"Alright, we'll stop here and set up a mock camp for the night. As soon as the sun rises, we set out again." Sasuke said calmly, stopping next to a large rock formation that formed a crescent around a small area of flat ground. He adjusted the weight of the still comatose girl off of his shoulder and gently laid her down on the ground.

"Ah, it was about time," Suigetsu said, stretching his arms above his head. He was instantly sucking on his water bottle again.

"You're just lazy...wha? You're drinking again?! What are you, a Kappa?!" Karin bit out, while moving to sit down on a nearby rock to the left of where she'd been standing.

"Why you-"

"Suigetsu." Sasuke said, his even tone clearly conveying exactly what he meant.

"What? Every time she says something bitchy I get chastised for it?!" Suigetsu growled out. Sasuke just sent him a glare which was met by Suigetsu's sigh of defeat.

The group began quietly setting up camp after that. While they didn't have the ability to make hot food (due to lack of wood), they still had cold survival pack meals. Juugo was carefully taking them from one of Sasuke's travel scrolls, while Karin and Suigetsu began laying out the blankets. They didn't have proper sleeping bags, but it worked for the night. When they were finished setting up, the group turned to Sasuke but found he was still sitting next to the comatose girl. She was laid down, but he had positioned her head onto his lap so that she wasn't just thrown on the dirt. He was inspecting her, staring intently before he began to examine her hands, her nails, her ears, eyes and all her other aspects.

"Sasuke? Jugo asked softly.

"She's normal. There's nothing unusual about her, except the fact that her nose and ears were plugged to resist water. I'm not sure how she breathed, if at all...."

What use is she? Why was she such a secret? When will she wake up? The questions kept forming... one thing was for sure, though, they'd have to wait till she awoke to know.

"Sasuke?" Suigetsu asked, but not nearly as soft as Jugo.

"Hn?" Sasuke answered, but didn't look toward him, too lost in thought.

"Why'd we take her anyways? She's kinda a dead weight."

Sasuke's eyes rose up, only to fix a glare on him.

"Are you questioning my reasoning, Suigetsu?"

"Nah, why'd you think something like that?"

"Hn." Sasuke paused and looked back towards the girl. "She was obviously something of great importance and secrecy to Orochimaru. She's something even I, his most trusted, didn't know of. I'm pretty sure we'll be tracked from here on out by hunter-nin and village teams, the most obvious being Leaf. I'd rather we not allow anything so significant to aid them in stopping our mission."

"And you think this chick is that powerful? How would they use her against us?"

"It's all theory, Suigetsu," Jugo responded, "If she can control dimensions, as is suggested by Orochimaru's notes... then perhaps she'd be of some use to our enemies. Why would we leave them that chance? It's plausible that she'll be useful to Sasuke, just like us."

"And if she isn't?" Karin spat out, giving a glare towards where the girl's head rested on Sasuke's lap.

"Then we'll omit her from the picture." Sasuke finished. Karin seemed to sneer at that, while Suigetsu sighed deeply and sipped more water. Jugo stared off towards where the sun was setting.

"Karin, pass out the meals. Suigetsu, a blanket?" Sasuke held out his hand for the blanket while they began eating from the dinners Karin had given out. He gently took the blanket and laid it over the girl, who was still wet and mostly naked save for the thin hospital-like clothes. They'd need to get her suitable travel clothes when they got to the hideout, regardless of her mental and physical state. It was a pain to worry about her undress.

Sasuke had first watch, so soon after the team was finished the meal, he situated himself on a rock higher above the encampment. Looking down to where the team was settling in he realized that Karin and Suigetsu had set up near each other. It was only seconds after noticing this that they began to fight and argue. He could hear Jugo's deep sigh and was tempted to make one of his own. It was going to be a long night...

- - - - -

There was something prodding her side right by her ribs. It wasn't painful, just enough to be noticeable. And annoying. She didn't really want to move her arm, but she moved it anyways.. It lazily slapped the offending object away and the prodding sensation stopped. However, no sooner had her arm pulled back to rest at her side comfortably then the prodding sensation started again, only this time harder. Whatever it was, was in for it.

