Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters here, except for Kumiko. She's mine.

Okay, chapter four! Sorry it took so long. I've had a long bout of writers block, school work (during school), and work work (during summer). Summer is over, school is starting (started today, actually shudder) but I'll try to find time between math, psychology, and health. There are more notes at the bottom of the chapter, so enjoy the chapter and then please read them.

Chapter Four:

Victim

Kakashi glanced up as Kumiko appeared behind the group. He'd stopped trying to ask what was going on between her and the dead ninja in the clearing because every time he tried, she'd either disappear, or she'd somehow change the subject away and he'd only notice several minutes and four topics later. She apparently thought she'd screwed up something somehow and was now busying herself to keep the group out of danger. Well, that was just fine with him. Right? Right. He only wished she'd let him in on what was going on.

"All clear," she told him, before walking at the back of the group.

Frowning, he resumed his steady pace at the front, his attention being divided between observing the immediate area and the curious questions from the kids.

Behind him, Kumiko pulled out her water satchel and uncapped it. She'd pretty much been scouting 50 yards around the group since morning, pausing only briefly to check in with Kakashi. There had been no signs of any pursuers or ambushers but then she hadn't really expected any yet. Possibly tomorrow. In fact, it was very unlikely that there would be any more pursuers that day but she was feeling the need to keep herself busy and active to wear off some of the anxiety that was growing.

She was splashing water down her neck as Kano dropped back to where she was.

"You've been pretty busy. Should the rest of us be expecting any attacks?" he cocked his eyebrow at her.

"No, but we're getting very close to the border. I'm making sure they don't cheat," she told him.

"Cheat?" he asked with the air of mild interest. His eyes, she noticed, held more green than brown, but they held no depths. He was shallow, aware of himself and objects that interested him. She hoped she wasn't becoming one of those objects.

She looked him directly in the eye. "Yes, cheat. As in, crossing into Konoha to attack us."

He gave her a light, confident smile. "We'd be alright in the event of an attack, though, right? I mean, your team must be fairly good to have received this mission."

"Of course. It's our job to make it alright," she said without feeling, and then she picked up her pace so she could talk to Kakashi.

"We're fairly close to the border," she stated.

"I'd say about an hour. Are you going to scout ahead again?"

"I think I might. I'll be back within a half an hour." She took off at his nod.

Running through the trees at a 45 degree angle from the group to the right, she ran for five minutes before making a turn to the left and arching in a circle. She observed everything, from the direction of the sun, to the way the wind was blowing, to the frequency of the birds chattering. Everything was normal. She continued her run, her senses sweeping the territory. When she was a five minute run from the group, she made her turn 45 degrees to rejoin them with a positive report, when a snapping twig caught her attention. She continued her run as if she didn't notice anything, before she concealed her presence and hid in the treetops. Her eyes scanned the area, noticing nothing out of the ordinary. Frowning, she strained her ears, hearing nothing until the faint rustle of leaves. Noting the sound's position, she focused her attention there before letting it take in everything else. Wary of her surroundings, she left the tree and crept forward on the ground, eyes and ears straining.

Another snap of a twig called her attention to a clearing hidden behind trees. She snuck forward, taking care to not make the same mistake of snapping unnoticeable twigs. Peering through the branches of a fir tree, her eyes roved the clearing before finding the source of the noise.

Feeling rather silly when she found a male deer having its lunch, she watched it strain its neck up the tree and pull another strip of bark off of it with a snap and then chew on it. Rolling her eyes at herself, she turned and made the run back to her group with an 'all clear'.

Seven o'clock came and the team began to set up camp again. They'd passed a small village previously that day and Kumiko, picking a few things up at the small market, had volunteered dinner for that night. Kakashi noticed the way she lightened up as she began to stir the different vegetables and meats into the soup she was making. The smell began to drive him crazy as she continued to stir in a multitude of spices and ingredients so when she turned away to reprimand Naruto for putting a frog in Sasuke's sleeping bag, he darted a hand in and stole a piece of chopped meat. What he hadn't counted on was the meat to have absorbed as much broth as it had. When Kumiko turned back around to tend to the soup, she found Kakashi staring guiltily at her with soup dribbling down his mask.

"Hey," she exclaimed, "it's not ready yet, you thief!"

He swallowed the meat in his mouth. "You're right. Could use a little more pepper."

