Naruto stared at the black markings covering the black-haired boy's shoulder, and back, and face. The curse seal had been acting up constantly as Sasuke laid there in his bed unconscious. Two rooms over, Kakashi was just waking up, but Naruto didn't have the heart to go over there and say that he'd gotten Sasuke back at the cost of Sakura. Kakashi could have a few minutes rest before finding out that yet another teammate had disappeared mysteriously.

The blonde-haired boy sighed, turning to gaze out the window. Somehow Sakura'd become a carrier of a demon as well. In addition to that, she undoubtedly knew about his connection with the Kyuubi. He smiled. Even knowing what she did, she had smiled at him and fought alongside with him, their demons reveling in joining together in a test of each others' strength.

"Sakura. . . ."

The smile dropped from Naruto's lips as Sasuke called out for their absent teammate once more. In the past, she would have gone to any lengths to hear him call her name as he was now. However, when he finally did it, she was nowhere to be found. The blond sighed, cursing in his mind. He never before thought that he'd want to see Sakura fawning over her crush (unless that crush was him) but right now. . . .

"Yo."

Naruto turned, surprised at his teacher's silent entrance, then resumed his brooding. "Hey Kakashi-sensei," he muttered as Sasuke let out another moan of pain, the curse seal expanding rapidly to engulf the currently white-haired genin's body.

Kakashi said nothing, simply examining his student's body, occasionally referring back to one of the charts showing what jutsus the Godaime was planning on trying once a bit more research had been done. He turned and stared at Naruto then returned his gaze to Sasuke. His eyes were blank.

"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto started finally, unwilling to allow the silence to continue any longer, "Sakura's gone."

"I know."

Naruto's eyes widened slightly, but he nodded quickly, averting his gaze. Kakashi's eyes were scaring him. "She's a demon now too. How could they take her so easily? She seemed to really know what she was doing. . . . Was it because she was too tired after the fight with Sasuke?"

Kakshi sighed, placing his hand on Sasuke's shoulder gently, watching for a reaction. None came. "How did she bring him back?"

Blinking, Naruto shrugged. "He saw how much stronger she was and realized that there was a good chance that going back with us might be of more use to him." He hesitated, not wanting to defile his beloved Sakura's name, but feeling the need to tell the rest of what had happened. "She. . . . He stopped fighting, and she bit him and she started drinking his blood. . . . The medics came before he could die, but she was really shaken up. It was like she was experiencing what I usually do when the Kyuubi's trying to take over only a lot more."

Kakashi nodded, standing. "Don't tell Sasuke what happened to her. There's a good chance that he'll return to Orochimaru, and that man is simply trying to take over a body with the Sharingan. I don't want to lose another one of my students."

Just before the grey-haired teacher could reach the door, Naruto shook his head, muttering, "You're just going to give up on her like that?"

Although the comment wasn't meant to be heard – he was sure of that – Kakashi cast a grave look at his impulsive student. "She's with Akatsuki now. I'm barely up to par with one alone, but against nine of them, there's nothing we could do. We would need someone with not only the power to defeat them, but the desire to. If someone like that existed, Akatsuki would already be long gone." He shut the door, stumbling out through the haze of worry and self-loathing he'd tried so hard to hide from Naruto.

Said boy was once more staring at Sasuke's curse seal, a contemplative look on his face. Sasuke would have been the better choice for the mission he was thinking of, but it was probably best that the genin wasn't healed enough to regain consciousness. It wouldn't be any good to have to bring Sasuke back from that snake again. Closing his eyes, Naruto stood and followed Kakashi's path out of the room and continued out back towards Konoha's gates. If he took any time to stop and think about this he'd chicken out.

The guards at the gates didn't even glance at him when he passed. Suddenly, only a few hundred yards from the walls surrounding Konoha, he paused, sensing someone following him. Maybe they did notice him. The appearance of Hinata at his side, blushing furiously and poking her fingers together in nervousness quickly shot that theory to pieces. Naruto tilted his head, scowling. If Hinata was here then her father probably was too, and that meant he wouldn't be able to go save Sakura. Still, it wouldn't hurt to play innocent. "Ne, Hinata! You'll never guess what happened! I've got a new mission and it's top secret, but I guess"

"I – I want to go with you, N-Naruto-kun. T-to save Sakura."

His mouth dropped open, surprised not only that she had cut him off, but with what she was saying. It only continued falling further ajar with every word she uttered.

"I'm – I'm the one who knocked the guards unconscious. They won't know wh-what happened to e-either of us until at least t-tomorrow." The Hyuuga family's heir kicked at the ground, embarrassed as Naruto gaped, somewhat resembling a carp.

"You? Hinata? You – you knocked the guards unconscious?!" exclaimed Naruto. Without waiting for a reply, he rushed forward, enveloping the girl in a tight hug. "Of course you can come! It'll be dangerous though," he added, a somber tone in his voice.

Hinata nodded, walking a few inches behind him, letting him have the lead. "Wh-what's your plan?"

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"Kakashi!"

The jounin snored in response, drool pooling around his mouth. Iruka's lip curled at the reek of alcohol emitting from the man, but the brown-haired man managed to force his arms around Kakashi. In a strange sort of half hug that looked more like Iruka was trying to push the jounin away from him than carry the man, Iruka managed to bring Kakashi back to his house from the stand he'd been passed out at.

Rolling his eyes, Iruka stepped over a picture of Sasuke smashed on the ground. In that photo, Itachi happened to be barely visible in the background. Apparently, that was too visible. Iruka immediately repealed his harsh judgment of the man. Even though Kakashi seemed careless and far too lazy, he had to care deeply about his team to be beating himself up this much over something that wasn't his fault.

