my nightmares, and especially the dream I had had last night. I determined that it would be best for me to simply not sleep. So as everyone lay down, with Kankuro on one edge, then Temari, then Gaara, then me, then the twins, I kept my eyes open.

I grumbled softly to myself. I don't know what Temari and Kankuro were thinking, but when Gaara went to take his usual position at the edge of the tent, Kankuro took it and then Temari took the next one, forcing him to be next to me. And of course the twins weren't about to sleep next to Gaara. When I had asked where they were going to sleep they had said, in unison naturally, "We're sleeping on this side, of course. He's your boyfriend after all."

That had gotten some interesting reactions from everybody. I face palmed. Kankuro choked on nothing and began to cough suspiciously. Temari busied herself with swatting him on the back, looking as if she were questionably shaking. I was pretty sure she was laughing. I glared at them. Gaara didn't respond, of course, but I saw him blink. Which as far as Gaara was concerned, sometimes meant shock-face.

I turned to glare at the twins. "Really? You're going to bring that joke out now?! Hello? Inappropriate!" I hissed at them, thoroughly embarrassed, which made me thoroughly pissed off.

They snickered, a little nervously, and simply took their spots. Eventually, I sighed and plopped down in my designated spot. I calmly grabbed my travel pillow, which was pretty sturdy, and brought it to my lap. I nonchalantly straitening the cover on it, lightly tugging on the corners to make it nice and even, before firmly gripping both corners, turning and smacking first one twin and then the next, hard on the side of their head, which I'm sure was the equivalent of boxing one of their ears. Then I turned, put the pillow back in my lap, calmly smoothed the pillowcase back out, straitened the corners, and tucked it back behind me, gently patting it for good measure.

Both twins took their punishment without complaint, just hunching down into their covers, familiar with my pillow-smacking them from many missions where they either pissed me off in the morning or at night. When I glanced over I saw that Kankuro and Temari were both shocked, but also amused, judging by their open mouths and wide eyes. Kankuro began to snicker.

I narrowed my eyes and pointed a finger at him. "If you snore mister…" I trailed off threateningly, and patted my pillow again before I lay down.

Everyone soon fell asleep after that, I could tell from the sound of their breathing. Of course, Gaara wasn't asleep. He stayed pretty tense, and I could feel it since he was lying next to me. We weren't touching, but even the air around him was tense. He sat up, and just sat there, not even trying to sleep, which made sense. Unfortunately for me, I could feel fatigue weighing my eyelids down, still not fully recovered from the last mission. I barely managed to put up my wind jutsus, one for sound, one for motion, not really thinking about what Gaara would think about it.

I immediately slipped into a dream when I closed my eyes, not necessarily a bad one at first. I was wandering the streets of Suna, just sort of meandering along. I didn't really recognize anything. My gaze was caught by a shock of red hair and I smiled, immediately altering my course to go say hello to Gaara. He smiled, and for a moment I was perfectly happy, and then his eyes turned black.

I gasped, shocked and afraid, and slowly backed away from Shukaku, never knowing what to expect from him.

Strangely, though I had fully expected him to fly into a rage and attack, he instead looked sad, his big black and gold eyes mournful, and he reached out to me. I hesitated, but finally gathered the courage together to inch back towards him, and I hesitantly stretched out my own hand. My fingers just barely brushed his before something happened, and suddenly he was gone. The streets melted, and suddenly sand was everywhere, and I gasped as I couldn't tell up from down. I scrambled to catch my balance in the sea of shifting sediment, and thankfully the ground reformed very quickly.

Abruptly I found myself in that canyon and Gaara was in that cage.

I ran to him, immediately trapped in that memory, a memory warped by my subconscious. But the fear was the same, the desperation to free him gripping me hard and tight in my chest and gut. I didn't necessarily remember why, but I somehow knew that he would die if I didn't free him, and the fear was such that, if I had had the luxury to do so, I might have either vomited or passed out. I reached in, straining between the metal slots to pull him out, and his hand grabbed mine. For a second I felt immense relief, but that was shattered with shock when suddenly he pulled me into the cage, with him.

Now we were both trapped, and his eyes were black again, and dangerous.