She swung at him and he dodged. "You stay away! I'll tell you when it's done!"

When he stalked off, Kumiko resumed her stirring and tasting, muttered under her breath, and then added a hint more pepper. Finally she declared it ready, and began spooning the concoction into bowls and passing them around. When Kakashi failed to appear, against Kumiko's expectations, she followed a trail to find him. The stream she had knelt by previously that morning had fed into a slightly larger river, and Kakashi was currently bent over the river, trying to wash the soup stain out of his mask. It was an opportunity she couldn't resist.

She walked up casually behind him, and he, recognizing her footsteps, saw no need to worry, so when he toppled head-first into the slow moving river, he was unpleasantly surprised.

"Face cleaned yet?" she asked when all he did was splutter.

When she heard "Yes," muttered into her ear, she was startled but reacted quickly. A hand at her back shoved her off-balance, but she twisted and grabbed the hand that had pushed her. Instead of stopping her fall, the real Kakashi tumbled with her by accident. They both ended up in the river.

Furious that she'd fallen for such an obvious trick, Kumiko dunked Kakashi under and held him there until he began to flail. He gaped like a fish when his head bobbed to the surface and Kumiko was already hauling herself up onto the bank, grumbling as she went.

"Ugg, my hair is soaking wet and it's going to be dark soon! It'll never dry!" she complained.

"Huh," Kakashi scoffed from where he was swimming to the bank. He was watching her wring her braid out, noting the strands of hair plastered to her face and wondered what the heck she was worried about. She was an image of childish pity and yet still an eyeful for the average raging-hormone teenager. And 26 year-old ninjas.

He hauled himself out of the water. "At least you still look decent with wet hair. I look like something the cat dragged in," he argued. He shook his head around and the water from his sopping wet hair flew everywhere.

"Ack! Stop that!" she squealed as the droplets splashed on her. He glared at her through his hair, which was now hanging in his eyes in strands instead of in a curtain.

"Well don't glare at me!" she told him, slightly affronted. She wondered why she felt as though an electric current had just stopped her heart briefly and then somehow twisted her stomach at the same time.

"And why not? I believe it was your idea to push me in in the first place."

"Yea, but that was a doppelganger, not the real you," she said, still slightly flustered, but regaining confidence, "The fact that you planned it in the first place makes me the victim. You actually falling in was an unplanned but fortunate event."

"What!"

"Yes," she nodded, self-esteem back and flowing, "and even so, being the female automatically makes me the victim in any situation."

"WHAT!" he shook himself, "You a victim? Hah! It's not my fault you were so confident that you failed to check your surroundings. And how'd you manage to miss the fact that you pushed a doppelganger? You always seem to know!"

"Yea, well, it's not my fault you lost your balance so easily," she grumped.

They were silent for a moment before Kakashi looked at her and said, "You know? As ninja's, sometimes we just suck."

"Yea," Kumiko agreed without really listening. He'd looked her squarely in the eye and something in that moment hit her right between the eyes. Her confidence plummeted again somehow and she suddenly felt very self-conscious. She was looking at his damp form and was wondering why he was complaining. He didn't exactly look like a mess. His hair kind of hung around his face, a little bit in his eyes, but it gave him a little bit of a… If anything it… Shoot, what was she trying to say…

'I'm blushing,' she realized, eyes widened in horror. '…But I don't… Oh geeze… This could get bad if he notices…'

"Is dinner ready?"

"Huh?" She asked, still half in her thoughts. She wandered over to the river's edge. 'But what could have…the hair? …Yea…definitely the hair…' she decided …but just to be sure…

"I asked if dinner was ready," he repeated, following her.

"Hmm…" she said and suddenly her arm shot out and Kakashi found himself in the river again.

"What the heck was that for!" Kakashi spluttered and shouted when he resurfaced.

'Aw crap. No doubt about it,' she confirmed.

"Dinner's ready," she called as she walked away.

Of all the—!

Kakashi dragged himself out of the water again and proceeded to dry out his hair again.

What the heck was up with her?

He frowned. He knew by now that she wasn't really a sore loser… But that was the only reason he could think of as to why she had to have the last word. He checked around him and listened. When he was confident that no one was watching, he removed his vest and then, after one last check, pulled off his shirt with his mask. In all of five seconds, the shirt was pulled off, wrung out, and then back on him.

