Title: Koumajutsu
Author: Tsubasa Kya
Disclaimer: I do not own "Naruto" or "Inuyasha". This will be Canon Naruto and Alternate Universe Inuyasha.

I put this story on the review list because I was thinking too much about it and not updating any other stories.
So the evil story retaliated andwouldn't let me think of anything else...
...I'm taking it off.

WARNING: May contain OOCness, but life is never in character. I'm still trying to figure out why I ever hope my story will go my way.


Chapter 51: The Younger Twin

"And she slid her tongue—"

The impatient child irritably threw the book away from her and hunched down on her decorated bunk, pouting into her orange pillow case. She could only read a book so many times before becoming capable of reciting it from memory. Her problem was that she simply had no new material to go over. She had the time to read all she liked, but that didn't change the fact that her problem was still there.

She had been in the prison over fifteen years. She was still a baby in the cradle when they decided it was 'in the best interests of everyone if she were properly secured and safe'. The logic of the sniveling twits made her snort in dry humor.

Very few people cared or even knew about her existence. The third Hokage and the Elder Council knew, and Kashi-kun knew. The other inmates and the guards knew. However, the Elder Council was the reason she was locked up and hadn't wanted for her to be taught even so much as reading so the chance of them giving her new reading material was less than zero. Seeing as how the third Hokage was dead, those chances had also fallen to nothing. The guards and inmates thought she was a demon child, the chance that she would get something other than a cold shoulder and cruel treatment was slim.

And Kashi-kun hadn't come for a while now so she wasn't expecting too much out of the lazy Jounin, though the lack of company was driving the child insane. If it weren't for the lessons the third Hokage himself had provided to the child, she would've gone mad out of sheer boredom.

She had hoped that befriending the pink-haired girl who shared her cell for a week would give her a new friend who would visit every so often, but when the girl failed to come back, the child had to accept that she was currently alone.

Soon though, she wouldn't be. Or, she hoped not, anyway. She was supposed to be released August first but it was already mid-August and still there was no sign of the departure she was supposed to make from the place. Thinking of that aloneness made her feel lonely. She reached under her pillow and pulled out the worn old picture.

She looked from face to face; her mother smiled warm and demure at the camera through big, brown doe eyes. Her hair was as black as the night and it mushroomed around her head. She was very beautiful, and almost too young for the man beside her. Her mother wore a red-orange comely looking dress and definitely looked like she was ready to be a mother.

Her father was muscular and he had broad shoulders. If her mother was the doe, than her father was the king of the lions. He didn't smile. He was dressed in a dark brown dress shirt and black dress pants. He even had a black tie on, though it was hard to tell because his dress shirt was so darkly colored. His skin stuck out in contrast to the color, a light and healthy tan while her mother's skin was a bit more like caramel colored. Even his beautiful blue eyes didn't smile. His bright blond hair hung in spikes like the mane of a lion and he was undoubtedly a handsome man.

Nestled within the arms of their parents was the child and her older twin brother. He was only older by a few hours—five to be exact, as her mother hadn't known she was pregnant with twins. After the birth of her elder brother the doctors thought her mother was having post-birth complications and no one thought it was possible the birth might not be over yet. The child had actually been dead for a few minutes after she was finally pushed out, but the doctors had been able to revive her.

Her father cradled the older boy, while her mother held her. She had grown to look very much like her mother when she wasn't hiding within a transformation jutsu. When she released the jutsu, she too was slender and delicate and she had the same night-colored hair and doe eyes. But she wasn't as short as her mother; she'd grown tall like her father.

She liked to imagine that her older brother had grown up like a short version of their father: stocky with muscles, spiky blond hair, and dazzling blue eyes. In her imagination he was a handsome man who had hundreds of girls chasing him, but he was too nice to turn them down so she had to be the tough sibling and beat them back with a stick.

It was fun to giggle at the mental image because she already knew her brother wasn't quite what she imagined him to be. For one thing, she was the weak one. He was a ninja; strength was expected of him. He'd grown up outside of confinement whereas she'd known only the prison as her home since she was ten months old.

The only formal tutoring she'd ever received was in academics which the third Hokage had provided her. She'd had informal training from Riba and the other demons as they had been her care-takers for the first four years of her life: she learned their language growing up instead of her own and learned how to create and control chakra.

The Elder Council only found out too late that she'd taken the lessons from Riba like a sponge takes water. They had thought they got her away from them in time; they had thought wrong. But it had been incredibly difficult to be forced away from Riba and the others and speak nothing of the language she should have known all along. For several years, she was considered dumb because she couldn't speak the language. It was hard to know one language and have to start completely from scratch to learn another.

Her brother had never been caged like her. He had been free.

She smiled at the ragged old picture of a family torn apart by tragedy, but it wasn't a happy smile. Usually she could wear a happy smile. It wasn't difficult to pretend she was an eight year old like her transformation jutsu portrayed her as. She'd made that pink haired girl think she was one. But she used the jutsu to encourage the idea that she was a demon; she was much safer if people thought she was a demon…

But that meant she couldn't tell anyone about her brother. Well… not until she left this place. Fifteen years—she wasn't supposed to have to stay even a day longer than that. Her sentence was up already, never mind the fact that she didn't do anything wrong to deserve to go to jail.

Her normally warm brown eyes narrowed hatefully at the woman in the photo. It was her mother's fault. Everything was her mother's fault. If her mother weren't a monster in disguise, then none of the things she had gone through would have happened.

Because of that woman, she had to pretend she was a demon. She had to call her father by his name, and she couldn't acknowledge her brother's existence or else people would figure out she was actually human and it was hard enough living in the prison as it was!

The child could hear footsteps coming closer and even though she figured it to be a regular guard who would merely walk past, she still hid the picture inside her pillowcase quick as can be and burrowed under her orange blanket, feigning sleep. She was pretty lucky, considering she was in the prison. Kashi-kun gave her gifts for every birthday since birth practically. At first it was simple things like picture books—she loved to look at the pictures and make up a story to go along with it—and a bed set and washing utensils.

As she got older and finally learned her own language instead of the language Riba and the others spoke Kashi-kun got her stacks of books of great variety. Her favorite books were those on gardening; when he found out (as he somehow always did) she liked gardening, he would send packets of seeds and anything else he could get away with giving to an inmate. She supposed he'd figured she might start a potted-plant garden in her cell, but she had a better idea.

She threatened the warden to get a small area of the outer yard for planting things. He thought she was a demon and was unaware that she had minimal chakra reserves although he was aware that she was physically weak. However, when given the option between calling her bluff (she said she would bring the prison walls down around his ears) with the potential that she might not really be bluffing and giving her a bit of earth, the warden let her have her garden.

If only he knew it took all her chakra just to maintain the disguise as an eight-year-old, then maybe he would've turned down her 'request'. But who knows? Maybe she would have cried to Riba if the warden did that and Riba and the others would have sought blood for her tears. It was something Riba and the others would do too. After all, they weren't short chakra or strength; if they wanted to, they could easily escape prison by casually strolling out the front gates (leaving behind mayhem and destruction with no second glances).

They stayed only because they couldn't go back to their world without Kyuubi so they had to wait for him to be freed. Besides… the prison served three meals a day and provided shelter and beds and blankets and all sorts of little things, which was more than they got back in their world. Back in their world, they were lucky to eat once every few days and the rest was simply the guilty indulgence of royalty—which was no where near what position Riba and the others held.

Riba said back in his world, he'd been nothing more than a thief picking pockets and trying to survive on the streets. He'd made his home inside a wide crack in the castle wall until one day he picked the wrong pocket—the pocket of the famed King's Fool, Kyuubi. Riba never finished the tale, so she didn't know how Riba came to be Kyuubi's very close friend but she hoped to someday hear it from Kyuubi himself.

She heard the sound of a baton clacking against the bars of her cell. She kept pretending to be sleeping on the top bunk and the guard banged the baton again. The guard called gruffly, "Hey, demon brat! Get up. You can stay in your sleep wear if you want to since you'll just be undressing again for the medic."

She allowed herself to groan internally, but externally she practically bounced down off the bunk. She never liked the guards. She could scare the other inmates into leaving her alone, but the guards weren't afraid of her as much. The guards did nasty things to her even though they thought she was a demon. All they cared was that she was still young, demon or not.

She pulled on the comfy pumpkin orange hooded sweatshirt Kakashi had sent her over her night gown; he'd stolen it from her brother, so in her eight-year-old body, it didn't fit very well. The hem went down to her kneecaps, and her arms swam in the sleeves just like her body did. But it was still very warm, and she loved her brother's choice of color; it was her favorite. She wondered if he knew it was gone…

Once the sweatshirt was on, she stuck her hands through the tray opening of the bars and the guard put on the customary cuffs. Only with those on did he open the cell door and lead the way to the medic's office. She wondered why she needed an exam; she just had one. It was too soon for another.

Barely an hour later, she found herself as though within a dream, staring down at her own release papers. She'd had a customary pre-discharge basic medical examination and had a post-discharge full medical examination scheduled to take place thirty days from her release, which she was required to go to, but it would be at the hospital. She could barely believe her luck.

She listened to the warden drone on about the terms of her release; because she was a 'demon', she would be shadowed at all times by four ANBU—two would watch her during the day and two would watch her at night. The warden made sure she was fully aware that he had posed his own objections to her release, but his objections had obviously been disregarded.

He stated she would stay with a Jounin chosen by the current Hokage to help her acclimate to the world outside prison. She didn't really think she'd need the help, because how difficult could it be? Still, she wasn't going to question the terms and before she knew it she was being introduced to a 'Gai Maito'.