He growled, a low sound that reverberated through the strange echoing space of my dream. I gasped, retreating, but unable to go far, because he still had my hand. He used it to swing me around and slam me into the solid wall of the cage. I yelped as he pinned me to the wall with his body, and he grinned, the smile all sharp teeth and feral. My stomach clenched, as that smile both frightened me, and strangely excited me at the same time.

And then those sharp teeth descended and sunk into my throat. But it didn't hurt, and strangely I was unafraid.

I woke, my eyes wide and blurry, panting hard, my pulse pounding in my neck and my hand gripping the bedding beneath me with a white-knuckled fist. I shivered and swallowed hard, attempting to get myself under control. I hated those dreams, the ones that were so confusing you didn't know if they were a nightmare or something else entirely. There had been moments that were certainly terrifying, the desperation and fear still lingering in my nervous system, the adrenaline rushing through my body and confusing me even further. And then there were the parts that made me feel other things, and that was just as confusing, if not more so. I groaned and rubbed my head, noting the sweat and how hot I felt. I wasn't sure if that was from the fear or the other stuff. It could be both.

I rolled onto my back, dispersing the wind barrier that was holding me with a flick of a finger. I didn't plan to go back to sleep, so it wouldn't matter anymore. I lay on my back and let my eyes roll back into my head as I continued trying to get my breathing back to normal. I felt flushed, and probably was, and felt a little trembly too. I reached one hand up to push my bangs out of my sweaty face and then observed my fingers with a slitted eye. Yes, my hands were shaking. I sighed and dug my fingers into my hair, using that as an anchor so my hand would stop wobbling and to allow some cool air to get to my forehead.

After a moment, I sighed again and opened my eyes, staring at the ceiling of the tent, and then my eyes slid sideways to the figure sitting next to me that I had ignored before. Naturally it was Gaara, which, after the dream I just had, I wasn't really sure what to feel about it.

My shit was so jumbled up in my head that I felt kind of out of it. "Oh. Hi." I mumbled sort of blankly when my eyes met his.

I slowly blinked and inhaled through my nose, turning my face back towards the ceiling, at which point I sort of just spaced out, my eyes glazing over and not staring at anything in particular as my brain scrambled to reorganize itself. The filing system was all scattered everywhere, papers flying, shelves toppled, emotions and memories sticking like gummy ink to everything and making it so confusing. I imagined flying paper airplanes zipping around my central nervous system and snickered softly to myself, probably sounding a little insane. That's what these sorts of dreams did to me. That, and being exhausted on top of it did not mix well. I felt drunk, unsteady and very fuzzy.

Gaara's face appeared above mine as he leaned slightly to the side to get a look at my face from above. I blinked lazily up at him, mildly thinking, 'Oh look there's Gaara. Hi Gaara!' but not saying anything.

He blinked down at me, looking somewhat concerned. Perhaps. It was hard to place his expression on a good day, and this wasn't even day, this was night, and it was not good.

I cocked my head to the side regarding him as he regarded me, thinking that he looked a little different from this angle. His red hair flopped over his face and hung down, exposing his forehead more. I got the urge to poke his forehead, and so I did. Not very well because my hands were still a little unsteady, so I missed and sort of poked his nose instead. I jerked back a little, making my finger slip down his nose. "…mmm, hold on that wasn't right…" I frowned, took more careful aim and then managed to put my finger right in the center of his forehead. I smiled victoriously, feeling strangely accomplished.

Then of course I remembered that I probably shouldn't touch him, so I frowned a little and let my hand flop down onto my belly with a 'thwap' sound. I blinked up at Gaara, who looked utterly befuddled. He blinked several times in rapid succession, his non-eyebrows doing that little scrunch thing right in the middle and his eyes a little wider than normal as he nearly crossed his eyes to apparently try and figure out why I had poked him on the forehead. I snorted, finding his expression amusing.

Eventually his expression smoothed back out. I woke up a little more and realized I was being utterly stupid, and sighed at the realization.

His face still hung over mine. "Did you have a nightmare?" He asked softly, scrunching his brow a little again, this time in concern. I felt the urge to reach up and smooth it out with a finger, but was too awake now to follow through with it. I hummed noncommittally, not really able to classify the dream as a true nightmare. It was more of a nightmare for me to make sense of afterwards.