"God damn it." She muttered sleepily. She gently rolled over onto her stomach as she rubbed her tired, closed eyes. She began a great yawn as her right hand moved toward the general direction of where her alarm clock normally was. If the time was earlier than noon whoever had disturbed her slumber had a painful death in their future.

However, her hand never met the wood of the bedside table. Or the plastic alarm clock. It met something soft. And warm. And covered in cloth.

It took her brain 2 seconds to register the sensation before she shot up and panicked. Her eyes were still blurry from sleep but she could make out the shapes of people and surroundings that didn't look like her room. What the hell? She wondered.

"What the fuck? Where the hell am I?" She bit out. If she'd been kidnapped whoever had stolen her was in for it.

"Well isn't someone cranky. Pff, we picked up a real winner all right. She even gropes in her sleep! " A voice near her left said. It was a man's voice, but it had a sarcastic drawl to it that almost seemed too cocky to be healthy.

"Well, I didn't want her here in the first place, so don't blame me! Hey, get up all ready sleeping beauty. We're not running a bed and breakfast here." Snapped a woman's voice from a distance away. She didn't sound like anyone pleasant to be around.

"You shouldn't have prodded her like that. She looks ill." A deep male voice to right said.

"She's fine. Prodding her helped. See? She's almost completely awa-"

Suddenly she was wet and cold. Someone had taken cold water and thrown it over her.

"Holy SHIT!" She cried out, shaking her hair and wiping the cold water from around her eyes. "What the fuck! I was already awake!"

"Hn." Said a third male voice from right next to her. It was terse, but velvety.

"What the hell, bastard! Get that stick out of your ass and leave me the hell alone! Where the fuck am I? Who the hell are you people?" She yelled back, fully aware of her surroundings now. The man that had dumped the water was walking away to her right, while the man that had been presumably poking her was still next to her.

The man that had poked her was pale and in his mid twenties if his age could be suggested by looks. He had cheery but sinister eyes that were blue but appeared almost purple in the lighting of the early morning sun. His face was cracked into a smirking smile that showed of teeth that had been shaved into points. He was crouched over toward her, his hand and finger still positioned as if he was going to poke her again. But what drew her attention the most was his incredibly blond hair, so platinum it could be mistaken for white.

Sitting next to him was a huge man that was in a hospital like set of clothes. His dark red hair stuck up in odd messy strands from around his face and in the back while his large eyes watched Kate quietly. While his size marked him as a force to be reckoned with his eyes suggested a caring man with gentle tendencies. Perched on his shoulders were multiple birds that chirped and whistled in the morning air.

"Having a nice time staring, sleeping beauty?" Asked the female voice from earlier. Kate quickly turned to take in the woman leaning again a tree. Her asymmetrical bright red hair flowed around her face while large black rimmed glasses framed calculating eyes that looked at Kate coldly. Her lips were drawn into a disinterested pout while her arms were crossed over her chest. She was dressed strangely, but it her clothes reminded Kate of something... something familiar....

It took all of a few seconds for Kate to process the information. These people were dressed as Naruto Cosplay characters...as team Hawk.

Completely disregarding her circumstances she began a low giggle which slowly built up until it was all out hysterical laughter. She was so close to crying from the hilarity of it all... she had been kidnapped, it seemed, by crazy cosplayers. Or was this all a dream? If it was, then she'd definitely eaten something wickedly wrong for her system.

"Oh, sweet Jesus, this is just too good to be true. Seriously, cosplayers? Haha..." She could feel the tears brimming at the tips of her eyelashes and her abs hurt from shaking so hard. As she took a second to wipe her eyes with her palm, she noticed the group was staring at her intently. The Jugo and Sasuke cosplayers were calm, but the other two were gaping at her... which was just as it should be, she thought.