"But you can call me Gai!" the cheery man said, giving her a thumbs-up. He was definitely a weird one; his teeth even sparkled. She hoped everyone on the outside didn't wear clothes like him… but she didn't say anything about that.

"I am Rin Uzumaki." He and the warden both blinked in evident surprise. She smiled at the warden. "You seem stunned. Why?"

Neither of them voiced their thoughts, but she could make a guess. They were surprised she might be related to the host of Kyuubi, but that would make her human. She'd never mentioned her surname before. She'd always went by the name Rin and nothing more. It wasn't hard to hide her last name. She didn't even know it most of her life.

She was finally out of the prison by nine AM, dressed in an orange kimono one of the guards had brought after packing her things and her brother's shirt. Her things had been loaded onto a buggy outside the castle prison. Her first task was to immediately search her things to find her pillow while Gai jabbered on about how honored he was to have the task of rehabilitating her to the real world.

From the sound of things, Gai was going to be a nice person. He never called her demon even once. Instead, he immediately took to calling her 'Rin-chan'. She got her picture out of her pillow and then Gai (oddly enough) hitched himself to the small wagon filled with her personal items. Most of the wagon was weighed by her book collection. If there was one thing she would miss about the prison, she was sure it would be her garden.

"Gai," she said after they'd crossed the bridge and started down the road toward the city. Gai paused in his narrative of his every day activities to look down at her with a sparkly smile.

"Yes, Rin-chan?"

"Do you have a family? Brothers, sisters, a wife, and children?"

Gai immediately gushed about his youthful family and how he would be delighted to introduce her to them. His father was CEO of a construction company, and his baby sister helped out at the construction company wherever she was needed. His wife was the most wonderful thing to ever happen to him, and he had a five year old son and a newborn baby boy. He took in an orphan years ago but really, "Lee-kun's not any different," Gai stated firmly, "than my sons. Lee-kun is as much as I would hope for in a son! He is youthful, energetic, and I think he would like you, Rin-chan!"

She found quickly that Lee-kun was on a mission to a foreign country and wouldn't be back for half a year at least, so, "I hope it will not be too inconvenient for you, but you'll have to stay in Lee-kun's room. I hope you are not too upset to be discharged late. I assume blame for that; I was supposed to come sooner, but my wife went into labor, and it slipped my mind."

Rin couldn't help but smile. She wasn't really one to hold a grudge, even if she mostly came to dislike humans for their constant treatment of not just those who were different but also each other. She was a bit bitter that the Hokage didn't think to have someone else see her through the release process, but it was nice to know that Gai would assume responsibility for her late release and admit it to her face. It was also nice to know he had a valid excuse, unlike Kashi-kun when he failed to visit her on time and then showed up randomly and claimed a black cat was sitting on the road to the prison.

"What did you name the child?"

"Arthura," he smiled. "Lee-kun picked it. It is a very sprightly sounding name, and the name of a champion, I think!"

"That's a really nice name. Arthlezenian for He Who Sees the Great Mothers."

"Arfelite?"

"Arthlezenian, the language spoke by a race of people called Arthlezenithites… Its really a beautiful language; its what I learned to speak growing up before I knew common."

Gai blinked and then his lips flapped for a moment uselessly. "Lee-kun said he's one of those… an Arfelizentite…"

"Arthlezenithite," Rin corrected Gai. "For the most part, Arthlezenithites aren't in our world, but usually humans will call Arthlezenithites 'demons'." Gai opened his mouth to argue—probably to say Lee wasn't a demon. "Its true! A very long time ago, before the creation of humans, there was a race of people called Arthlezenithites—the Children of the Four Goddesses. They were all gifted by the Goddesses to be born with vast stores of knowledge. As years went by the Arthlezenithites waged wars on each other with their weapons of mass destruction, laying waste to hundreds and thousands of their own kind before taking their winged cities to live among the stars."

"Live among the stars?" Gai asked.

"Yes, and the Goddesses hated that their children would so easily turn their backs on their mothers so they cursed them. 'If you will act like an animal, then you must be an animal!' So now the Arthlezenithites are called demons, and most of them even think of themselves as that." Rin had heard about that countless times from Riba.

"But if Lee is a demon, doesn't that mean he has infiltrated my family to do us harm?" Rin winced as she realized it might have been a mistake to tell Gai anything.

"No, Sir, not necessarily. When the Arthlezenithites were cursed by the Goddesses, their whole race of people was cursed to be animals; the more animalistic they behaved, the more animalistic their appearance became. Some weren't changed too much because they didn't do anything to provoke the curse; they had tails or dog ears but some changed completely."

Gai was quiet for several long minutes and then he smiled. "Lee-kun looks very human, so he is most certainly a good boy." He sounded very reassured and Rin decided not to tell Gai that only the very first Arthlezenithites to take to the sky were cursed, and that it had been thousands of years since all that happened. Riba had said there were many very human looking people in his world.

A few more minutes passed and Rin paid great interest to the world outside the prison. She was very interested by the things she saw: buildings, people, and even graffiti on a wall was interesting. The further she went into the city, the more she wanted to see and the more she felt like shedding the transformation jutsu that kept her looking like an eight year old. However, the only clothes she had to wear that would fit her outside of the transformation jutsu was her brother's orange sweatshirt (and she was wearing it over the orange flower patterned kimono) and a pair of pajama shorts.

She really wanted to leave behind Prison-Rin, even though at first she had assumed she would keep up the demon-guise.

Gai asked, "Lee said Arthlezenithites were 'created not born'… do you know what he meant?"

Rin nodded. "Mm, before they were cursed, the Arthlezenithite people created their young using their technology, first using machinery to create an artificial womb for a fertilized egg. After the child is developed enough to be removed from the artificial womb, they would surgically install the first piece of machinery to allow the child to connect their Ghost to the technology of their world."

"What do you mean, their ghost?"

"It's difficult to explain because translating Arthlezenian into common is so imprecise… a lot of the words they use have no equivalent that I've come across in any language—and I know fourteen languages now, since I had little better to do with my time in prison than learn. But the best example I can think of is if you were to put your spirit into the walls and the ground and see the essence of the world and understand it simultaneously. Once the Arthlezenithites organic bodies stopped growing, they would undergo surgery that gave them Chisak. With Chisak, they no longer needed wires to connect their Ghost to the world, because they were part of it."

Rin could remember Riba telling her about that process. It was so hard to imagine, but even Riba only had stories to tell because after they were cursed, the Four Goddesses took away their gift of knowledge and they could no longer use their technology to its proper potential. Riba did say there was supposed to be one Arthlezenithite who still remembered how to use everything, but he said no one knew where he was since he had forsaken his people and remained behind when they took to the skies with their winged cities.

The legends told that "Arzyle" had been gifted to remain with the knowledge given him by his mothers, but when the Goddesses made humans, Arzyle was cursed to keep watch over them while the rest of his brothers and sisters who turned away from the Goddesses were cursed to be servants to certain worthy humans who would have the power to call forth the "Haoou ju auooji" or roughly translated, demon, from their world. The rough translation was truly just that: rough. Rin hardly claimed to be an expert on any language she knew, but she thought a better translation would be "to summon a creature", not "demon", which seemed to her that "Haoou ju auooji" was more of a phrase than it was a term.

They finally stopped in front of a quaint little house in a rather nice neighborhood and Rin smiled. Waiting on the front steps was a petite woman shorter than Rin would be in her normal form, but not by much. She had a cute little bundle of a newborn babe in her arms and wore a white apron over a yellow dress. A little boy who could be no older than five and looked like a mini-Gai gave them a thumbs-up and a sparkly toothy grin.

"Daddy!" the boy cheered. "I did just like you said and dutifully took care of mommy and Arthur!"

Gai looked very pleased and stopped the cart in front of the front door. "Good job, Con!" he chirped. "With every task completed, one can feel the burn in brain and body for the youth of nature cannot be defeated."

Rin puzzled momentarily over that statement and then decided she would have to do some more studying of the common language because it didn't make a word of sense to her. Gai went and kissed his wife on the cheek and his wide-browed newborn on the forehead. The child was wrapped in a stout blue blanket.

"Rin-chan, this youthful woman is my wife, Min Maito! And this sprightly young lad is my son Con! And this energetic bundle is my son Arthura!" Gai introduced Rin to his family. Rin bowed to them respectfully. "Everyone, this is Rin Uzumaki!"

"Uwaaaa!" Con whooped and grabbed Rin's hand, shaking it boisterously. "It is a great honor to meet such a fine youth as yourself! I am sure when you see my great ninja skills you will be awed and amazed at me and will agree to be my wife!"

Rin giggled at him. "But you are only five. Gai said so. You're too young for me."

He puffed up his chest. "You can't be too much older than me!"

"I'll be sixteen in October," she told him, laughing again as his cheeks pinked.

"But… you're so little!" he pouted. "I'll never get a wife. Daddy was four when he asked mommy to marry him! I'm already behind!" he grumbled for a moment and then perked up. "So, Rin-chan, do you want to marry me?"

Rin burst into more helpless giggles as Gai began to lecture his son, saying that it wasn't proper for Con to ask a lady older than him to marry. Gai said it was only proper for a man to ask a younger lady to marry. Min—after suppressing giggles—showed Rin into the house. Min gave Rin the tour of the house, saying not to worry about her things. Gai and Con would bring them in and put them in Lee's room for now.

The house had two floors. The kitchen-slash-dining room, living room, Lee's bedroom, and a full bathroom were all on the first floor. The second floor had the master bedroom which was where Arthura's crib was set up, Gai's office (which Rin quickly found out Gai had transformed his office into a weight room), Con's room, and a half-bathroom.