"Then why did you wake up so…upset?" He inquired, his voice so low pitched and soft that I had a hard time making it out.

"It was just very strange. Kind of bad, but not a nightmare." I murmured back in the same sort of voice, mine sounding a little raspy and sleepy.

He sat back a little and I followed with my head, which meant that my head bumped into his leg. "What was it about?" He asked, his voice still soft and curious now.

"Oh nothing much, just a bunch of random stuff thrown together." I hummed quietly.

"Like what?"

"Not really sure … I was in Suna, and then …" I thought back, but didn't want to say that he had been in the dream.

"You said my name." He murmured.

"Did I?" I asked, surprised, not about the fact that I had, but about the fact that he had somehow heard.

"Yes, quite a lot actually."

"How would you know, I put a jutsu to block noise around me. Did it fail at some point?" I asked, disturbed.

"No. But I could read your lips." He said in that matter-of-fact way of his.

"You were reading my lips?" I asked, a little put out by that.

"Yes."

"Why?" I was still put out.

"I was bored." He shrugged.

"Nifty little talent you got there." I muttered, sounding a tad sarcastic.

"…hm…" Then silence. After a moment he continued, "So what was I doing in your dream?"

I sighed, knowing that that incorrigible curiosity of his had been peaked. "You just sort of popped up out of nowhere … then things changed and we were in that canyon and you were in the cage."

"…oh." He murmured softly.

"Yeah, that's why it was a bad dream." I sighed, glancing away for a second before meeting his searching gaze again.

"Do you dream about stuff like that a lot?"

"Stuff like what?" I cocked my head to the side a smidge more.

"Stuff from missions." He clarified.

"Not from all of my missions, just the ones where something went wrong usually."

"Oh. So then you dream about…" He mumbled, sounding disturbed.

I sighed "It's a long list Gaara."

"Tell me." He demanded, all bossy as usual.

"You sure?"

"Yes."

I shrugged. "Okaaaay, but don't say I didn't warn you. Are we talking about dreams in general, like recurrent elements, or nightmares, or both?"

"Both. I suppose."

"Okay well, you show up a lot, Shukaku sometimes too. Missions gone bad, like you in that cage, or being tied up. Being an orphan on the street, lots of street stuff, lots of running, lots of dark. Blood. Sometimes there's actually a reason for it being there, sometimes I just smell it or taste it randomly. Glass. Lots of glass. Trash. And other nasty stuff, like the smell of vomit or urine. Alleys. Almost always dark alleys. Sand, which is sometimes scary, sometimes not. Other stuff. It's like all the bad shit in my head just gets mashed up together in whatever random sort of way. A lot of the time it makes no sense." I grimaced.

"What do I usually do in your dreams?" he asked softly, sounding curious.

I gave him a look, totally not going to go there. He just stared back, waiting. "You're just you know … there I guess. Sometimes there's the whole cage thing, and with that particular nightmare sometime you die." I flinched, remembering that recurrent nightmare always made me flinch. "Um, sometimes you're running with me and then you disappear. Or you're there, and then you're gone, and then you're there again. It just depends."

"That's it? I only ever show up in the bad dreams?" His voice sounded kind of sad now.

"No. Well I guess, sort of. But then, I always have bad dreams. I had one once where I was drowning in glass that turned to sand, and when I came out of it I was lying in the desert looking up at the stars. When I looked over, you were there, lying down next to me. That was pretty cool." I whispered, remembering the dream. It hadn't started out fun, but I cherished the memory of the ending, still remembering the beautiful way I felt when I woke up.

He blinked, looking disturbed and some other things I couldn't quite place.

It was strange how it didn't feel weird to talk to him about this stuff. I was probably giving away too much, but it felt safe for some reason. Maybe it was because it was the middle of the night or something.

Chapter 17

The next morning everyone woke up, and we were all off, munching on various compact breakfast type foods. I was eating a fruit, which turned out to be a dangerous affair when you were running, because I misjudged and bit into the seed, cussing colorfully as my teeth protested. And then of course that made me trip rather spectacularly and I nearly choked on some of the fruit as it went down the wrong way.

