I am so sorry about the lack of updates!!! My computer decided to breakdown on me for the past month. (No lie, four, maybe five weeks computerless!) So here's a much longer, hopefully, chapter!

In front of Konoha gates:

Kiba shuffled into the large village gates that loomed above the surrounding grass and forestland in a dazed stupor, eyes staring blankly forward as though he was in a deep hypnosis. Kurenai-sensei stumbled in just before him, and Shino took his first stiff steps back into their home in a similar state. In the abandoned plaza area beyond, was Neji, stiff backed and waiting for them, arms crossed across his chest in a most haughty manner, frowning deeply. "Did you send Hinata-san ahead of you? If so, she has not returned. Hyuuga wishes to speak to her of her tardiness." Neji said smoothly, blinking his eyes slowly.

The simple words were enough to break the stifling silence that had descended on the group after failing the mission, only marginal success being made in keeping the scroll the thieves wanted most of all. Kiba raised his head and eyes as one and locked slit eyes to milk white ones. The sudden focus in eyes that had previously been so blank startled Neji, Looking among the group, their surprised off guard faces and unspeaking mouths began an unsettling drop in his stomach, and he choked a sentence past the knot in his throat. "Where's Hinata-san?"

Shino moved first, he pulled a pale hand to his circular shades and pulled them off his face. "We...we're not sure."

At the Hyuuga residence:

They sat in a large traditional room with woven bamboo matting, and rice paper sliding doors that made the place look amazingly frail. The room was sparkly decorated even though, with a few tall ferns in one corner, and sconces providing light to a room that was getting darker in the setting sun. Hiashi Hyuuga kneeled at the far end of the room, facing Kurenai, who kneeled also. On either side of the sensei was the remaining members of cell eight.

Neji stood stiffly to the right of the sliding door and did his best to keep a level face as Kurenai did her best to explain to Hiashi the whereabouts of his daughter.

"From what Kiba and Shino have been able to tell me, enemy nin surprised the group from behind while I was distracted with another group. They ran for a while, but when one of the nin threw an unknown jutsu, they dodged, Hinata didn't. Shino described it as a shadow wall rushing forward and swallowing her, both remember the attacking nin call it 'dimension no jutsu'; From that, the closest thing we can guess is that she was transported somewhere. Unfortunately, exactly where is unknown to us."

Hiashi's face was gray and grim throughout the explanation. "And of the mission?" He asked, stiffer than Neji would have given him credit for.

"Failed, the merchant was killed in the fight, fell into a trap set by the enemy. The only thing worthy of note other than Hinata's disappearance was that the enemy nin's main objective was not obtained."

The prolonged silence in the tense room was growing longer by the moment, neither party very sure of the grounds on which the conversation could continue, when a loud thumping approached from the hallway beyond the secondary door behind Hiashi. Shattering the near calm, Hiashi's young wife burst through in a disheveled and slightly rumpled looking lavender night-kimono, and looked about a few moments, locking Kurenai-sensei in her sights.

She leapt for the kill.

"WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER, YOU WITCH! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HER? WHERE IS SHE? Where...Where is she?" she screamed, immediately being grabbed by two attendants in plain dress begging Hiashi's forgiveness even as they pulled the hysterically sobbing woman from the room and slid the paper door shut once more. Her angry shouts interrupted briefly by new bouts of sobs were heard for a few seconds more as the attendants took her down the hall, before they faded out of earshot at the faint sound of another door sliding closed.

Kurenai-sensei's normally dark rose complexion had gone to a sick ghostly pallor when the woman had barged in and started screaming, and now a shamed flush painted her cheeks from her neck to her ears, raising her eyes only up to Hiashi's nose. Her lips were bleeding white they were so tightly compressed, and she sat tensely poised, waiting to hear what Hiashi would rule.

"We will wait one year." Hiashi said at last. If a year passes and Hinata is not found, Hinabi will become the new Heiress, and Hinata pronounced dead." His voice only wavered once: on the word dead.

Neji started, it was a day for many shocks. 'One year? That's hardly enough time to find her!' Neji thought, appalled. Just as Neji was about to lurch forward to voice his complaint, Hiashi continued. "In the meantime a team of Hyuugas will be sent out to find her, three months searching in each cardinal direction, either until the year is up, or she is found."

Neji relaxed some, but left the room to quietly collect his thoughts and get his facial features under control. If he could only convince Hyuuga to place him into the search team! That was the only way to ensure they did their best to find fragile Hinata-chan! Neji knew that not many Hyuuga were proud to have such a gentle girl as the heir to the clan, now was an opportune moment to get her out of the picture. 'There's no way in hell I'll let them half ass this!' Neji mentally mused.

He had to be on the search team!

The Inuzuka apartment:

Kiba lay back in his beige bed, he had wanted a navy bed spread, but after his mother pointed out that Akamaru would lounge there just as much as he, he decided on a hue much closer to the dog's own fur color. Akamaru himself was whining somewhere near Kiba's sock covered feet. How'd he let such a thing happen? He'd sworn to himself that he'd never let delicate, beautiful Hinata get hurt on a mission! 'Where is she?' he asked himself, a lump lodging in his throat. He'd watched her from afar for years, loved her short hair and soft eyes. Her voice didn't hurt his ears like so many girls, and he used to sit behind her in the academy just to smell her. Like lavender and rain, he always thought.

Then that sick black thing had eaten her whole and now she was gone.

Somehow the fact that he may never see his beautiful Hinata-chan again hit Kiba home, and something inside of him had it's fissures of doubt ripped open, and he broke down. "YEARG!! AHh" He screamed, throwing his fists into his tangled brown knots of hair, hollered to the ceiling. Pounding his fists down onto his mattress again, Kiba howled out his pains.

Thumping outside the door didn't halt Kiba's tirade; his parents threw open the door, and upon seeing his state, his mother ran to him ad he clung to her, as would a newborn pup. She rocked him as he cried out his woes and the story behind them, and oh god how much he liked her, maybe even loved her, and he cried 'til he slept, still weeping in his mother's embrace. Kiba's mother lay him down gently, and her husband let her away, stopping only once to look back at her heartbroken son.