"You have to understand why this is all so funny, right? I mean, who ever heard of being kidnapped by cosplayers?"

"Cosplayers?" The Suigetsu look-a-like mouthed, while the Karin just breathed out a loud "EH?".

"Oh my god," Kate breathed in, her mind freezing for a minute, "You're psychos, aren't you! You think you're really them? Oh my god, this is just like that one CSI episode... oh my god!" She was leaping from one hypothesis to the next, she knew, and each one was more ridiculous... but all of them seemed totally acceptable compared to the silent plea she kept coming up with: please let Narutoverse be real.

The group was still staring down at her as though she was nuts... or maybe a lab specimen... either way it was making the shivers crawl up her back. She grasped the first thought that came to mind and went with it.

"Don't get me wrong you guys! I mean, you guys are great! You've got team Hawk cosplay down pat! I mean, 'Suigetsu' how did you get your teeth like that? Are they real?"

'Suigetsu' looked at her like she was nuts for a second before pulling a duel smirk and glare.

"Of course they're real! My clan has always filed their teeth! It's to intimidate enemies and show our allegience! But most of all, it's to-"

"Eat you with." 'Karin' spat out, her looks towards Kate getting colder and colder by the minute. Perhaps it was because Kate hadn't commented on her cosplay yet?

"Enough." 'Sasuke' bit out. The whole group fell silent and the air seemed to freeze. He walked over and crouched down to where she was sitting (still wet) and stared at her with an intensity she'd never been looked at with before. It wasn't just intimidating, it was down right creepy.

"H-hi?" Kate tried. But the emotionless mask and stare stayed put.

"How do you know our names?"

The question took Kate a moment to process. And in the end, she settled with stating the obvious.

"Um, because you're characters in my favorite manga?"

If there was ever a time of awkward silence and crickets, it was now.

Karin drew in a deep breath. "Manga? What are you lying about?! Sasuke, this girl-"

"Is messed up," Suigetsu finished, "I think being in that tank boggled her brains or something."

"What tank!?" Kate spat out just as quick, cutting Suigetsu short. "What are you talking about?"

"They're mentioning the water filled tank we found you in in Orochimaru's hideout. You don't have any recollection about it?" Jugo asked softly.

And that was when time froze for Kate. She found herself looking around her more closely, whether it was Sasuke's sword or Karin's glasses, or the rock formations. Finally she looked down at her hands and her scantily clad body. What was going on? Was this... real? This called for something important.

Slap!

Kate quickly slapped her palms against her cheeks in an effort to wake herself up from the dream. But nothing happened, save the typical burning sensation that followed the slap of skin on skin. Soon it trickled down to tingling, but still Kate wasn't sure.

"Alright, I'm not psycho. But prove this isn't a dream! Um... Sasuke!" She pointed to him, "If Sasuke were real, he'd be able to do cool stuff that normal people couldn't! He'd be able to do cool ninja stuff.... Um.... do a jutsu!"

He stared at her for a while, calculating (it seemed), and then made a few hand signs. It was so fast Kate could barely follow them. Suddenly there was a soft "sssss" noise like oil in a cooking pan and a cloud of smoke right next to him. And then, there were two of Sasuke. Kate stared, and stared, until she felt her eyes would fall out. Inside her head, a mantra repeated over and over again: It's REAL.

"I-I-...You..." She sat there grasping for something to say she snapped into an upright position and stood, pointing right at Sasuke. "You just made a clone!" She yelped out, and then started jumping up and down.

"It's real! It's real! Really REALLY REAL!" She chanted again and again, until she couldn't breathe. She quickly turned to 'Suigetsu' and took his cheeks into her hands. His eyes were huge and his cheeks were squished into her tight grip. "It's REAL!!!" she squeaked, "The chakra, the ninjas, the battles, the jutsus, the ninjas!"

The scared man in her grip raised his eyebrows. "You said 'ninjas' twice." he said.