"You okay there?" Hikaru inquired from next to me, and I sourly nodded, recovering after a moment of coughing. It turned out that it was kind of tough to cough and run at the same time, but somehow I managed, not wanting to slow everyone down.

"That fruit beating you up?" Kaoru teased from the other side, and I lobbed the pit at him. My brothers were such jackasses sometimes.

We continued to run all day, stopping for short breaks as we all had to use the sandy facilities, or drink from our canteens, and soon we were running through grass, and then the woods. And then it was nighttime again, and we set up our tent.

This time Gaara managed to snag his place on the outside of the tent and I slept between the twins. I woke in the middle of the night again, this time from a true nightmare, and Kaoru sleepily threw his arm over me, and tucked his head down almost against my shoulder. Which he promptly drooled on. But I supposed that it was comforting drool. Sort of.

The next morning I fussed at him for it though. "You drooled on me again." I said, sounding kind of Gaara-like with a monotone voice. I ignored the looks the sand siblings were sending us, a mix of bemusement, shock, amusement, and possibly disgust.

"Whoops, my bad." He mumbled, still half asleep.

I just smacked him with my pillow, which didn't get much of a response aside from a muffled "mrph" because he was still so sleepy.

I sighed and let it go. The day went the same as the last, a lot of running, some small breaks, and everyone was exceptionally happy to see the village that we needed to be at.

"Thank heavens. Bath time!" Kaoru yelped, speeding up a little. "Not if I get there first!" Hikaru countered, and they proceeded to race in front of everyone else, to our bemusement.

"How do they have so much energy?" Kankuro asked, thoroughly bewildered.

"Don't look at me." I said when everyone did just that. "I don't know! I just have to deal with it." I protested.

"I feel for ya." Kankuro muttered.

Soon we were all at the gates and we entered at a more reasonable pace, doing our best to blend in with the crowd. We proceeded to the place that we had been instructed to go for accommodations and put away our bags once we had been checked into our two rooms, Gaara and his team in one, me and my team in the one next door.

And then we held a conference in Gaara's room. "Okay guys, what's the plan?" I inquired, parking my butt next to Temari on one of the beds.

"We need to gather information." Kaoru piped up, unsurprisingly, since he was a reconnaissance kind of guy.

"Agreed." Gaara rumbled, shocking Kaoru so much he nearly dropped the red bean bun that he was currently munching on.

"Maybe we should split up and ask around? See what we can get from the villagers?" Temari asked.

"That's not a bad idea. How about we split up into groups of two." I added.

"We could go out for an hour at a time and meet back here after that to touch base." Kankuro suggested.

"That sounds good. Kaoru and I will be a team." Hikaru said.

Kankuro supplied, "Okay, then how about Gaara and me as a team, and Temari and Ren as the other?"

I shrugged. "Sounds fine to me." Everyone nodded and we dispersed, each team taking a different direction from the accommodations.

Temari and I headed north to start with, and ended up walking down a rather interesting road with curio shops on either side. "How about we talk to the shop owners, sometimes they like to gossip." I mumbled to Temari.

She nodded and we made our way to a fascinating little shop full of crystals and cards. I addressed the older, nice looking woman there behind the counter. We started out with some small talk, and I tried to be as charming as possible, which didn't turn out to be terribly difficult, since she was quite pleasant to talk to.

"So, we heard this weird rumor," I started, making sure to sound faintly amused and curious, "Something about people disappearing?" I laughed and pointed to Temari. "My friend here is super superstitious and didn't want to come on this vacation because she had heard the rumors."

The older woman's eyes sharpened. "If I were you, I would be very careful about asking those sorts of questions," she murmured in a very low voice, her eyes intense and worried. "And you should consider wearing better disguises if you wish to be considered tourists." She continued kindly, not at all angry, but sounding concerned for us.

I blinked, shocked. "Okay, but seriously, have you heard anything?" I inquired, my voice lowering like hers.

"Not much. Some people say there are demons or spirits that hunger for those who possess wind chakra and eat them in the middle of the night. Other people say that it's a group of people who do satanic rituals, and use wind users as a sacrifice to their dark god. Personally, I don't know what's going on, but it's bad. And you should be very careful."

"Thank you. We will be going now." Temari came up and joined us, looking around furtively.