The house really was nice and cozy. She already liked it; it was a ton more welcoming than the very thought of the prison cell she'd lived in. Rin smiled at Min gratefully. "You have a very nice home, Miss Maito." Afterward, she thought, Would it be Mrs. or Miss? Even after years, her primary language was still Arthlezenian since Orooon (one of the demons in prison) was a school teacher in his world and since she still had the opportunity to see the demons every day through the fence in the yard, Orooon gave her lessons daily on various subjects.

"Call me Min, dear," she said warmly. "And don't feel you need to keep the place so perfectly clean either. My son Lee is a cleaning machine sometimes. Before he left last week, he spent the whole weekend scouring the house." She stopped in front of the door with a wooden plaque reading "Lee" tacked to it and giggled. "If he were half so meticulous about his room, I would think someone switched him with a robot!"

Thinking about her talk with Gai and how this Lee person had apparently called himself an Arthlezenithite, Rin also smiled but for another reason entirely. "You never know," Rin chirped.

Min opened the door and showed Rin inside. The room really wasn't that bad. It was still very clean, but it wasn't quite as sparkling as the rest of the house. A basket of half-folded laundry was in front of the closet and the hamper in the corner of the room was overflowing with tee-shirts and jeans and socks.

The desk was littered with writing utensils that hadn't quite reached the pen cup next to the lamp, and the waste basket was overflowing with crumpled papers. However, despite those small messes, the blankets on the bed were made up neatly and the clothes hanging in the open closet hung in perfect uniformity. Even though there was a dresser drawer half open giving the immediate impression that the person closing it had not truly cared if it was left open, all the clothes inside the drawer were perfectly folded with not a tag out of line.

To Rin, these small things and Min's silly comment about 'cleaning machines' and 'robots' made Rin think the small messes were purposeful to divert attention away from Lee's computer-like perfectionism. Min might not notice the subtle contradictions, but Rin saw them and took note of them.

"Well, this is where you'll be staying until you can get your feet under you or until Lee returns from his mission. If Lee does return from his mission before you feel ready to leave, I don't want you to feel pressured." Min smiled down at her, "If that happens, we'll simply move Con into here, and you into Con's room, as this is the bigger room more suited to hold more people."

"Thank you for your kindness and generosity, Min," Rin said, bowing gratefully. "May I ask a small favor?"

"Of course."

"May I borrow clothes from you?"

"You're a bit small for my clothes," Min began.

"Only because I'm in a transformation jutsu," Rin assured her. "I don't normally look this way." Min immediately nodded and told Rin to follow her upstairs. Min set Arthura in the crib where the silent boy slept, and they sifted through Min's clothes for something Rin could wear.

Min finally suggested a soft violet colored blouse and a long skirt of a slightly darker purple. Since Rin had never owned shoes in her life, Min borrowed her a pair of tan flip-flops. After dropping the jutsu and changing into the outfit, Min asked, "Do you have undergarments? Bras, breast bands, undershirts and leggings? And what about shaving? Has anyone told you women shave?"

"I've never had anyone other than Kashi-kun who can get me things, and he was embarrassed enough to have to explain monthlies to me. With him, it's like pulling teeth," Rin admitted, "to get any information at all on anything. He didn't want to know more than he had to."

Min smiled at her, "Well, back in the bathroom then," she said, "I'll answer any question you have."

"What about Arthura?" Rin asked. "Don't you have to take care of him?"

"He's sleeping, dear. He'll be alright and I can hear him if he wakes up."

xXx

By the time lunch rolled around, Rin's head was filled with information Kakashi had either never known or just didn't tell her. Some of it seemed like things he may have known, and other bits of information like how to use a tampon seemed like the sort of thing Kakashi wouldn't have been very likely to know. Rin knew about how to use pads and that they were uncomfortable and bulky, but her weak transformation jutsu couldn't get rid of her monthlies.

Aside from talk about monthlies, undergarments and the importance of wearing them properly, and shaving, Min talked about boys and relationships and practically dove head first into the deep end to talk about sex and protection. Min went on to tell Rin that boys weren't bad and neither was sex, but Min explained that Rin had to be careful with both.

That much, Rin knew. She'd read far too many romance novels not to know. Her favorite book, Make-Out Violence, was a two-story novel about abusive relationships. The first story was about a man abusing his girlfriend, and the second story was about a woman abusing her boyfriend—same situation, reversed roles.

She'd also taken her first bath in her new home, and on Min's insistence, practiced shaving for the first time. Her armpits and legs felt like she'd scraped the skin right off. Min assured her that practice would be the difference between cutting herself while shaving and not. Rin assured Min she wouldn't be shaving again.

After that, Min made lunch for Rin, Con, and herself—Gai left after unloading Rin's things—and chattered at Rin about how wonderful it was that Rin was out of prison. Rin told Min she wasn't totally free yet. "I'm out on parole until I'm eighteen and have to check in with my parole officer once a week, and I have four ANBU watching me daily for an as-yet indefinite length of time."

"That's still better than being locked away, isn't it?" Min asked her. Rin wondered for a moment what Min and Gai had been told before they took Rin in. She was sure Gai was told Rin was a 'demon brat' but so far they had not shown even a single ounce of unease around her. That made her curious about the Maitos.

"I suppose so," Rin began as she ate the sandwiches Min was providing her.

"Now, don't you worry about a thing!" Min told her. "Eat up, because you and I will need to go to the store and get you some undergarments and outfits. Winter is coming up too, so we'll need to prepare you for that. You'll need boots, shoes, undergarments, skirts, shorts, pants, blouses, dresses, sweaters and sweatshirts, tee-shirts, long-sleeve shirts, tank tops, brushes, make up, hair pieces, a proper hair cut… and I want all this done before dinner tonight so we're going to have to get a move on right after lunch."

xXx

Gaara frowned down at the map and the tentative trajectory drawn on its face. The path followed a distinct pattern. Southeast to a somewhat large village called Caine in Rice Country. Northeast to a large village in Rice Country called Jen. Southeast. Northeast. Southeast. Northeast. All the while, the villages the path adjusted at had been destroyed completely.

"She never attacks small places. No village she's destroyed has had less than a populace of ten thousand. But it looks like she gets into the place and attacks while everyone is sleeping. There is very minimal signs of struggle." Kisame grumbled as he explained his recent findings to the young Akatsuki leader Itachi. Itachi was posing as a Jounin named Kakashi, but for the time being he had let down the disguise and looked like himself.

"You are sure she was the cause of these villages' downfall?" Itachi asked as he too looked over the markings on the map. He began to measure the distance between each city, probably hoping there would be some more similarity to the pattern other than what the direction would next be.

"I am," Kisame promised. "She left behind a mass of Level Six. In some of the places, she even left Breeders." He shuddered in disgust; Gaara's brow furrowed. Something that could disgust someone like Kisame was probably not something Gaara wanted to know about.

Still, he asked, "Breeders?"

Deidara explained, "They're a nasty type of creature that lays eggs inside the chest cavity of humans. It only takes a few days for the spawn to mature and when it does, it bursts out of the chest cavity, killing the human it lived in and then immediately seeking out to lay eggs."
Gaara winced in disgust and immediately imagined it happening to him. "Have all these Breeders been found and disposed of?" he asked. Itachi looked up at Kisame, seeking an answer silently.

Sasori said hesitantly, "Generally by the time we got to the village, it was empty, aun…"

Kisame added, "We think we arrived barely days behind her a few times. Leaving behind Breeders and Level Sixes at a few locations kept us from catching up."

Itachi repeated, "The Breeders; did you contain them, or are we to be faced with mass human extinction on top of the rest of our petty human issues like war and poverty?"

"We took care of the Level Sixes," Deidara said before gulping nervously.

Kabuto pointed out, "Level Sixes are easily contained; they are only as strong as the human sacrifice."

Kisame sighed. "We can't be too certain about the Breeders."

Itachi growled and said, "If you don't recall, let me remind you. Between Breeders and Level Sixes, Breeders are priority!" Itachi's expression was deadly. It was easy to see why the young Sharingan-user commanded respect from others; he was frightening even without his bloodlimit activated. Gaara had always respected Itachi since the very first day he'd seen the ex-leaf-nin. He hoped never to be on the receiving end of Itachi's anger.

"Sorry, boss," was chorused feebly from the mouths of Deidara, Kisame, and Sasori.

Gaara watched the frustrated young leader of Akatsuki as he turned back to the map and began once more on his calculations. After a few moments passed and Itachi began penciling potential future trajectory lines on the map, Gaara asked softly, "These Level Sixes… what are they?"

He felt it was a valid question, as he was going to be offering his military services to Akatsuki to bring Kikyou off her path of destruction. That was one of the reasons why Kagome was not present at the meeting: they were talking about Kikyou, and Kagome still believed her mad sister might be saved from the madness. Kagome wasn't convinced that there was nothing human left to her sister, and so the subject really upset her when brought up.

Kabuto pushed his glasses up further on his nose and frowned before beginning to explain. "There are ten levels of Summoning."

"Only if you count contract summons," Kisame added. "But contract summoning is slightly different than Koumajutsu, since it doesn't require the ability to see the rip-threads."

Kabuto continued, "Contract summoning is considered Zero Level Summoning. Then there is Levels One through Nine of Koumajutsu, and these can be split up three ways: Basic, Forbidden, and CUR, or Combination-User Restricted."

"Any Summoner can use Levels One, Two, and Three," Kisame said. "Those are the three Basic levels."

"And you are all Level Four Summons now?" Gaara asked, though he already knew the answer. Itachi had been changed for several years, and Deidara, Sasori, and Kabuto were changed by Kikyou the very day she lost her mind. Kisame chose to perform Level Four Summoning on himself nearly ten years ago to stop a mortal wound from killing him.