He stalked away from the river and back towards camp, thinking that her behavior had better not become a habit.

Sasuke briefly looked up when Kakashi returned and shrugged to himself. When Kumiko had returned, soaking wet, she'd said nothing, a light frown on her face. She'd sat down and begun eating. Nobody said a word, since she clearly had not wanted to explain. Kano, he'd noticed, had looked at her a little more lingeringly than he, Sakura, or Naruto, but she did, he decided, merit a look or two. From the point of view of an adult male whose IQ dropped every time he saw something with big eyes and breasts, she was probably the vision of his dream. Strong, athletic, young, pretty, maybe even beautiful, but even Sasuke knew that Kano wouldn't be able stand her for too long. She could look after herself and Kano struck him as a 'hero,' always needing to be thanked for the actions he did, and Kumiko wasn't one to give thanks where it wasn't merited.

When Kakashi, however, returned, Sasuke had not found it odd that he was in the same condition as Kumiko. If one of them had ended up in the river, the other would have likely ended up there, too. It was just the way in seemed to work between the two of them. They'd argue and fight but it was never anything serious; just enough to get on the other's nerves without causing damage. Sakura's face had held something of amusement when Kakashi had returned but she tried to hide it by sticking another spoonful of soup in her mouth. Naruto, oblivious and unobserving as always, had to speak up. Everyone else would have a silent understanding but he had to vocalize and clarify.

"Why are you guys both wet?" he asked, confused and suspicious. Tactless as always.

Kumiko's eyes narrowed, and then she sniffed, "I was pushed into the river."

Naruto then looked at Kakashi, who also sniffed, "I was pulled into the river."

Still confused, he asked, "How'd you guys manage that?"

They both glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes. Kumiko spoke. "He pushed me into the river and I tugged him in after me."

"Only after you pushed in my doppelganger."

"Hmph, at least I didn't end up in the river twice."

"Yea, but you're better than I am. You have no excuse."

"At least I wasn't obviously caught with food slopping down my mouth," she hissed.

"Slopping! It wasn't really sloppi—"

"And that was just down-right clumsy!" she finished triumphantly.

His eye glinted dangerously at her and she had only nanoseconds to contemplate this before he was beside her and hauling her up over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Kumiko found herself being given an upside-down view of his butt and tried her best to ignore it.

"What are you doing?" she shrieked, kicking her legs uselessly in the air, pounding her fists into his back.

"Finding a win-win situation, of course," he responded, setting off towards the river. She tried to twist out of his grip but he rolled her momentum too far for her and retained his strong grip.

"What's that supposed to mean? Win-win? You lose loser!" she yelled, still scrambling to free herself and embarrassingly failing.

"Yes. And now I'm going to win," he replied, sickeningly cheerful.

"But—but my hair! I'm trying to let it dry! You horrible person! Put me down!" She began to awkwardly scramble out of her vest so it wouldn't get wet again. Its pockets were water-proof, but it's hard to swim with extra bulk. She tossed it to the ground as Kakashi emerged from the woods to the river bank.

"No!" she hollered, "I refuse to be thrown into the river." She latched her arms around his middle.

He sighed, "You are absolutely right. I would have much rather just tossed you in, but I supposed watching you suffer with wet hair that will take much longer to dry than mine is worth getting wet one more time."

Kumiko's eyes widened and she latched on tighter as Kakashi jumped.

He let go of her when he jumped in so when her knees hit the surface, she flipped harmlessly out of the way. He did a few strokes away from her incase she had the sudden urge to try drowning him again. When he swam to the surface, he was rewarded with a mouthful of water splashed at him and Kumiko glowering and hollering at him.

"You're horrible, do you know that? Just awful! I hope you curl up and die and buzzards feed off of your remains! I hope keel over with a heart attack and explode! Just you wait! You'll be walking along and BOOM! You're kidneys will have turned green and your stomach will have shrunken to the size of a beetle! And you sure as heck had better watch what you eat because you may find worms in your soup! Poisonous worms! You hear? Poisonous worms!"

He stared at her and felt his mouth twitch into a smile. He was glad she couldn't see it because it probably would have frustrated her to the point of violence, but he really couldn't help it. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed and her calm collected voice was, for a change, loud and rich. He just hung there in the water and looked at her. She was splashing her hands into the water to emphasize her points and was sending sheets of it at him in irritation.