Of course, Iruka knew the story behind the Haruno girl's disappearance. Everyone did, it seemed. Kakashi had sent her on some sort of assassination mission. When she returned, they left together in the dead of night to retrieve Sasuke. Akatsuki ambushed them while they were gone, and they took Kakashi hostage. Sakura continued, managing to bring back Sasuke, but was also captured. The jounin was returned as a sort of a trade for Sakura's body – probably because it was difficult to carry around a hostage and a bit pointless if you didn't need them. No one blamed Kakashi except Kakashi.

Iruka sighed, picking up the broken glass and setting to work at cleaning the house. There were probably errors in the story as he'd heard it. At the very least, there were gaping holes. What had Sakura been doing, taking an assassination mission by herself? Why did Akatsuki let her retrieve Sasuke? How did she even get Sasuke back? The punishment Kakashi was inflicting upon himself was most likely tied into the answers to these questions.

Today the news of Hyuuga Hinata's disappearance had spread through Konoha in just a few short hours. When asked why he hadn't noticed earlier, Hiashi replied that she'd been disappearing for days at a time to train recently, saying only that Naruto was an inspiration to her. Upon further questioning, the Godaime discovered that the gate-keepers had at one point blacked out. No note had been made because they had been playing cards and drinking at the time, and didn't want to tell anyone that. However, with that part of the story revealed, it seemed more and more likely that Hinata was the cause of the black-out. Obviously, she had been trying to cover for someone. If she could sneak up behind the guards, she could easily take care of herself.

That was where Naruto came in, and the burden of informing Kakashi of the boy's disappearance was why Iruka was sitting in the jounin's kitchen now staring at a cup coated in with what looked to be blood. Some sort of jutsu was on it, keeping it fresh, although in some places the jutsu had worn off. What was Kakashi doing in here?

"Is he still asleep?"

Iruka jumped at the sound of Sasuke's voice. Trying to give the boy an easy grin, he leaned back with a soft sigh. There weren't any ANBU members around. Something was wrong. "Yes."

Sasuke snorted, sitting at the kitchen counter, head resting on crossed arms. He was smirking slightly. Every once and a while he'd cringe and touch his neck gingerly. Tsunade's final decision had been to simply cut off the area of skin with the curse seal then create another seal on the area around the wound. It was an imperfect method of removing the seal, but for the time being it seemed to be working. When asked to do so, Sasuke was no longer able to summon up the monstrous power of before. That alone was the only reason Iruka was able to sit with what little ease he did. Had Sasuke still been fully fanged, the chuunin would have been gone the instant the genin appeared.

The silence stretched on just long enough to make Iruke nervous. He didn't want to give the younger boy the satisfaction of seeing how uneasy he was though, so he kept quiet and waited for the tell-tale hitch in Kakashi's breathing that meant he was waking up. Only a few days ago he'd spent the night here for a different reason. He'd stayed ever since. The glass of blood and the picture were new though. So was the drinking. In just a few hours, Kakashi had somehow managed to effectively return to the wreck he'd been just after release from the hospital.

There it was. Iruka's breath caught with Kakashi's and before he knew it, he was on his feet, rushing to the other man. He froze. Kakashi's eyes were open, but they weren't looking at him, as they should have been. With anyone else, it might not have even registered in the first place, but Iruka saw it. He saw the acceptance in those eyes that said that even if the approaching footsteps belonged to an assassin, it didn't matter.

"Kakashi," Iruka said, hating to hurt the man even further.

"He's gone, isn't he."

Eyes widening, Iruka nodded.

"Tsunade told me this morning. He's gone to Orochimaru most likely. I told him that to get Sakura back, he'd need the help of someone stronger than me. Hinata must have gone with him." The man's voice cracked slightly. "I never should have told them that stuff about teamwork. It's pointless if you lose your own life and still can't reach your objective." He shook his head. "That's not even it. If I hadn't sent Sakura on that mission, she wouldn't have become a demon. She wouldn't have ever had those people after her."

"She was a demon?" Sasuke asked, striding out of the kitchen.

Kakashi didn't seem to hear him. "If only I'd been a little stronger. If only I hadn't sent her to kill Aki-san. Why did I think that I could change her into something that couldn't be beaten?"

Iruka shook his head disbelievingly. "No. . . ."

"Let's go get them then."

Iruka tried to silence Sasuke, but the boy wouldn't stand for it. "You want to redeem yourself, right? We'll go get them. If you don't go, I'm going to anyway. I need Sakura to get stronger – she promised that if I returned to Konoha she'd help me get more powerful. I won't let her skip out on that promise just because she's been kidnapped." He cracked a malicious smile. "Besides – this'll be the perfect opportunity to get my revenge on Itachi. So are you coming?"

Kakashi's eyes focused for just a second. He shook his head slowly, and returned to gazing into the empty darkness. With a shrug, Sasuke left, revealing an unconscious ANBU member just outside the door.

Author's Note: Well, I'm back! I would REALLY love to have a beta, so if any of you could please send me an email with the subject line "Mustang does it with Ed" I'll be very thankful for your offer to beta for me. Thank you!

By the way... If your mind works anything like mine, and if you see the hints I'll be dropping starting towards the end of the next chapter, your eyes will burn. Reading the chapters after the next one will make you want to scrub your brain with lye. thinks Unless you like that sort of thing. Some people do. I mean, some people like Orochimaru (me.... sweatdrop) But in any case, I'm warning you ahead of time: If you review saying what it is and revealing the secret, I'll erase your review. I don't want to ruin the story for the innocents. (I will save your review on my computer though - I do so love reviews -)