"Yes," Itachi said almost carelessly as he concentrated on the map.

Kabuto said, "Levels Four through Six are Forbidden because they require a human sacrifice to perform, although the techniques themselves are still Basic. And Levels Seven through Nine can only be performed by a Combination Summoner, though such a Summoner is even more rare than ordinary Summoner. Seven through Nine could be considered the advanced techniques."

"But Kagome is a Combination Summoner," Gaara didn't ask that; he knew it. Both Kagome and Kikyou were the very rare Combination Summoners. Kikyou's Level Three Summon Creatures were the Shikigami Twins while Kagome's were the Dog Princes. Gaara didn't pretend to be an expert on the Yobidasu or on Summoning, but he did know that being a Combination Summoner, if the power was harnessed, would make Kagome far stronger than Gaara could ever be.

And he knew Kikyou would not be easily defeated.

Itachi changed the subject swiftly. "Judging by the pattern Kikyou's trail has taken her, I believe any of the following locations have the potential to be Kikyou's next target." He began using his pencil to circle points on the map. "The cities of Credo, Imstan, Brosa, and Carin Mount are potential hits, and the Seduction-Infiltration Mastery School—though it is less likely as the school has fewer than ten thousand—is also a potential hit. How old is your information?"

Kisame said, "A few months. We lost her trail in May near Brosa in North Sands, though none of the nearby cities had been hit. From there we widened our search, but still found nothing of her."

"Alright. Kisame, head to DeNDotDn and ask around up there for her. Deidara, you head to Golgawood. Talk to the Scrye and see if She will listen to the winds. Do not pressure Her; if she says no, return here, and under no circumstances are you to use fire techniques… better yet, Sasori, you head to Golgawood, and Deidara, you go to Bunjaba Ro and look for any hint of rumors in the area. While you're near Bunjaba Ro, check the S-If Mastery School."

"Yes, Itachi-sama," the three chorused.

Itachi added seriously, "No ripping people into pieces. No blowing things up or setting them on fire. No making people into puppets. Understood?"

They nodded unhappily and began to disperse right when a knock came at the door. Gaara's secretary poked her head into the room nervously, "A young child is here to see you, Kazekage-sama. She said she brought you lunch. Shall I send her away?"

Gaara shook his head. "Send her in," he said and then glanced at his clock. She was half an hour early, but so much the better for him. He had been anticipating her arrival all day long. It was admittedly an exciting thing not knowing what insolence would pop out of her mouth next.

Itachi rolled up the paperwork and slipped into the disguise of a Jounin Gaara still didn't really know. "After you get some rest," Itachi started, "we'll discuss plans to retrieve Lady Kagome's belongings."

Gaara nodded and with Itachi and Kabuto's departure, followed by the young blond girl's entrance, it felt as though the world expanded again. The rooms walls weren't so close any more and it felt brighter in the room than daylight provided for. He watched the small girl as she carefully tiptoed into the room, trying not to smile as she concentrated with all her might on not spilling or dropping the covered soup bowl.

She stopped in the center of the room and looked around. When she saw him she gave him a blinding toothy smile. Looking at it, he could immediately tell she was happy. He hadn't been so happy as a child; he wished he could have been but that was the past.

"I made you lunch all by myself!" she said, her voice filled with pride. "Well, Mesa Theroux helped me a lot, but I did it!" Gaara couldn't help but smile back at her.

Cute kid, Shukaku whispered.

The little blond girl walked up to him and held her offering up to him happily. He didn't want her to feel bad so he accepted it and set the dish on his desk, though he doubted he'd eat it. She might be an innocent child, but he'd had a few too many assassination attempts on his life to allow him to be comfortable accepting unknown substances.

To keep her from feeling bad (though he didn't quite get why her feelings were an issue) he said, "Thank you, Reiss-san."

She made a face at that. "I'm Vvim, not Reiss-san."

"Alright, then thank you, Vvim." He amended.

"You're welcome! Who was fishy face and those other guys who left here?"

He laughed internally at the girl's name for Kisame, but rather than delve on that, he changed the subject by opening the left drawer on his desk. It had taken a great amount of effort to create a special glass sheath for the glass kunai in the late evening hours the night before, but he had managed it just the same. Using Shukaku's power over sand and a few droplets of coloring, he crafted a sheath as lightweight and thin as cloth, but one that was more durable than stone.

It had taken him dozens of failed attempts to create something that could be glass yet not carry the same weight, and it was even harder to create glass that could be nearly weightless but at the same time have it strong enough not to break on powerful impact. Even when he'd practically exhausted his personal chakra reserves and had to tap Shukaku's nearly limitless chakra coils, he still hadn't managed to do all that.

He'd gone to the limits, reliant on his chakra control to be nothing short of perfect so he could complete his self-set task. He had no idea why he had been trying so hard. He'd already admitted to himself that it was stupid—absolutely ridiculous—to try to please anyone. Long ago he had learned the hard way that kindness and trust would only bring betrayal, and making people happy was a useless act.

Still, he had endured. It wasn't like he was missing out on sleep anyway because he rarely ever got to sleep. Shukaku had even given him many tips and pointers to help him perfect the perfect glass sheath for the glass kunai. Around dawn was when he'd finally managed to make a glass sheath that was as strong as the kunai it was to contain. But even still, the sheath wasn't perfect yet; Gaara wanted it to be "awesome" as Vvim had called the kunai.

So he had to use dye; he'd chosen bright orange. It wasn't his first time using dye on the little sculptures he made in his boredom, so he'd easily gotten the sheath done in a few minutes once he knew just what he was doing. Still it hadn't seemed completed… something had been missing.

That was when he decided to add another dye: black. The finished result—only determined to be truly perfect after attempting to smash the sheath to bits and not managing to even so much as flaw his work—was the kind of beauty Gaara loved to stand back and admire. Glass art would probably have been a profession of interest for Gaara if only his life were a little different. If only he didn't have Shukaku… except if he didn't have Shukaku, he couldn't do half the things he did now.

The sheath was mostly the orange glass, but in the center like an emblem he had swirled the black dye to create an opaque colored spiral just like that which Naruto wore on his jacket. He had made a soft grip on the handle of the kunai using only the finest quality of leather, and instead of a latch to keep the kunai in the sheath, he had experimented with his chakra to see if he could create a similar effect to magnetism.

It worked with Shukaku's helpful hints, and the dagger wouldn't be able to fall out of the sheath by accident with that mostly useless technique.

The downfall to the glass weapon was that it would inevitably reflect light, but then again so would metal. At least the weapon was perfected, and he'd made the weapon no heavier than an ordinary kunai, but it was certainly going to be stronger. And glass could always be coated with paint or hidden by leather.

It was absolutely astounding what Gaara could do with Shukaku's ability to control sand. After over a decade of destroying things with the ability, he found it was a bigger and more enjoyable challenge to create with it.

He looked down at the little girl. She had clamored up onto his desk chair and made herself comfortable on it. Her feet barely reached the edge of the seat. She was a tiny little thing. It was incredible that she was so brave in the face of danger… that she could look him in the face and call him names such as "snickerdoodlepantshead". Briefly he wondered what the name was supposed to mean, but then he recalled she simply made it up on the spot.

"—and Terry told Nana he has to start going through all the papers in his office so Nana tried to run away and hide, but Terry caught up and now Terry and Nana are in Nana's office. Carin and Jaq are outside playing Sand Stones. They walked me here, but I don't think they like you. But Frankie likes you a little. She's outside with my other two sisters too, but she said you took away her parents and that was the best thing ever happened to her. I sort of wish I got to meet my mama, but she died giving birth to me and Terry says daddy was an idiot so I'm not missing out on anything not having met him, Terry says."

Vvim kept jabbering away about this thing or that. He'd had no idea anyone could possibly talk so much without taking a breath, but she never missed a beat—until she saw the glass item in his hand. Her eyes went wide and her jaw clenched as she threw her lips out in a pout.

He could see she was fighting the urge to reach out and try to take it. He smirked. "Are you ready to earn this?" he asked her, watching her for a reaction.

She nodded enthusiastically. "Uh huh!"

"Good," he said. "Can you read?" She shook her head. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised. She was only two. "Can you speak Suni?" She shook her head again. That time he really wasn't surprised. Even in Suna, their native language was dying out as fast as the plague killed people. There were a few restaurants and weapons-dealers that were trying to revive the language but Suna was dependant on merchants and the ability to speak common tongue, so their main language had become common.

"I can't speak it yet, but I know a few words!" Vvim boasted proudly. "hn'Jabin, kjx dotsa shtavu. Syr dotsa mA'j." she stumbled a bit on the pronunciation but he did understand what she was attempting to say. It literally translated as 'Wonderful thoughts filled, small. You are loved.' However, a better way to translate it was, 'Many sweet dreams, little one. I love you.'

Gaara did not admire the job of translators. His uncle used to say the same thing to Gaara at night when he tucked Gaara in for his three-hours of sleep. "Alright," Gaara told the girl. He reached out and set the kunai on the flat base of his desk lamp where she could see it and its sheath. The sheath had a belt loop, but he hadn't yet gotten a belt for it. He was thinking leather, but in that case she would just grow out of it and have to get a new one. Then he'd thought about a silk sash—she could just tie it off at her size…

"I can't read or write, but I can run!" Vvim said as she suddenly got nervous. Did she think being unable to read or write would stop him from giving her small tasks to fulfill? "I can give mail to the mail service, and I can get you candy from the candy store!"

He glanced at the child in confusion. "Why would I want candy?"