"…and your children's children! And their children, too! And you'd better not sleep too soundly because you may wake up to find yourself dangling by your ankle in a tree! A tree filled with toxic ants! And your hair will be orange and shaved to be an inch short…"

My, she was creative. He may actually need to watch his back unless he made it up to her. And as much as he wanted to watch her shout herself silly at his expense, because he found she was a site when she was angry, it wasn't doing them any good that she was alerting the entire forest of their position.

"...Purple! Do you hear? Purple!" She paused to take a breath.

"Kumiko, dear, are you nearly finished? Because," he continued when she opened her mouth to retaliate, hellfire burning in the depths of her icy eyes, "the sun is setting and you are giving away our location."

"I dunno, Kakashi," Naruto said from the bank, "there may have been a few people a thousand miles away who didn't quite catch what she said…"

Her eyes narrowed to slits and she ignored Naruto. One pest was enough for now. "I am well aware that the sun is setting, Kakashi, because I am going to be stuck with damp hair for the rest of the night," she hissed.

"Well, let's stoke the fire a little so that you can dry your hair?"

"Let's," she snarled and shoved water at him again.

Kumiko couldn't sleep. Her sleeping bag wasn't comfortable, her body was too warm but the air was too cold, the crickets were too loud, and Kano was snoring. And her hair was damp. Which made her head cold. Everything irritated her. She glared up at the sky; Kakashi's hair had probably dried. His was shorter.

Rolling over, she figured it was for the better. She couldn't believe how she'd lost it with him that evening. He'd merely gotten her hair wet, much to her ire, but it wasn't like he'd killed a kitten or anything. It was unfair. She was being distracted by him, but was it because of the way he looked, or the way he was? Or a mixture of both? Didn't really matter. The best way to hide it was to be pissed at him. Permanently. Or maybe not. But regardless, it had felt very refreshing to whip him with her vocal chords. Yelling whatever came to mind at the top of her lungs after so much time of carefully keeping her thoughts under wraps had felt so good…but the underlying emotion that had helped provoke it couldn't go on. It was dangerous to think with a heart instead of a mind. Plus, broken hearts hurt.

Kumiko had had minor experiences of being in love but she'd smothered and ended it when things began to either get too involved or went downhill. It made certain that the only person she was truly responsible for was herself and if she wasn't attached to anyone, then her feelings were never too badly hurt. She'd already lost enough people in her life that she didn't relish the feeling of absolute despair and pain of losing someone else.

Plus Kakashi was a friend…and her team leader. And he read porn. Eww. Hmm, better back up on that friend thought and pester him some more about his particular choice of reading material.

Anyways, no matter how resolved she was on the fact that she must focus on her life and its direction, it annoyed her that she was looking at him in her mind while she was making that decision. Her memory replayed the second scene at the river and showed his hair, wet and gravity drawn, his storm-gray eye glowing with amusement, a smile twitching under the mask. Of course this was just what her memory was pulling up, and probably not what had actually occurred. He was likely fast asleep and dreaming up his next plan of attack. It probably involved her being dumped in a lake and then having her face rubbed in the mud. Naw, that's just what she'd like to do to him. She snickered at the image she'd managed to conjure.

The image vaguely twisted and distorted itself until Kakashi vanished.

She found herself wandering the empty streets of Konoha. It wasn't any place in Konoha she'd ever been, but she knew that's where she was. Except it was different. The colours of the buildings were dull and muted; the sun wasn't shining; there was a lonely wind blowing through…

But what's really wrong here? She asked. As soon as the thought flitted through her consciousness she realized what was so wrong. Everything was deadly still. There were no people. The streets were completely empty. There was no laughter, no talking, not even shouting. No sounds of life. Konoha was always active with families, friends, dogs and always birds. The oppressing feeling of foreboding grew and the sense that she was being watched by invisible eyes increased. She did not want to go inside any of the buildings; going inside would be bad. She was afraid of what she might find.

What could I be afraid of? She wondered. She felt very vulnerable and open, but she was drawn to one of the buildings. It appeared to be a flower shop but it had a macabre twist. As she continued to look at it, however, Kumiko couldn't quite put her finger on what was so wrong with it. The nagging feeling and the ache between her shoulders increased as she got closer.

When she opened the door, however, she recognized the inside of her house she shared with Kurenai. It wasn't her building, but the interior was right.

