In Yorugakure

There was a burst of energy, and Sato and Kuro appeared together in Yorugakures Central Square. They were rather surprised to find Yoake and Shinri standing by each other towards the north side, heads bent together in some sort of conference. Yoake and Shinri looked up, and were obviously also taken aback to see the other members of their cell.

"Look what the shadows dragged in.." Shinri crossed his arms across his chest, and glowered at the teen.

"I'll ignore that." Sato came trotting across the clearing, the very picture of a giddy school-girl," What were you two talking about? Come on, you can tell me!"

"Shove off, Tasogare." Shinri said sourly, his face twisting into a glare.

"Piss off, Hebigiru." Sato shot back, but was not daunted. She threw a winning smile at her sensai, "Mission complete, master. Only one sand cell remains alive, thanks to yours truly!"

Yoake looked over Sato's head at Makuro, who was standing quietly off on the sides, "no one saw you? You made sure to check every step you made?"

"No one saw us!" Sato said cheerily.

"Sato!" Makuro spat, coming to stand next to his friend, voice reproachful.

Satora hung her head, "OK, someone did."

"Who was it?" Yoake said fairy, hands on her hips. She wasn't all that mad; somehow she could have expected this. Makuro couldn't possibly keep up toe to toe with Sato when she was on a killing rampage, which would explain this predicament.

Sato didn't answer. She just looked at Makuro.

Shinri gave a hoarse laugh, "Did you gather together the entire village, and make a public spectacle of the execution, Sato darling?"

"Shut-UP, Hebigru-"

"We were discovered by Gaara of the sand." Makuro deadpanned, crossing his arms behind his back, "He was no doubt drawn in to us by the smell of blood."

Yoake sighed, and rubbed her temples gently, "You know we're screwed now, right?"

"I would have killed him then and there to shut him up!" Sato volunteered in a helpful tone, "But Makuro pulled me away-"

"Don't you dare blame this one on me, Tasogare!" Makuro snapped, rounding on the girl, "I told you, didn't I, to not make a big huge project out of killing those genin! I told you to keep a low profile, but you spent most of the night toying with each and every one of them, giving Gaara plenty of time to find us!"

Sato looked steamed as well, but before she and Kuro could leap at each other's throats, Yoake stepped in between them.

"I doubt Gaara will say anything to Baki, or even his father." She said, keeping a close eye on Sato to prevent any assault, "Now that I think about it. Gaara is a killer himself, the most we can hope for is that his twisted mind will work out some form of logic that lets us off the hook."

"He looked us straight in the eye.." Makuro's voice was toneless once more, but there was a backdrop of slight fear as he recalled the event, "And he said…'why are you killing them? It's my job!""

"Gaara is territorial." Yoake said simply, "He's more like the beast inside of him than you could know. I'm surprised he let you away alive. Killing, for him, isn't just sport. He needs to have blood on his hands all the time to sate the appetite of that monster the kazekage put inside of him."

A moment of silence passed between the four of them, broken finally by Sato.

"So what are we going to do, then?" Her tone was remorseful, "OK, I screwed up, I admit it. How can we fix it?"

"We can't, unless we all can do some pretty serious bluffing." Yoake put on her thinking face, and wrinkled her nose, "Supposing that Gaara was the only one who saw you two, and also supposing that he won't tell anyone that it was you two who killed off the genin cells..then we might be in the clear."

"'Might' happens to be the operate word here, I'm noticing." Shinri murmured.

Yoake shot the young genin a look that quite plainly told him where to shove his comments. The yorukage continued, "But….as Shinri points out, there is a chance that he will let the beans spill. If that should happen, our only hope is to frame Konoha again. That was our initial plan, but now that one of Suna's own saw us in the middle of their city, killing genin, its been trampled into the dust."

"What do you suggest, Yorukage?" Makuro asked softly.

Yoake shook her head, "I don't know. I may have to go back to Konoha, and tell the Lord Hokage of these happenings. There is nothing more we can do, and right now the most I can say to you three is..hang around here for the next two days, sleep, do whatever you want. The plan is going to need some major editing right now, but the second stage should remain untouched."

"Chunins are in two days, nothing is changing there?" Sato asked, twining her fingers around her bangs nervously.

"Exactly." Yoake narrowed her eyes, "Like I said-everything goes down the same there."

Makuro gave Sato another one of his looks, and she fixed him with a hollow stare, and snapped, "Alright, Kuro, I know, I mucked everything up. My big head got in the way all that we've been planning, I know, I know. I'm sorry. Are you happy?"

The linen clad ninja gave his head a slight shake, "I don't know, Sato. I just don't know about you."

Sato didn't reply, but hung her head.

"Looks like the princess finally got what's coming to her." Shinri thought grimly. His disdain of Sato only stretched so far. Somewhere deep, deep inside of him was a painfully small part that pitied her. It was small, but it still counted for something.

However, that small part in him was twisted as well. A plan hatched in his crafty serpents mind at that moment, a plan so wicked and simple that he couldn't' believe it took so long for him to come up with it. For two seconds he stood there in that dark clearing, hardly daring to believe he was thinking what he was thinking. His heart was thumping in his chest with the beautiful simplicity of it. Dare he?

Yoake nodded at them once, and leaped up and away into the night, on her way to the leaf village while there was still night to cover her. Shinri decided to risk it, and took two steps to Sato's side.

With Makuro's suspicious gaze on his back, Shinri bent his head in close to her's and whispered a handful of choice words, cupping his hand carefully in order to make sure Makruo could not hear what he was saying.

"Shinri, what are you up to now?" Makuro said sharply, swiftly intervening. Shinri cursed inwardly, and stepped back.

"That Seiroyuki could sense the malice in me, sure as day.' Shinri thought, trying hard to keep his features stone, though he knew it was useless. Makuro could not only sense chakra, he could differentiate the amounts of chi being exerted as emotions. Shinri glanced swiftly at the young Tasogare. The look on her face told him all he needed to know-the blow was dealt, and now all he had to do was sit back and watch the dominos fall.

"It's alright, Kuro. For once he wasn't saying complete crap." Sato crossed her arms across her chest, and grinned ruefully, a shadow of her old self. "It's nothing, anyways." Here she leaned her head back and gave a great yawn, "WOOO!!!! I'm going to bed, see you all in the morning."

With that, the girl left the clearing, no doubt bound for the Tasogare manor that had belonged to her family. It was a sprawling estate, though nowhere near the size of some of the mansions in Konoha, or any other developed village. Makuro watched her go off into the night, one foot steadily in front of the other before she totally melted into the darkness, not once looking back.

All at once, he turned on Shinri.

"What did you say to her, Shinri? Make no mistake, I know it was no common pleasantry. You might think Sato a fool, but you won't pull the wool over my eyes."

"Calm down, Makuro." Shinri waved away his fellow cell member with a graceful hand, "Ask her if you really feel you must. Like she said…it was nothing."

Makuro's fists were clenched, and his face behind the cloth was set.

"Shinri, you're more slippery than I care to handle. I'm watching you….Good night."

Makuro backed out of the clearing, carefully facing the snake ninja the entire way so as to protect his back

Shinri would have given himself a pat on the back, but refrained. He wanted a good nights sleep, and his self-celebration might take up the remainder of the night. Better to wait once everything came together.