"Because your candy bowl is empty!" she said seriously, pointing to the glass jar his medicine was supposed to be kept in. Temari had gone to see if Kagome could make a quick dose of it so he could sleep that afternoon. All that was left was little powdery remains.

"Oh," Gaara said; of course the child would be thinking of candy… "That jar is not for candy."

"It should be," Vvim said seriously. "The bank has a candy jar, you know. And so does the post office. I go all the time with Mesa Theroux and they always give me a piece of candy."

He thought about that for a moment and found Shukaku was laughing at him for pondering the words of a child so seriously. "Alright," he said, "then I will give you money to buy a candy jar and candy. You will buy a jar only large enough for you to carry, and only enough candy to fill it." He took a few monetary notes from his wallet (he'd gotten used to carrying cash around since Kagome came to town) and handed them to the girl with his specific instructions. "Now, tell me what you're going to do?"

She looked at the money in her hands. It was probably the most she'd ever seen in person… "Um, I'm going to… er, I don't know? Can you say that again?"

"This note is thirteen, and this note is twelve. Use these two notes at a glass shop to purchase a candy jar. This note is worth five," he pointed to the five, "use it at the candy store."

"Okay." She stuffed the notes in the pocket of her orange vest and zipped the pocket shut. "Thirteen and twelve notes at candy store and five note at the glass shop." She repeated.

"No, the other way around," Gaara told her. "Thirteen and twelve notes at the glass shop and the five note at the candy store."

"Thirteen and twelve notes at the glass shop and the five note at the candy store." She said, her voice a near perfect mimicry of his own. For a second, he was startled into silence at his replicated voice. She was pretty good for a two-year-old. He recalled she'd done that at graduation too, mimicking Kankuro's voice.

He hoped she didn't get twenty five notes worth of candy…

She climbed off the chair and as the city clocks toned the thirteenth hour of the day (the time she was supposed to show up), she ran out of his office. He went to his window and looked down on the street below Kazekage tower. She zipped out of the front doors of the tower a moment later and raced toward three teenage girls between ten and thirteen. As Vvim exclaimed to them in her excitement, they all looked at each other and then toward the tower in confusion.

The teens noticed him standing in the window-wall. He crossed his arms over his chest and continued to watch them for a moment until they had picked up their Sand Stones game and disappeared into the crowded area of the street.

A few moments later, the Clan and Elder Councils shuffled into the room with Baki and Kankuro. He could see their reflections in the glass, and most of them were frowning. Baki and Kankuro looked haggled. "None of you are to be here now," Gaara told them. "I sleep at two today."

"Is it true?" one asked, completely ignoring his statement. A few years ago, he would have killed a man for less than interrupting. The elderman's belligerent tone of voice would have been the cause of a painful and extended moment of torture before Gaara killed him. Now, Gaara was in a position where he had to weigh the pros and cons of certain deaths.

Gaara did not turn to face them. "Is what true?" he asked softly, but they all heard him anyway.

"This debacle the city speaks of! What sort of utter humiliation have you brought upon us through your behavior with that child yesterday!"

"HUMILIATION!" Kankuro seethed. Baki had to place a hand on Kankuro's shoulder to keep the boy from reaching out to his puppet storage scrolls on his back. Kankuro silenced himself without needing to be told, but it was apparent he wanted to say much more.

Baki apologized, "I'm sorry, Gaara. I did tell them not to intrude…"

Gaara said nothing. Instead, he tilted his head to look down the street outside as a little flash of blond caught his eye. It wasn't Vvim. It was that blond girl, Ino, and her green-haired companion, Fuyumi. They were giggling about something as they wandered almost aimlessly down the street, stopping to look at the merchandise displayed by street vendors every so often.

Gaara peered closer at the green-haired girl. He'd avoided looking at her all night at Vvim's birthday party, hoping no one knew he was somewhat acquainted with her. She'd been the Konohagakurian girl who had—on a dare from her friends—walked up to him in a restaurant and kissed him, and then gave him a black eye for him puking afterwards. She didn't seem to remember it, but he certainly did. When he wouldn't eat his ramen the night before, Fuyumi had taken his bowl and switched it with her empty one. She never said anything about it. She just did it.

"Are the rumors true? Did you allow a child carry on with such a vile tongue? Did she truly go unpunished!"

Gaara should have known altering his life from the normal course of events would cause people to ask questions… How many people would he have to kill to get them to leave his office? Probably four… How many deaths would it take for them to believe the events of the day before were just a fluke? An ironic smile crossed his lips. Vvim probably couldn't count that high, he presumed.

His eyes narrowed further on Fuyumi and Ino. The girls were admiring something one of the vendors had, and the vendor was moving over toward them. He couldn't see what it was, but the smiles on the girls' faces told him they liked it—whatever it was.

Gaara's distant cousin Lily glared sternly at her fellow Eldermen and at the Clansmen. "What should it really matter to you whether or not Kazekage-sama," she emphasized his title, probably in hopes that her fellows might remember who they were addressing, "speaks to a child? And for that matter, why should you care how he speaks to a child? Or how he allows a child to speak to him?"

Shukaku was ignoring the presence of the others as much as Gaara was, surprisingly. The demon said, Those girls are very beautiful. The green-haired one is more powerful. Did she not say she was a Jounin yesterday?

"Hn," was his response. He'd been surprised that a fourteen year old girl made Jounin, but he wasn't sure why. He wasn't too much older than her and he was kage of his village. And the blond girl was a Chunin. That wasn't too bad, for a girl. Then again, he was biased based on his knowledge that Sunagakure kunoichi had a higher death rate when compared to their shinobi.

"This city does not need weakness! Our image is what keeps the people from rebellion!"

Gaara took mental note that the Clansmen were scoffing at the four male members of the Elder Council. Of course, Lily's views would probably always follow that of their Matriarch for the Felwin Clan, Lily's mother and current clan leader rather than the church that Lily followed and represented on the Elder Council. Gaara's distant relation, Lady Felwin, believed rebellion would happen if the people chose to make it happen. Whether or not those in power looked weak wouldn't make a difference.

"Image is everything! This city is hanging on by a bare thread, Kazekage-sama." Gaara didn't like the tone inflection given to his title. He didn't like the way the voice spoke with a 'we gave you this power, and we can take it away' sound to it.

"The kage cannot be seen as weak. Do you think it makes people look at you and praise you because you made a little girl happy? It doesn't!" He didn't like that tone either. It was cold and malicious; hurtful.

Fuyumi was purchasing something. It was probably overpriced. A lot of merchants over priced things. Ino was next purchasing something. He soon saw what they'd bought. Fine imported silk scarves. Fuyumi's was green and Ino's was blue, both choosing darker shades over lighter colors.

Cute… Shukaku said as the girls wrapped the scarves around their necks.

"You are the host of Shukaku!" They probably wanted to say 'you are a weapon'. "Act like it!"

Lady Felwin spoke up with amusement in her tone, "Gaara," she was his clan Matriarch, and by the order of things, higher in power than him because of that so she very rarely used his title unless it served her purposes (in fact, her usual name for him was 'brat' so actually using his name was almost a treat all on its own), "is barely sixteen. You forget that Noles."

Gaara liked Lady Felwin. She was generally nothing more than a crotchety old woman who simply wouldn't die, but he liked her nonetheless. She gave Gaara his house to live in after his mother, father, and uncle were all gone. She paid for his servants, and because of her he didn't have to grow up in the orphanage. She was still giving him weekly allowance. As the Matriarch of the Felwin Clan, she practically owned him, but she got annoyed when he referred to himself as a weapon as he'd so often been treated.

'You're a brat! Act like it!' she often snapped at him.

He often wondered how she lived to be in her mid-eighties. It was a little joke between Kankuro and Temari that the plague was afraid of Lady Felwin; secretly Gaara wondered if that might not be close to the truth. She should've died thirty years ago, but she hadn't even fallen sick once during those thirty years.

"He is kage! The kage is ageless!" Noles argued.

"The kage may be ageless," Lily said, "but a title usually is."

"Quit talking 'bout Gaara like he ain't here!" Kankuro growled.

There was Vvim again. Gaara glanced at his clock. Where was Temari? It was almost two PM. He should have had his medicine already so that it was working at two and he could sleep. He didn't trust Shukaku to keep her promise of a possession-free sleep.

Vvim bumped into Fuyumi and Ino, nearly dropping the two wrapped packages in her tiny arms. Fuyumi steadied the child even as she was laughing. Vvim's sisters seemed to be bowing in apology to Fuyumi. Vvim started talking to Fuyumi and Ino. Gaara looked at the two packages, but couldn't tell which one was the candy dish and which was the candy. Then Fuyumi and Ino were urging the little girl toward Kazekage tower with amused looks on their faces.

Gaara turned away from the window and the arguing stopped. He kept his features blank as he addressed them all. "What do you suggest I do to repair this 'image'?" he asked. He kept his voice soft and toneless.

Lily looked annoyed, and Lady Felwin looked displeased. Kankuro looked upset, which meant if Temari had been there she would have been furious. Baki looked agitated.

Noles straightened himself up as the rest of the room looked pleased by the response. "Stay away from the child and let her know that she will not be allowed the gift you promised her."

There was dead silence. Gaara looked around the room. "And I suppose you all agree this is the most practical action to take?"

"NO!" Kankuro yelled, but most of the people simply said 'yes'. "Gaara, that's," Kankuro began, but Gaara glared at him and he slouched in censured silence.

There was a knock on the door before Gaara's assistant poked her head in again and said, "That little child is returned, Kazekage-sama." She still looked uncertain about allowing the child in. She probably thought Vvim raced off before out of fear, not out of joy. "Shall I send her in?"

