A/N: ... WAAAHHH!! *grabs PandaGirl105 and JediGoat and gives them death hugs* I'M SO SORRY, EVERYBODY!

Life has just...not been very nice lately. The virus my computer got was the least of my worries this week, to say the least. But for now I don't have access to dA, and barely any to this site. I know nobody's been waiting with baited breath or anything, but I'm sorry to have unsurped everyone's joy of getting another review or beta imput. Sumimasen ka?

Ah, and as for 'Currents'- the second installation of the Team 14 series- I had a bit of affliction about some of the violence and rewrote nearly the entire thing...two weeks ago. Toned it down a bit, but it's still good, trust me!

Fingers boring into the flesh over her mouth, Suzuki wandered into the deep lavender that stretched endlessly before. She could feel her heart in her shoes, her spirit in her mouth, trying to explode out and reach for something.

She stopped just short of the tiled-roof overhang, and nestled down against the clay on her bare knees. Waiting.

----

She said yes, and it wasn't at all real. They made plans, they stared into each other's faces dumbly, and none of it was real to her.

It would, unfortunately, become the unforgiving reality which the ones Tenten had formerly called friends would strike and sink to bottomless places upon, like unsuspecting ships.

----

Some time later, because it didn't seem to exist but in the passage from live leaves to dead mulch, Kabuto came sauntering back into town. And Hirako was waiting for him at the gate, somehow defying the presence of the paranoid but sleep-lulled guards they knew suspected not a thing. The light sang off the concealing, satanic orbs that shaded his eyes, and Hirako remembers having a flash of how truly, truly evil this man was.

Uncrossing his good arm, the little Kaguya walked as purposefully as someone with as few years and as much sorrow as he had known could. He never stopped staring into the expressionless void which yawned in the mouths of predators, where Kabuto's eyes were supposed to be.

He accepted the washizuki that the gloved hell-maid held before him, and tucked it stiffly into the broad pocket of his navy-blue shirt, nothing in his chest but an unfeeling, still fist of stone.

"Destroy him," Kabuto reminded him with a smile. "It's the only way I'll let Kimimarou live."

----

Vision field, scant- plains, endless. What could go wrong: everything.

But Neji stood beside them either way, wondering if he went for Naruto, for Sasuke, or pathetic, pitiable sheen in Sakura's tearful and unseeing eyes.

The Sasuke Retrieval Squad, only so long after their baptism by fire in the Exams, were charging out to find what rocks and forms darkness hid beneath; the ones who were made of things they could never imagine, in the full knowledge that they might die. Die. Cease to exist, suffer pain unlike they had ever experienced before, and lose- fall. Never rise again.

Never. Again.

As Naruto led them, chakra screaming from the small sandal prints they left in the huge world, Neji smirked; nah, it was all for himself.

----

Suzuki was the one who found the lump of dirtied linens beneath the hospital blankets masquerading as her friend; she had been half-certain that it was going to happen, and as Gai had a panic attack in front of Tsunade over the sake bottle Lee had accidentally taken with him, the tow-headed girl just stood in her usual way, staring in her usual way.

But her chest felt anything but the same as it had. There was a pathetic little warbling, a bleeding bleating, and only two things floating in her head:

Gai waved her down, much to hers and Lee's surprise. Suzuki hadn't had the slightest idea of how to enter the moment, as badly as she sensed she needed to, and Lee was horrified that anyone had seen him weeping and doubting himself. She alighted from the tiled roof of the terrace, where they had nearly not heard her quiet feet, and the two teens stared at each other for the longest time; Lee sniffled several times. His eyes were swollen and honest in a way that made her stomach ache; but she knew her own shone with some strange new recognition, making her look just as foolish. They just looked at each other, through each other; then she had put an arm carefully around his waist, and buried her face and her trust in his thin swallow-chest. Gai proceeded to pick them both up as though they weighed no less than chopsticks, sandwiching Lee in a complete embrace of people who would die without him. The infernal three of them had found something very important, he knew.

