Hi!

love you all, and thankees to Tenka-chan for swearing your loyalty to me.

Also thankees to Arie Date for her continuing support!

Randomness: Rammstein. "Morgenstern."

here's 29!

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Whore Street

They had lost Gaara soon after entering the house. A dark, elaborate mansion, it stood on the complete outskirts of the City, having even the luxury of a wild garden. The next houses were at least a mile away, and the same kind; old, impressive monoliths of carvings and bay windows and all that 19th century stuff.

The place was oppressively quiet, and the team walked nervously through the grand corridors and up the sweeping staircases. Iruka had no idea what had gotten Gaara onto this... to his disappointment, it looked to become another dead end.

The house wasn't obviously inhabited, most of the rooms dark and no personal objects anywhere.

His team relaxed once they reached the third floor and it also proved to be empty. The only thing that was of any notice about the place were the snakes. There were likenesses everywhere, and Iruka doubted there was any object here that sported none of the winding reptiles.

Sighing, Iruka was about to order the return to the base when the scream echoed, muffled by walls and floors, through the empty house.

The Forcers immediately followed the noise down. It took them an agonizing twenty minutes to find the small door under the staircase in the entrance hall, during which more screams sounded, pain-filled and panicked. They scrambled through the little entrance, silent with tension and nervousness.

The low corridor that lay behind the door was bare and relatively new(as in under a hundred years); a monstrous break with the rest of the house, it was simple poured concrete. A few doors led off of it, plain aluminum, and Iruka left people behind to check on each. At last, only he and two other Forcers remained, walking towards the last door.

The screams were much louder here, and Iruka realized, with a sigh of relief, that they most certainly weren't Naruto's. Though he wasn't sure whether that was a good thing, on retrospect. A screaming Naruto would at least be a living Naruto.

They reached the door just as the most pain-filled shriek yet sounded, and Iruka pushed the door open slowly, his shock-gun at the ready.

His eyes glanced over the room, noting Naruto's bloody, still form on the bed and forcing him to take a worried step forward – until his gaze reached the source of the screeches.

Oh fuck... he resisted an extremely strong urge to vomit. The Forcers behind him sounded like they were having the same problem.

Gaara...the Sandman... was squatting next to a quivering, sobbing mass of what could only be described as...

...meat.

His arms were soaked red to the elbow, his clothes soaked with blood. His face was impassive, the flat eyes roaming over his victim with – Iruka guessed – hidden relish. He had noticed the Forcers come in, the man was sure. But his attention stayed on the bloody mess in front of him as the saw-edged knife – decorated with a snake – sliced off another piece of pale skin.

Iruka swallowed hard. He couldn't watch this. And who knew what the Sandman would do if he went in now to...

... to what?

He stepped back, closing the door.

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heh. Gaara doesn't like being copied, Orochimaru.

Oh, and many thanks to Arie Date for suggesting that Gaara put Orochi's spiked toy on a bedpost and rape our Sandman-wannabe with said contraption. Isn't that a hilarious idea?

Does anyone here know in which corner of the world Dualism lives? I miss her comments and somehow I always miss her online-time.

Review! REALLY! I'm getting suspiciously little feedback! You all know that little feedback mean little updates!