Gaara nodded as shocked tension snapped at the spines of many. Vvim entered the room with the packages in hand, but stopped uncertainly in the doorway as she saw all the other people present. She held the packages stiffly and protectively, as if worried those well-dressed people might try to take them from her.

Gaara's assistant gave her a gentle nudge. "It's alright," she said quietly, "Kazekage-sama said it was okay. Go on in."

Vvim moved forward a few steps to allow the door to close behind her, but she looked nervous and scared as everyone turned to look at her. Gaara moved away from the window and around his desk. "Come, Vvim," he told her. "You have something for me, do you not?"

She nodded, but instead of heading toward him she backed up until her back ran into wall. She was afraid of the others, but not of him? It was kind of ironic.

"Come here, Vvim," he repeated. Her wide blue eyes went from person to person before she looked at him and bit her lip. Then she squared her shoulders and walked forward. Geis, an Elderman, was in her way so she glared up at the man with her teeth bared.

"Get outta my way, old fart!" she told him in a loud voice. Internally Gaara laughed. Obviously she wasn't afraid enough to let her fears override her sense of stupidity.

Noles glared down at the child, but Gaara said, "I gave her an order, Noles. You are impeding her performance. Move." He had never seen Noles look so furious, but the old man moved. A few others also moved, though they weren't directly in the way. Vvim stepped up to Gaara and smiled brightly, "I got a good one! And the old man said I was the cutest thing his shop ever saw without breaking anything so he gave me something extra! Can I put it on the desk?"

"Yes," Gaara told her, sending a glare around for silence when a few people moved to raise questions. He then watched as she moved around the desk to the chair. She put her packages on the chair and the climbed on it, then lifted the packages to the desk and climbed up onto that, sitting in the vast (thankfully clean) center of the desk as she ripped open the packaging of one of them.

She pulled out a frog-shaped glass jar. The body of the frog was hollowed out, and the glass was colored green. She took a green glass cover from the package and set it on the desk next to her. Her next task was dumping the candy in the jar. She did so as carefully as she could, opening the small cloth sack and tilting it up, letting the small hard candy beads fall tinkling into the jar. She then reached into the first package and took out a small, cute wooden tongs painted with images of flies on both forks of the tongs, while the painted frogs on the handle reached out long red tongues to grab the black morsels. Vvim set that right next to the jar with a smile.

"That's what the old man gave me extra, 'cause I'm so cute! So now you got a Gama-chan just like Nana, only his is his purse. I like his purse better than yours." She looked brightly up at him and he found himself unable to contain a smile of his own. She was contagious… maybe the council was right: he should get rid of her. Except it was too late. "Yours is boring! I can get you a better one if you want. I'm good at getting stuff. Mesa Theroux said so herself. She always lets me get stuff when she's cooking."

He looked at the ridiculous looking candy jar. Sure, it was cute, but it simply looked silly to have such a bizarre piece in the middle of the humorless office.

"What the hell is that supposed to be?" he heard someone say quietly to their neighbor.

Gaara looked at the new addition to his desk and then at the child sitting atop it. "Now, let me ask you a question." Her eyes darted from his face to the beautiful kunai forged of chakra and sand and back to his face again. He could tell the little girl really wanted it.

"What kind of question?"

"If someone tried to take this away, what would you do?"

"Bite them." She said instantly. "It's MY special birthday present!" Vvim gnashed her teeth together.

Gaara smirked and turned to look at his council. "As it is my duty to the city to keep the peace… and to see to your safety… I believe you understand the difficulties of my decision, Council. Convene tomorrow at 0700 hours, and do not be late." He glanced at the girl. "Vvim, you have done well for me. Take a piece of candy and go home. I will not need you further tonight, but you have much work ahead of you before you will earn your present."

The majority of the council looked irate. In swishes of silk robes, they departed, leaving behind Lady Felwin, Lily, Baki, and Kankuro. Vvim excitedly grabbed a yellow bead of hard candy using her fingers instead of the tongs. She probably didn't know what the tongs were for, just that they were given extra. She climbed down off the desk and raced around to hug Gaara's leg.

It took a brief second to recall she wasn't trying to hurt him. Holding his leg briefly seemed to be more of a sign of happiness, so instead of kicking her away he endured the unbelievable torture. There must have been a tolerating expression on his face because even the stiff Baki smiled.

"When can I do more work?" Vvim asked.

Gaara thought for a moment before looking down at her. He automatically converted military time to standard time for her, recalling she had not known when that was the day before. "You may arrive at ten AM."

"Okay! Bye bye, Kazekage-sama!" she chirped before skipping out of the room happily.

When she was gone, Lady Felwin said, "It pleases me to see you so happy, Gaara."

He bowed to his elder, but instantly the smile was wiped off is face. "Thank you, Lady," he told her.

"Mother," Lily said, "this has made us many enemies today. You saw their faces; the Clans and the other Elders will fight against this."

Lady Felwin chuckled. "Let them, dear."

Lily sighed, "Mother, this is no joking matter. As much as I disagree with them, Gaara-san just embarrassed them. You know they're going to retaliate!"

Gaara wearily rubbed his eyes. It was after two. He was so tired. "Where is Temari?" Gaara asked as exhaustion weighed him down. He slipped into his desk chair. A moment ago, he'd had plenty of energy. Now, exhaustion slammed into him like a boulder careening off a cliff. It was crushing, suffocating him. "I need… need my…" What did he need? He'd already forgotten.

"Have you had your medicine, Gaara?" Kankuro asked nervously.

"Mm," was all he could manage to say. His eyelids fluttered briefly. He didn't register the presence of the others, but he felt the sharp claws of the ghostly Shukaku as she landed on his lap. His vision was too blurry to get a good view of her, but he knew she was in her raccoon form, and her ghost-like form was visible only to him.

Her cold, ghost nose pressed against his cheek. Sleep, cub. For as long as you like. He wanted to ask where his big sister was, but his tired mind couldn't quite recall what her name was and the words never left his throat a second time.

His mind and body was exhausted, but they wouldn't shut down completely. He was too afraid of the consequences of sleeping without his medicine. Even if Shukaku didn't ravage the village, she'd probably go hunting in the desert, and she never cared what she ate or that it was his body she was using.

She never cared that he was horrified to wake up from that slumber covered in blood and with the taste of bloody animal meat still in his mouth. He used to like meat, but enough times waking up like that certainly made him adverse to eating it, enough that even just the taste of meat would cause him to vomit.

Sleep, cub, she said again, curling up in his lap. But he couldn't… sleep was a dream away, but he couldn't grasp it… he was afraid of himself and what he might do while he slept. Would you like me to tell you a story?

Would it put him to sleep?

It was more than three hundred years ago, when I was first enslaved by humans. I was young and foolish, and my first and only Summoner was naïve enough to follow me. Had it been just me on that ship… but he followed me, and I couldn't do anything without harming him in the process. It was my fault… I loved him too much…

xXx

"Where am I?" Gaara asked himself, surprised to find himself on a ship in the middle of an endless span of water. He looked around him. People were bustling about with ropes and nets and all manner of equipment. A very important looking figure with a black beard watched the sea, squinting at something Gaara couldn't distinguish in the distance.

Gaara looked around more. He really was on a big wooden ship in the middle of an ocean. He never knew he was so imaginative; he had to be dreaming, because he was in the middle of the desert last he checked.

He saw a red-head who looked much like him walk rather suspiciously toward a door. Gaara followed and when the red-head, Na'unta his mind provided helpfully, went through the door, so did Gaara. They followed a stairway down into a smelly lockup, but Na'unta didn't stop at the first three cells. He continued to the last one on the left and reached his arm in as far as he could.

"It's all I could get," Na'unta said, speaking in Suni.

"You did not eat this, did you, Na'unta?" a small voice from inside the cell asked. She also spoke Suni.

"I gotta eat too, you know…"

"Na'unta… this is bad meat… It has disease in it."

"Oh… I thought it tasted funny…"

"My people can—"

The small feminine voice was cut off as the sound of footsteps approached with the feeble light provided by an old oil lantern. Black beard approached. As Na'unta's expression was illuminated, Gaara saw the boy—who couldn't be much older than Gaara—looked terrified.

Black beard scowled at Na'unta and then backhanded the boy. He screamed, "If you wanna be a slave so bad, I'll sell ya at harbor, boy!" Na'unta shook his head vigorously. "Don't wanna be a slave?"

"No, sir, please no." he begged.

"Then toughen up, boy! 'Cause next time I see ya down here, ya gonna regret it! Now get up top and swab the deck!"

Na'unta dashed off but barely a second later, he was back again and black beard was not present. Na'unta was perspiring and clutching his stomach. "I, I brought you something," Na'unta said, reaching into the cell. He stuffed bread through the bars of a cage inside the cell where an obviously starved raccoon lay.

"Thank you, Na'unta…" the raccoon said and then looked thoughtfully at the boy. "If you can get me out of this cage, I can take you to my people. They can help you, Na'unta."

"It's just a day or two till landing." Na'unta said, ignoring the offer for help. "Will you give this to my sister if you ever happen to run into her?" he yanked the necklace from around his neck and dropped it in the cage. It wasn't much to look at. It was just a strip of leather with an innocent little charm on it that looked like a four-leaf clover encased in a hardened sap of some kind.

"Na'unta, where are you going?" the caged animal growled out as the young boy hobbled away from the cell. He didn't make it far before he collapsed and cried out, holding his gut. "Na'unta!" the caged animal shrieked. "NA'UNTA!"

"Q-quiet, Shukaku…" the boy said. She kept screaming his name though, so he struggled to crawl back to the cell and leaned on the bars. Finally she settled down a bit.