The older woman nodded and we left. "She had a good point," I said a little ways later. "We should be disguised."

"Yeah, it's almost time to meet up with the others, we should tell them."

We hustled back to the small lodge we were staying at and rejoined the group. Once we had all arrived we related our information along with everyone else. Over all, not a hugely successful haul, just a lot of rumors and speculations, but what was for sure, was that everyone knew about it, and that it was happening.

Our next order of business was for us to all go and come up with costumes, so we left to round up something. This time Gaara and I paired up and we set off to go find appropriate costuming. We went down the market street, hoping to find something there.

I bought some colorful scarves and a pretty bag that I could sling across my body. Gaara didn't really need much, the only thing he switched out was his shirt, since it looked a little uniform-ish.

We returned and everyone took turns in their respective bathrooms changing out of gear and into something less ninja-esque.

I took off all my armor and put the colorful scarves around my hips, I tucked my shurikens and blades into the pretty bag I had bought.

The twins had bought some stylish clothes, not really anything different than what they would normally wear, but lacking their weaponry and armor. Kankuro had traded out his weird jumpsuit for a plain pair of black pants and a black shirt and had scrubbed off all his face paint. Temari wore something similar to her usual outfit, sort of a lavender kimono top with shorts, and simply put her fan into a sealed scroll which she tucked into a little handbag. Gaara switched his red shirt for the plain black sleeveless shirt he had bought, leaving his fishnet on underneath, so his long fishnet sleeves were visible and took off his gourd, white sash, and belts. I noticed the way he drew out a little bit of sand and fashioned a smaller gourd for himself, hanging it at his hip and filling it with a small amount of sand. I knew that even that small amount of sand was more than enough for him to take out most enemies.

Once finished, we all made sure to take off our headbands and tuck away any stray weaponry.

Temari and I set off again as a team and went around, asking questions and flirting a lot to get answers. It was exhausting. By the time the day was over, we had amassed a large body of knowledge, but none of it really helped at all.

So the next day, we did it again. It was tiring and frustrating and irritating and Temari and I both got thoroughly pissed off.

"Everyone knows stuff is going on, but no one has bothered to try and figure out what it is!" Temari growled, as we stomped down a little side street.

"I know. You'd think if people were disappearing you would want to know what the hell was going on! But I guess everyone is just too afraid."

"I guess." Temari sighed.

We walked a little further, and then our attention was rather rudely diverted by some idiots perched on a low wall. One of them wolf-whistled and several of his buddies did the same. "Hey there ladies!" one of them said, another one followed with, "Nice Ass!" and yet another hooted, "Woohoo! Check out the rack on blondie!"

We turned in unison and before Temari could draw her fan I had sent a gust of wind to knock them off their perches and onto their dumb asses. "Watch it fella's." Temari said sweetly. "You don't want to piss us off, trust me."

I said nothing, just glared at them and they scrambled to their feet and took off running. Neither of us thought much about it after that, but maybe we should have. We continued on, asking many more people, and not getting a lot more information than before.

After a full days' worth of a whole lot of nothing we all reconvened in the lodge.

"Anything?"

"Nope. You?"

"Not much. Just the same sort of shit from yesterday. A whole lot of stories about demons or demon worshipers or evil spirits, blah, blah, blah." Kankuro huffed, falling back onto one of the beds.

"It seems like someone has intentionally put out a bunch of very frightening rumors, mostly supernatural type things that would scare people off. By making it about demons or evil spirits, many people would think there was nothing they could do about it and just leave it alone." Kaoru pointed out logically.

"That makes sense. It has to be the people responsible for the disappearances. They're trying to scare off the villagers from investigating." I sighed, sitting down too.

Temari groaned. "It seems to be working."

"Yep." I sighed, again.

"Alright, let's call it a night."

"Sounds good."

"Sure."

"…hm…"

And we all separated into our two rooms.

Hikaru and Kaoru immediately stole the bathroom and I sat down on the bed, knowing I would be in for a long wait. I sighed, as I waited for them to be fucking done already. They both took notoriously long showers, and when they both went in, that meant one would take a shower and then the other would, which of course doubled the time involved.