"I know!" she said happily. She knew she was grinning like a mad man and acting like a spoiled fan girl, but if there was any occasion for it, it was then.

"You know what this means?" He shook his head 'no'. "It's means, I don't have to go to school anymore. No more drama, no more Nazi mom, no more boring life! I get to run, and do ninja stuff! I get to do everything I've always dreamed of!" She smiled at him so broadly her cheeks hurt and turned to find herself, once again, face to face with black eyes.

"Enough of this," Sasuke spat out, "Who are you and what are you doing? What are you talking about?"

"Oh..." Kate said, her face falling and her mind coming back to "earth", "Um, well... uh... where do I begin? I mean..."

"How about at the beginning?" Jugo suggested quietly from where he sat. He'd seemingly distanced himself from her since she woke up... maybe she'd gone a little overboard...

"Well, I'm Kate," She began. "Aside from that... I'm not really sure what's real and what isn't... I mean, as far as I know..." She paused. There were lots of ways she could think about this. She could have lived her whole life in the "real world" and been sucked into a manga issue... or she could have been transported to this "universe" via magic or a jutsu... or, it was a Matrix getup, where her whole other life was just a facade and she'd spent her whole life as a test tube subject... which by the sound of what the group had mentioned in passing, the whole "tank" thing....maybe that one was the most likely?

"Well... as far as I know, everything I think I know about myself or what happened to me might not be real. Maybe it was a dream I had while I was in that tank thing you were talking about... or maybe it was real and I was transported there? I'm not really sure anymore..." she said quietly, slowly slipping into thought again.

"Hm..." Jugo muttered. The rest of the group was quiet too, lost in thought.

"Well," Jugo began again, "It's obvious you're as unsure about your situation as we are. However, how about we all sit down for breakfast and get situated and then we'll go from there. You can tell us your side of the story, and we'll tell you ours. Deal?"

Kate didn't know what was better, the fact that they were open to possibilities and taking her in, or the fact that she got breakfast. At this point she was incredibly hungry and food (not matter what it was) sounded wonderful.

"Sit. Breakfast is cold. Explain how you know our names and what you're purpose is." Sasuke bit out emotionlessly. It wasn't warm or friendly when it was said like that. But Kate was beginning to learn that's how Sasuke was: terse, to the point. Why put emotion into it if it wasn't necessary? He stood there until she nodded and said,

"Okay."

He almost seemed like he was smiling (although he wasn't), but then he turned away from her and went to sit back down. They all slowly moved back towards the blankets and settled in. When they'd all sat and looked back, Kate realized that she was still standing in the same place, gripping her hands together in a tight knot of agitation and worry. She felt like she was going to cry, or stop breathing from the sheer weight of everything, when Suigetsu started waving and called out,

"Come on already! I've been wanting to eat since before you woke up! But someone wouldn't let me!" He looked at Sasuke pointedly.

Kate couldn't help herself. He looked over to her new acquaintances and smiled. They'd talk it through and maybe somehow, this would all turn out okay after all.

- - - - -

-*-*-*-

Author's notes:

I'm sorry about the lax updates since I began this again. I've had a hectic semester with new medical issues and a lot of stress. It was only today that I realized I hadn't updated in what seemed like forever... I figure I'll do it as stress relief from now on? So I WILL be updating frequently. From now on, I will strive to have a new chapter posted each MONDAY, so please be on the lookout if you are a close follower.

Also, the plot will continue to follow more closely with the old TBN (TrappedByNinjas) as these chapters go on. The most obvious change was chapter one, but I hope you get a feel for why I changed it now... I recently re-watched the Matrix and I figured that perhaps all the stories we read and like are actually the real worlds and this one is just a fake? I'm not sure 100% but I figured it was better than making up some random bad guy with Sharingan like eyes that kidnaps me to Narutoverse like I had planned in TBN... it just seemed... too typical and trite?

Either way, I can't thank you enough for not giving up on me... and I feel like such a bitch for not updating sooner. Please forgive me! -prostrates self-

-GS18