And then she saw Kurenai.

And Kakashi. And Naruto, and Asuma, and Sakura, Sasuke, Hokage, Gai, and more; faces she recognized and faces of strangers.

Then she saw the first bright and true colour in this Konoha. Red. Everything was red. It appeared like a stain, and then grew bright and ugly. Dripping red. Suddenly, everything was red.

Nobody was breathing.

The faces and bodies of everyone warped, constantly changing, as their injuries and causes of death steadily got worse. Cuts and gashes got bigger and the positions of the way the dead were sitting or lying changed without actually moving.

When she finally moved, her foot squished into the carpet of her living room and she didn't have to look to know that the squish came from how much moisture the carpet had soaked up; how much blood there was.

Her breathing became shallow as her eyes stayed on Kakashi who became Kurenai, who became Asuma, who became Sakura and then replayed itself adding faces in between. Her breathing increased rapidly as the walls pressed in on her. The eyes of her companions all looking at her.

I should have been here to save them! Her mind screamed at her. Why wasn't I here? How did this happen?

A face flashed in her mind. She realized there was laughter. But not the kind that Konoha ever had.

Its menacing sound echoed around the walls, through the rooms, and down the stairs; hunting, searching, seeking something. Her. It found her.

A foot appeared at the top of the stairs in her view.

Kumiko jolted awake with a muffled scream, eyes wide, lungs heaving, and adrenaline pumping. She was sitting up, with her knife in her hand, at her campsite. She steadied her breathing to gasps of a runner who had just finished sprinting hundreds of miles for life, and she ran her hand through her hair, hand stopping when it reached the braid. She rubbed her forehead and then got up out of her sleeping bag. Pressing her forehead to a tree, she appreciated the coolness of the bark and willed herself to calm down. It had just been another nightmare. Just another bad dream.

She was still gripping her knife but her breathing became even. Hugging the tree as tightly as she could to release the stress, she squeezed her eyes shut. She was shocked when she felt wet tears slide silently down her cheek. The moisture rolled down to her chin and then dropped off to the ground. Wiping her face with the back of her hand, she turned to face her campsite and was relieved to find everything still where it was supposed to be. As if having a will of their own, her feet moved her around the campsite to each sleeper. Stopping at each person she gently bent down and took everyone's pulse, swallowing down the images in her head as she was rewarded with positive feedback. She hadn't expected anything less, and she could even feel the familiar hum of their chakra in the back of her consciousness, but it was comforting. Until she realized Kakashi was out of his sleeping bag. She cursed herself for not noticing as she glanced at her watch and realized it was his two hours to watch and had probably just witnessed the whole event. What must he think of her? Strong and independent Kumiko who ranted and raged over getting her hair wet but tearing up over a bad dream? They were never just dreams, but who other than she would understand that?

Feeling exhausted, but not ready to climb back into the confines of the sleeping bag, she walked towards the edge of the trees and into the woods until she reached the river. Sitting on the bank she took in the silence of the woods. The river sluggishly swam by with gurgles here and there and she allowed herself to inhale the fresh air. There were still a few rebellious crickets chirping but most of them were now silent. Everything seemed peaceful; welcoming.

There was a soft whoosh and then Kakashi landed silently, from whatever tree he'd just descended from, a few feet to Kumiko's right. Generally, if a person Kakashi knew, especially an adult, had a problem that they didn't want to share, he would leave it to them and let them sort it out. Figuring out your own problems helps you get stronger. When he watched Kumiko sleep and move from her slumber to her nightmare (he assumed by her behavior that it was a nightmare) he'd felt a shift in her chakra. It was a slow transition, but one he'd felt, and as he'd continued to watch her draw herself into a little ball to hide from whatever was tormenting her, he'd felt the offending presence increase. He couldn't tell what its source was, only that its target was Kumiko. It was time to talk. He needed to know if it was dangerous to Kumiko or to any of his younger charges. The tricky part was going to be getting her to open her mouth and actually talk to him. He knew she was used to being a loner and not having to rely on or protect anybody else, but she had to learn, even if she didn't know she was learning.

"Bad dream?" he asked. He kept his tone even so she couldn't write him off as not caring or caring too much.

She nodded in response.

"You have them often, don't you?" His voice matched the calm and peacefulness of the evening.

She blinked and nodded again.