"Na'unta, my people can help you! Disease can go away!"

The boy laughed and then it turned into a cough. "I haven't seen my sister since they sold her. I remember she was always so perfect. I always thought I'd marry her when we grew up." Shukaku had fallen silent. Gaara saw the raccoon was crying.

"You never told me her name, Na'unta… Who should I look for?"

"h'Nei… When they sold her, she was bought by the Uki'ha. They wanted her beautiful eyes. She was born with beautiful red eyes, and they had pinwheel pupils. When the shaman did magic, she would watch and then she would be able to do it too." He shuddered and groaned. "Ooh, Shukaku… it hurts…"

"My people can heal you! Just get me out of this cage, Na'unta!"

"No, Shukaku… I can't go back to the pens and that's… that's it for me. I'm just a nobody. Remember how we met?"
"Yes, cub," she told him. "You were very angry because the slave traders were going to cull the child with violet eyes. It was the only time you ever accessed the ­­­­­Ýæn rœx… I thought to myself you were the one… I thought with all your power, we could go anywhere. I was so happy to have a powerful human like you that I felt slighted when I realized you couldn't use the ­­­­­Ýæn rœx at will."

"I've gotten better in the year since we met." He protested with a weak laugh.

"Well, if you call what you do better…" Shukaku said, sounding both amused and worried at and for the boy.

"Will you promise to find my sister?"

"I would destroy the world if you asked it," Shukaku whined. Na'unta laughed, but it turned into a hacking cough. At the end of the corridor light flowed in as the door was opened. Footsteps clattered down the steps.

Black beard came again and looked down at the sick boy. "Twice in as many days… Makes ya wonder if mightn't he know the demon?" Black beard kicked the boy out of the way of the cell door and opened it up. "Grab the brat," he said to one of the two scruffy figures who had followed him down. Black beard grabbed the cage the raccoon was encased in. Strangely marked strips of paper were plastered all over it, Gaara noticed. Shukaku growled and snapped her jaws at black beard.

Black beard lifted the raccoon to his line of vision and shook the cage violently as though to punish the demon. The necklace fell out, surprising black beard. He picked it up and grinned a black toothed grin.

"NO!" Na'unta cried as he was grabbed roughly by the hair and dragged away. "Shukaku, don't let him have it! Shukaku! It's my sister's! She gave it to me and promised she'd come back to the slave pens for me! She has to get it back! It's hers, Shukaku, please don't let him have it!"

Shukaku fought against the bars but the strange seals worked well against her. Black beard said, "Ha ha! Wonderful! We have the demon's name! And now the demon will watch the boy die!"

Gaara had a feeling that whether or not he got Shukaku's name, black beard would've killed Na'unta in front of Shukaku. Why else would he enter the cell and pick up the cage? He didn't know Na'unta gave Shukaku anything, and it had been too dark to see. It was pure circumstance that the necklace fell out. Circumstance and the rattling of the cage.

And then they were on the deck of the ship. Na'unta was tied to the mast looking fearful. Shukaku was struggling violently to get out of the cage being held by one of the sailors. Black beard was wearing the boy's lucky charm. Black beard took out a grungy looking knife. "Any last words boy?"

Na'unta struggled against the bonds in vain. Black beard took that as a 'no' and grabbed the boy by the hair. Fear radiated out of the boy and seconds later the knife bit deep into Na'unta's throat, pouring out his life fluids.

"BEHOLD!" Black beard shouted to the watching crew, "Tonight we feast!" The boy was still choking on his own blood as black beard called out. The people around cheered, but Shukaku howled in rage. Still, she could not get free of the cage.

The next thing Gaara saw was the cage inside the cell. It was fairly dark, but Gaara could see Na'unta's head was staring with fearful glassy eyes and blood all over his face. The head was not attached to a body. It was plopped down next to Shukaku's cage, and she was crying and unable to look at the head.

A few seconds later, light shone in the cage. Gaara looked up at the same time Shukaku did. A tall, ethereal creature was unlocking the cell. He carried a lantern in one hand, and it lit his features up with a glow. His face was pale in contrast to his orange-red hair that hung in disarray. Glinting crimson eyes showed both danger and mischief in them. He didn't have human ears; instead he had fox ears, covered in orange-red hairs. His fingers were each tipped with dangerous claws and his scowl showed a mouth full of sharp meat eating teeth.

He stepped into the cell, looking odd in comparison to everyone else Gaara had so far seen. Everyone else was filthy, but this creature was clean. He wore loose pants that were firm around his ankles and bloody orange in color. A wide black sash hid the waistline of the pants and the hem of the white haori. On his back was a cloak made of several orange-red fur pelts that hung down to his ankles. Distinctive dark red lines wrapped around his eyes and six lines of the same crimson color marked his cheeks like whiskers. His lips were bloody orange colored.

He wasted no effort on pleasantries. Instead he simply removed the seals on the cage and opened it up, then turned to leave.

Shukaku raged as she crawled out of the cage. "KYUUBI!" she screamed. She attacked him but he caught her by the scruff of the neck and scowled again. "The only way you can be here is if your Summoner is here!"

"How observant of you." He drawled with lack of concern toward her. "You have my condolences for your loss. Take what remains of your human and go before my already tried patience runs out."

"HOW COULD YOU? YOU LET HIM KILL NA'UNTA!" She scrabbled to get him, to get any piece of him she could. He wasn't allowing it.

"No, you let him kill your human!" Kyuubi hissed. "Do not pin your personal failure on me! You said you were ready for a human and the responsibilities it brings. You were wrong and your human died for it. I am being merciful and setting you free. Take my mercy and your human and go, before I change my mind."

"So who is it?" Shukaku hissed as he dropped her. She scrabbled over to Na'unta's head and wrapped her paws around it. "Which one is yours?"

"The one who killed yours is mine." He said emotionlessly.

"Oh, you mean the one who sells our kind into slavery? And you help him?" She scoffed but he turned away. "Yeah, that must make you feel real good about yourself. Does the King know what you do? I bet you he wouldn't like it too much if he found out."

There was no warning for it. Shukaku couldn't react fast enough to get away. Kyuubi slammed Shukaku back into the cage and reapplied the seals. He left without another word. Shukaku struggled again in her cage. "Na'unta was a good boy! HE DIDN'T DESERVE TO DIE! Damn you, Kyuubi!" She was crying again. He was gone. Na'unta's unseeing eyes stared dully at the caged raccoon.

It was awful to watch her cry. Gaara wanted to reach out and free her, to wrap his arms around her and comfort her, but when he did his hands never touched her. It was like he couldn't get close enough. He wanted to wake up from this dream. When he awoke, he was going to tell Shukaku 'no more bedtime stories'.

xXx

"Ooh, look at this one!" Min Maito gasped.

Rin couldn't if she wanted to. Her arms were piled so full of garments she couldn't see anything but a vast array of color. If it weren't for the fact that dropping them all would seem rude, Rin might have done just that.

"This is lovely! And the fabric, so soft!" More weight was added onto Rin's pile. She nearly buckled under the strain of the ton of clothes. "Rin-chan, why don't you go try those on?"

Rin grunted as she shifted the clothes in her arms and then said, "Now?"

"M-hm. The dressing rooms are at the back of the store, dear. Leave the ones that don't fit you on the rack outside the dressing room. Con, stay with me. Don't jostle the cart like that or you might wake your brother." Min didn't seem to notice that Arthura was awake and squawking like a bird.

Oh, Rin thought, dressing rooms. She felt silly for even thinking she might end up changing in the middle of the store. She shifted the load again and practically had to walk sideways just so she could see where she was going.

She couldn't wait until the torture of 'shopping' was over. Sure, it was very nice of Min to "spare no expense" on her (Min had wanted a daughter but said after Arthura, she would not go through pregnancy again) but Rin only needed an outfit or two. She had to have at least thirty in her hands already and Min was still looking through the racks. Worse still, they were only on the second rack in the store.

Rin looked at the sign above the archway leading to the dressing rooms to assure herself she was headed in the right direction, and then sidled sideways toward the archway.

"Miss, I'm sorry, but you can only have up to six items in the dressing room at once, and I think you're over the limit," someone—female, by the sounds of it though Rin couldn't see them over the pile—said.

Rin grunted in slight irritation as she turned around and around so she could locate the speaker. It was indeed a girl. She stood behind a counter and wore a nametag. "Mari," her nametag read.

"You know," Rin said (and unfortunately her irritation did pull through in her tone), "I'd love not to try these on, but I just got out of prison and I have no clothes of my own that fit. What do you suggest?" Rin added, "Because wearing my host's clothes isn't going to work. I have a string 'round my waist keeping this skirt up, and I don't have any underwear that fit me and even if my host's underwear fit, I wouldn't wear it."

The girl shifted uncomfortably when Rin mentioned being in jail. Then she said, "If you want… you can leave some of the clothes with me? But it's company policy…"

"Thank you. I would appreciate that." Rin dumped the clothes next to the counter and grabbed the top six items. Mari winced as Rin stood up and smiled at her. "Oh come off it," Rin told her cheerfully. "It's not like I was in there for murder."

"What were you in for?" Mari asked and then clapped her hands over her mouth abruptly. "I'm sorry, that was really rude of me…"

"It's not rude… I would have asked." Rin looked at the six slightly crumpled items and then bargained, "I'll tell you why if you do something for me." Perhaps she had hung around the demons in prison too long. Their "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" disposition had rubbed off on her. She was too used to giving only upon promise of return. But unlike her fellow demons, she wouldn't retaliate if the return never happened. She did still make deals though.

"What is it?" she looked nervous and hesitant to agree.