Not long after I heard the shower start, my attention was drawn from sulking over the shower occupation when I heard a huge amount of noise from the room next door. I sat up abruptly, concerned and then bolted for the adjoining door when I heard Temari scream. I didn't get to the door though, because someone grabbed me from behind. I managed a scream of my own.

Well, it was more of a yelled cussword, but it was pretty loud and high pitched, so it counted as a scream. I was totally taken unawares, and their stealth concerned me greatly, indicating that these were people not to be messed with.

I threw back an elbow and sent whoever it was crashing into the nightstand. I headed for the door again, not liking that they had caught us separated like this. And then there was the problem of, "KAORU, HUKARU, GET YOUR BUTTS OUT HERE WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!" which was punctuated nicely when someone else grabbed me from behind and I yelled, "GET OFF YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!"

I heard a whole lot of scrambling and loud noises coming from the bathroom, and quite a lot of cussing from the twins.

I focused on the battle at hand, really not liking it when I felt a needle jab me in the neck. I yelped and threw my head back, banging it into my attackers, and staggered away from them, immediately noticing that my balance was compromised when the world began tilting at dangerous angles.

"Oh Shit. This is NOT Good. Holy fucking HELL." I screamed the last bit when another guy jumped through the window.

I heard a lot of commotion from next door. There was still a major battle happening over there for sure. I mustered a little chakra and managed to blow down the adjoining door, so I could at least see what the fuck was going on. "Holy Crap." I muttered when I saw what was going down in that room.

Temari was staggering around like me, sending wind every which away with her fan and knocking over everybody indiscriminately, which was actually working to a certain extent. I managed to yell out a warning as someone snuck up behind Kankuro and got him with a needle too. I could only hope that maybe he had immunity, since he was a puppet master, but apparently it wasn't poison since he started staggering around too and his puppets went limp.

Gaara was going nuts, his sand sort of making it look incredibly chaotic. His sand immediately seeped into this room too, making my attackers cuss. Someone threw a smoke bomb and we all cussed quite colorfully, Kaoru and Hikaru busting out of the shower at that moment into utter chaos.

Under different circumstances I would have laughed at their appearance, one of them dripping wet and in his pajama pants with shampoo still in his hair, the other had toothpaste foaming out of his mouth, making him look quite fearsome and rabid actually. Neither of them had weapons, but Kaoru immediately started up with Genjutsu hand signs, and suddenly there was a lot more chaos as he unleashed his Prism Jutsu on us all. Now there was several of everyone.

"Oh come on Kaoru!" Several of me yelled simultaneously. "Did you have to use that one?"

Multiple versions of him shrugged. And all the Hikarus dived for their metal sticks, bringing them up and successfully thwacking the nearest enemy upside the head. He was used to this jutsu and could function in it pretty well, while the rest of us were thrown for a prismatic loop.

For a minute it looked like we had the upper hand, but then another smoke bomb went off, and that kind of fucked up the visual Genjutsu. Soon the smoke was so thick you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, and both wind types were down. Even Temari had run out of spiz. My body failed and I collapsed to the floor, limp and furious.

Someone grabbed me, and I knew it wasn't one of my friends. I tried to scream but they covered my mouth and nose, making it impossible to breath. As I was dragged out, I noticed that the window was covered in sand, Gaara not taking any chances. Good for him.

Unfortunately they just blew a hole in the wall next to the window, and were through before the sand could cover it again. What we learned from these experiences was that smoke bombs were really excellent when it comes to kidnapping people. I saw Temari, limp and about in the same state I was in being carried by another guy and we stared at each other in silent horror as our visions blurred, trying to maintain eye contact for as long as possible before we passed out and the world went black.


Author's Note:

Okay, this might seem a little repetitive and similar to the last time Ren was kidnapped, but it really isn't. Something is about to happen that's going to change the whole game. What will they do to Ren and Temari?

I'll give you a clue, and if anyone gets it right, I'll try and post the next chapter tomorrow. ;)

Here's the clue: I think the two-tail and Nekomata (big powerful cats) are epic. I think Gaara is epic. I want Ren to be epic.

(I also really like Shukaku and the nine-tail fox.) You can decide if that's part of the clue.

Chew on that and tell me what you think. ;)