"How often?" he asked quietly.

She shrugged, never looking at him. When he remained silent, she expanded to fill the silence. "They're unpredictable. Silly, really," she tried to shove it off. "Just my imagination taking off if I get too worried about some things."

He raised his gaze to the sparkling sky. "I don't think they're that simple," he told her softly.

She blinked, her eyes on the dark river. "What makes you say that?"

He turned his head to look at her and she glanced at him before looking back to the water. "Are you aware that your chakra shifts while you have these dreams?"

When her eyes widened briefly, he knew he was right. "It doesn't feel like your chakra," he continued. "I think it's an outside attacking force."

She fell silent, her empty stare back on the river while she thought about this new information.

"I normally don't like to pry into other people's lives, Kumiko, but it is important that your team understands who and what is after us. I understand that you may want to run from your past—"

"I'm not running from it," she interrupted, her voice low, quiet, but strong. "I am simply not yet strong enough to face it."

He nodded slowly, "But remember that you have a team now. As a team, we support each other and work together. This also means that one person's danger is everybody's danger. The difference is that the ratio goes from one to one, to five to one."

She shook her head and drew a shuddering breath, "My nightmares are not dangerous to anybody else but me."

"But you didn't know that they were being sent from elsewhere," he said.

She fell silent again. If her enemy was nearing her, maybe even tracking her through her dreams, her team had to know who was after her and to do that, they probably needed to know why. Not everybody, but someone. That someone was sitting patiently next to her. It was important that he know.

Wasn't it? Or should she just leave again? Leave without them being any wiser to her life and its history. That would be the right thing to do instead of endangering them…yet she couldn't bring herself to uproot again, even if she hadn't been here longer than a week. Everybody she was with was so kind to her; kind and strong. They ought to know.

"I met him when I turned 17. He'd caught me crashing a party for food but instead of turning me in, he offered me a job. He said he liked my style. When he found out how great my skill was at that age, he was even more impressed," her voice faded and when Kakashi glanced at her, he found she was staring back into her memories, her face blank, her eyes haunted.

"Who is he?" Kakashi asked softly. He decided that at the moment she didn't need to elaborate. She didn't like to look back into her past but she seemed to be drawn into it every time she was on the run.

Her throat closed, and she hugged her knees. Memories swirled around her head like noxious gas and she felt her eyes sting again. She tried to take a deep breath but it was shaky.

Kakashi gently put his arm around her, and rubbed her shoulder with his other hand. "You can cry, Kumiko. I promise I won't tell."

She drew one more shuddering breath and said, in a thick but small voice, "I'm not going to cry. That'd be stupid." Then she sniffled, hiccupped, and a tear slid down her cheek.

Kakashi cared for each of his pupils. He was very selective and had actually turned every trio of graduates back to the academy until this team. They were young, eager to learn, but still very innocent in the ways of the world. Kumiko wasn't really a student. She'd beaten him a multitude of times in training and she wasn't even a full five years younger than he was. He was feeling his heart go out to her, wanting to shoulder some of her load, relieve her of some of the pain and regret. As he sat there, with his arm around her he wondered who the last person was to hold her like this while she cried in misery. When was the last time she had really cried? Had she been alone? He thought about his comrades in the past and present and wondered about the last time she'd had a best friend. Had it been recent? Or had she had one in school, perhaps? …Had she ever had one at all? A real friend?

He ran his free hand through her dark hair and noted, with a small smile, that it was still slightly damp.

Could he fill that role? Could he be her friend?

Would she let him?

Was she already? They goofed around together, ticked each other off, and teased back and forth. And here he was now, holding her while she cried, promising to keep it a secret for her. And he'd known her for a week and a half.

Yes, he would be her friend. She was already finding a spot with everybody else in his heart; it was too late to think of doing anything else.

Okay, there's chapter four. Let me know if you like how the story is developing and how the characters are developing. At my sister's insistence, I'm going to try and work on the relationships between Kumiko and the three genin within the next chapter or two so that I'm not completely leaving them out. I'm also going to try and end this mission soon. The fic wasn't supposed to take up a ton of time here, but there you go. I know I mentioned a carnival a chapter or two back so I'm gonna get to that, I promise.

Drop me a review with your analysis and ideas!

-Kirara
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PS. Lots of thanks to my dearest sister for her patience and editing. The story would be dumb and choppy without her.