TWICE IN ONE DAY?!

OH SHIT, SON!!

"I don't have time for you right now..." Kankurou said, making Dokuneko finally remove its tail from Zen's neck. The black-haired man wasn't dead yet, but there was no way he was getting back up.

"Oh, don't you?" Anko said, fists clenched in rage. "What happened to you, huh? What happened to all those times when I was training you-?"

"Hah," Kankurou breathed, feeling a coughing fit coming on, but holding it in, "You're a bitch, Anko, nothing to it. And to think, when I was younger, I had a crush on you..."

"What? Wait, what kind of a situation is this to bring that up?!"

"Remember the poems I wrote? How sweet I must have sounded. How pathetic. I suppose you laughed at me then." His eyes narrowed. Her response would determine his next move...

"No, no I didn't! I didn't laugh, you fuck!"

"Liar," he seethed. He moved his hand, slightly. Dokuneko's back split open vertically, revealing an eerily coffin-shaped compartment. "I don't take kindly to people who lie."

A scream erupted from the forest. "What?!" Anko cried.

"Are you that surprised? Yasuo is probably taking out the rest of your team right now-" A second scream erupted. A male one. "...Baka..." He muttered. Suddenly, Anko charged.

"I'll make you go home!" His eyes widened, but not in shock.

"There!" He yelled, catching her ankle with a thin chakra string. He tossed her, casually, into the back compartment. It slammed shut. He finally let out the cough, eventually falling to the ground and clutching his stomach. Zen groaned and attempted to move. Kankurou kicked him in the face, and he stopped. "Right, now I need to rescue that blue dumbass..." he stood up and leapt towards the center of the forest.

----

"All right, Rutomi. Let's destroy this guy..." Hisoki said, as the summon emerged from the clearing. It easily cleared twenty feet in height. It rose to its back legs...

"Your summon... is a tanuki...?" Yasuo said, starting to giggle again.

"Oh ho ho ho..." Rutomi said, clicking its head back and forth. "He's a skinny fellow, ain't he? And that cloak. My my. Let me see now. Name, Foshin Yasuo... Blood type O, past affiliation, Team 14, Amagakure; Team Ichiro, Amagakure... Current affiliation... Akatsuki. Interaction with known criminals... Kankurou of the Sand; Uchiha Itachi, formerly of Konoha... Some more guys of that nature... Uchiha Sasuke, formerly of Konoha... hmm, that's odd..."

"What?" Hisoki asked, ears perking up at the mention of Sasuke. Yasuo was standing below them still, looking dumbfounded.

"He's had dealings with pretty much every shady character in the book. Momochi Zabuza... Orochimaru... well, he can't have been more than thirteen when all that happened." The raccoon dog peered down at Yasuo.

"Interesting. Well, we'll need to report all that to Anko. All right, Rutomi... Go for it."

"Itadakimasu." The tanuki licked his enormous chops. Yasuo screamed again as Rutomi swooped down on him...

"Get out of the way, shit-for-brains!" Kankurou yelled, shoving him out of the way of Rutomi's sharp teeth. They caught his arm. "Augh!" He cried, blood streaming from the wound. Hisoki hesitated.

"If he was back there... Where's Anko... Where's Zen?!" Kankurou chucked and started hacking again.

"If you want to go look for them... I left them back there, at the start of the forest..." he coughed some more, "It's too late for the boy, but..." he chuckled.

"...Rutomi, take care of them!" Hisoki leapt off of the tanuki and charged back into the forest.

"Oh ho ho ho... More for me. I was feeling a little hungry." Rutomi's eyes narrowed.

"Yasuo, put your eyes back in your skull." Yasuo nodded, clasped his hands together, and blinked. His eyes were back, and no longer bleeding.

"Let's check you out before I eat, hmmm...?" Rutomi bent down towards Kankurou. "Name, Kankurou of the Sand... Blood type O, past affiliation, Team Baki, Sunagakure; Numerous special teams of both Sand and Leaf collaborations... Current affiliation, Akatsuki. Interaction with known criminals... Foshin Yasuo; Uchiha Itachi and company; Sakon and Ukon of the Sound... Oh, but you fought them, didn't you?"

"Yeah. I killed them." Kankurou smiled, remembering the look on Inuzuka's face when he saved him. They had talked several times, gone out drinking a few years ago... Was Kiba his friend? He shook his head to clear it. No time to be thinking about that. He needed to focus. How could he beat this... thing? "You're going to eat us, right? That's what you're planning?"

"Right as rain. My my. You do look tasty." He swayed back and forth.

"...Is that your only interest in us?"

"...Hm, I suppose that's true. If I wasn't gonna chow you down, then I wouldn't look atcha twice." He took a swig from the gigantic sake bottle he was carrying.

"Well, it seems I have no choice." Kankurou swung Dokuneko out in front of Yasuo. "No hard feelings, baka." The whip-sword struck Yasuo in the stomach.

"What-how could you, Kankurou-sama?!" He doubled over. Kankurou then gave himself the same treatment.

"This poison is very deadly. In a matter of hours, we'll both be dead. Now, do we look tasty?"

"Huh. No, I suppose not. Well, I'll just give Hisoki your information then, and be on my way back..." He lumbered off in the direction his master went.

"Oh, stop blubbering, you moron. I have the antidote right here." He administered it to both of them. "That tanuki had better not come back, that was the last of my antidote..."

Muffled screams came from the puppet's back. Kankurou kicked it and the screams soon fell silent.

"To Konoha, then?" Yasuo said, stepping forward, fully recovered from his fear and the poison.

"NOT SO FAST!" They whipped around, but it was too late...