"I just need help knowing what looks good on me. And I need an honest opinion. I want to look good when I see my brother, but I'm not really a discriminate judge of myself."

Mari blinked several times before nodding. "I guess I can do that. No catches though, right? And you won't be mad at me if I say something you don't like? You're not one of those psychos are you?"

Rin shook her head. "No, I'm completely sane, though I have to say I fear for the warden's sanity after dealing with me." Rin grinned to show she was joking; Mari laughed nervously. "Besides, why would I get angry? I'm asking you what you think, not what will make me preen in my own sense of self-importance. So how do I go about using a dressing room?"

"Well, you come to me and get a numbered card that hangs on the handle of the door. That lets people know the dressing room is in use and it tells me how many items you took into the room." She handed over a red card labeled '6'. "And when you have the clothes on, you can step out here and I can let you know how you look. Is that okay?"

"That works," Rin said. She headed to the dressing room and tried on the first pair of pants Min had picked out. Instantly she knew she didn't like them. They were tight, scooped low on her hips, and not to mention blue. She practically had to peel the jeans off. What ever happened to orange clothes? Did Kakashi have to buy her kimono special? Rin hadn't seen a speck of orange since she left her brother's hooded sweatshirt in the shopping cart to hide Min's purse.

Rin slipped back into the purple skirt of Min's and tied the string back on to hold the fabric up. She took the six pairs of pants out to Mari. "That was quick," Mari said.

"I do not like these. Where shall I put them?"

Mari took them from Rin and hung them on a rack. Rin dug in her pile and took out all the pants, then handed those to Mari and got six more items to try on. She took those in the dressing room; this time skirts. She tried them on one at a time and headed out to show Mari. Each time, Mari gave a nice and guarded opinion of the skirt.

Rin kept up that pattern, eliminating things that simply didn't fit. Mari wasn't really much help in the end because Rin had unnerved her. Rin made a mental note not to mention that she'd been in jail in the future. It seemed to cause people distress.

Just when Rin thought she was on her last bit of the pile, she came out and found Mari holding a stack of new articles. Min probably brought it over, but Rin just knew within the depths of her soul that they were for her to try on. Mari laughed nervously as Rin's irritation peaked and her eyebrow twitched. "Ha-ha," Mari said, "you know, you're the first girl I've ever known who didn't like clothes shopping… But that skirt looks good on you…"

"Every skirt has so far looked good on me!" Rin said. "No one has the ability to make everything they wear look good! You're just saying that because you think I'm dangerous." She grabbed the pile and dropped it on the floor by the counter in a complete lack of concern for the articles of clothing. "I'm not dangerous. I just never cried as a baby so my foster parents claimed I had to be a demon and they locked me up for fifteen years." Well, that was what Rin had been told anyway. For all she knew, the reason could have been totally different.

"Oh… I'm sorry," Mari apologized. She looked embarrassed.

"Now why are you sorry?" Rin asked in exasperation. "It isn't like it was your fault."

"But I was… I don't know…" Mari sighed. "I'm still sorry." She took a deep breath before plunging forward, "But you really do look good. Not that I'm a fashion expert or anything, but from what I've seen, it's like color was made with you in mind."

Rin groaned and grabbed six more items. What a bad first afternoon out of prison… As she tried on the first item, she grimaced. She'd gone from skirts down to her ankles to skirts barely reaching her thighs. Min was crazy if she thought Rin would wear something like that.

A knock at the dressing room door caused her to pause in her contemplation of the tiny strip of cloth in her hands. She hastily slipped into the tiny thing—it was better to put it on than to stand there in a pair of 8-year-old pajama shorts that fit like underwear on her 16-year-old body.

She opened the door. Mari stood there with something orange held to her bosom. Rin's brow creased in confusion. "Yes?"

"I brought something for you to try on." Mari said. She held out the dress for Rin to see. It was the best thing Rin had seen all day, and it was orange. It had a triple strip of violet swirling down the dress from the right shoulder across the breast, around the back and down to the front hem.

"Wow…" It was all Rin could think of to say.

Mari smiled hesitantly. "I've only been here a month but this dress was supposed to be the new fashion statement. Not one has sold, but it's not for lack of women admiring it… It's just that so far no one has been able to make the colors work for them. I mean, violet and bright orange can be a near lethal combination when you're under the scrutiny of the public… It's too daring of an arrangement, most say."

Rin reached out and accepted the dress to try on. "I think orange and purple make a great assortment. Thank you… I'll try it on."

Mari nodded and turned to leave, but not before saying, "I wouldn't recommend short skirts like that. They scream invitations to rapists, and since you're female, your body already screams that enough. No need to send out more signals. You know?"

Rin nodded. Good thing she didn't like the skirt length or else she might have been disappointed. She closed the door on the dressing room quickly and changed into the dress. It was the fanciest thing she'd ever worn, though since she grew up in a prison she supposed that fact wasn't as surprising as it could be.

The hem nearly reached the floor and it was just a little too big, but as she looked at herself in the mirror she was astounded at the sight looking back at her. She could barely recognize herself. Her hair was a bit mussed from trying on clothes, but she didn't see a single hint of her mother in herself. Her black hair and brown eyes could have belonged to anyone else.

For years, she had hated how she had grown to look so much like her mother. She had begged the Four Goddesses to change her appearance and make her a blond haired, blue eyed girl. Hating her own appearance was one reason why she could never look at herself and say she looked good because she felt she always looked bad.

But she couldn't deny that the dress was beautiful and that it looked beautiful on her. Maybe the dress made her beautiful?

She struggled to tie the back closed but eventually just gave up and held it firm as she walked out toward the counter where Mari worked. Min had just arrived with a completely new stack of clothes for Rin to try on, but upon seeing Rin the older woman's jaw dropped.

"My dear, you look fantastic, simply breathtaking! My gracious, I would never have thought to put orange and purple together!" Min exclaimed. Mari looked and she too looked stunned.

"Um, it's a little big," Rin objected, embarrassed to be trying on something Min hadn't previously handled.

"That's alright," Mari said, "I could take the dress in. I worked at the seamstress back home for a while, so it wouldn't be too hard. You'll be too tall for our smaller sizes, unfortunately."

"Oh, wonderful, dear, would you? Rin-chan simply must have it!"

Rin winced slightly at Min's enthusiasm. "Min, the price of the dress," she began, but Min would hear nothing of it.

"A-bup-bup-bup-bup! None of that! You will have a new wardrobe with clothing for every occasion, and no exclusions! Now go take off the dress and try on some more clothes. I have blouses in this new stack of clothes." Min left with the cart and her two sons to scour the rest of the store for potential wardrobe items.

Mari giggled far more easily than she had in the past few hours since Rin began the whole debacle. "She does seem like a nice lady. You could do a lot worse, you know. I'm living with my cousin right now and he barely gives me enough room to breathe. He means well, but I had to scream at him to let me leave the compound and get a job. I'm not one to be cooped up."

"To leave the compound? Where do you live?" Rin asked.

"Inuzuka District," Mari said. "I moved in with my cousins because my family was beginning to stifle me with worried concern. As it turns out, I moved from one oppressive household to another. If you stop by the district sometime this week, I can do a fitting for you… that is, if you don't mind dogs. Kiba barely allows me to have this job on weekends; I think at this point I'm pushing my luck if I try to head off somewhere and he doesn't know."

"Why can't you go anywhere?"

"Like I said, he's just worried for me. He'll cool off after a while when he sees that I'm safe."

Rin could sympathize with Mari's feelings at being stuck. She spent so many hours just locked up in her cell that when the time came for being outside in the yard, she was almost always the first one out, and the last one back in. She took a few more clothes to change into and got out of the dress.

Each time she came out to get Mari's opinion, the girl became more and more critical of the clothes, but more and more complimenting of Rin. She would say Rin looked excellent in the color but the cut of the blouse was off, or that Rin looked extraordinary in the blouse but the problem was that the blouse would need this color skirt or that type of pants in order to pull it off.

Rin decided fashion simply wasn't her thing, and she told Mari as much. "Give me a dirty old apron, some seeds, and a patch of dirt and I'll give you a garden more pleasing than all your neighbors gardens combined. Give me a closet of clothes, and I'll never get dressed because I won't know what shirt or blouse goes with what skirt or pair of pants, and that's not even mentioning how important you said the 'cut' of the fabric is, or the type of fabric, or how stripes and flowers just don't match. I'll wear stripes with flowers, because it won't matter once they're dirt stained anyway!"

Mari giggled as Rin stormed into the dressing room with more clothes. Thankfully Rin didn't see Min on her way with more clothes or she might have blown a fuse in her brain in her struggle to remain polite.


Don't ever try to outsmart a story. It never works! Dark Inu Fan (guess you'll have to wait to find out), Rebel Reader Bitch (ok!), supersillee06 (yeah, and the chapter was a bitch to write because of all that information too), DarknesstoLight (FREDDY KRUEGER! AHHHH!), zoey tamagachi, Ichihime (Er, yes. Originally his birthday was to be the 10th in my story too, but then I forgot, so let's pretend it was purposeful. Besides, it works better for my story if the birthday and the attack are separate, so...), Natsumi Tsuchi-Ookami (This story is NaruHina, or it will be if I ever get around to it...), DarkRavie, and of course, to everyone else who reviewed chapter50 after I posted chapter 51.

ANSWER: DarknesstoLight did a cute little rendition of the Freddy Krueger taunting song to make you review. Go read it and inspire yourself to review! Sorry for so much information overload in the past couple chapters but it had to happen. Please don't expect long chapters all the time.

Paul is making me nervous, Paul is making me scared, into this room he swaggers like he's God's own messenger... (he has a review for me... do I want to know what it says?)