And:

From another vantage point, she saw the thick tears in Sakura's eyes; she heard her begging, pleading to Naruto and heaven that her dear Sasuke-kun could be brought home. This was no retrieval, Suzuki knew- it was a rescue, a mission to liberate Sasuke from himself. Not knowing the special strands which ran between the whiskered child and that fay, trying girl, she had kept a careful distance. Naruto would give, and he might end up giving everything for this girl whom he so passionately cared for.

And she saw, in his jaw set and his gaunt face, that Lee was no different. They had that same fervor, that same fever burning in their faces: a desire to shield her which was nearly overpowering in it's expression. Lee and Naruto loved Sakura- not by the foolish guidelines of pubescent affection, but in a valve of themselves that Suzuki had tried to shut down. Whether they had feet to walk on or not, they were going into the field for her, for what she wanted enough to weep for; it was without question or reticence in their minds, stunning and beautiful and confounding in it's simplicity.

They were willing to give everything for her. And suddenly, Suzuki realized that she was finally, sparklingly ready to do the same.

These events having transpired, Suzuki flew out the double doors of the hospital to repay all the people who had loved her the same.

----

A quartet of shadows, they had bounded through the clandestine trees with no misgivings towards fear.

Hirako had covered the rear, his brown tassels flying and his pulse in his ears; the butterflies in his stomach were molting from their cocoons, and beating against his entrails with their new, papery wings. He wondered what Kimimaro looked like, if he would be worth all the things he had paid down for this opportunity. It all seemed too much for one child older than his years; he was finally, finally going to locate the brother he had lost so long ago; he was going to see how lost they truly were from another.

Tenten, in the middle as ever, had kept her eyes focused on the curve of their leader's neck to keep from bailing back out and running home. The sheer shock of departing had her by the throat; her every footfall seemed to weigh heavily, like stones marking the tallies of a debt she could never repay. She was never coming back- the more she told herself, the sicker she got of the whole idea. So she just watched, kept moving mechanically and followed in his footprints once more.

And Ryuuichi, as untypifiedly expressive and mysterious as we have thus known him to be, flew along with gleeful thoughts of the other Genin who was following him, albeit for different implications than the two immediately behind him

"They took off in this direction." Ryuuichi called to the young boy when they had to slow for the sheer overgrowth which consumed the untamed halves of the endless scape of trees.

"They have unique chakra signatures. You'll be able to trail them from here," he finished- and promptly dropped through the leaf canopy and from Hirako's life, Tenten in tow- at least for now.

Standing in the midst of a situation and a landscape a thousand times larger than he could imagine, Hirako began trailing the Sound Four- having come all the way from nothing, having found nothing, and ultimately chasing what would turn out to be nothing but trouble.

----

Ryuuichi dropped right in front of his face, so close that he could taste the beads of sweat that flew from Kazeki's lip when the blade met the soft give of his throat.

He was surprised that Kazeki had been able to dodge that quickly, and that his neck was tensed against the kunai at his neck; so taut that a dribble of blood escaped the topmost skin and siddled down, down, and struck the ground. It was the first drop to be shed, and hardly the last.

----

"Dog," he hissed, brown eyes glimmering with animal glee. His lips were an atom's caress from Kazeki's ear lobe, as though he were about to bite the flesh off. "Little puppy, Kazeki, still following at my heels and hoping for a biscuit!"

Ryuuichi lifted soundlessly to a nearby branch, which shook beneath his weight; they were in a dead part of the forest now, where, ominously, no life rang. Only butterflies hovered in and out of the dead, grasping branches, in great clouds of black and orange; if they were lost or mere spectators, their eye-patterned wings would hardly reveal.

Kazeki tried to make his own gaze as unspeaking. He simply glanced at the massive gap of space between the two of them, at the lecherous fall they could take at any moment, and how secure Ryuuichi still seemed. He was right at home, wherever he was; as long as he could smell death.

The quiet was shattered as the boy unsheathed, from his back, the mantle of a thick sword and flung it tempestuously over his shoulder. From her vantage point, Tenten gaped. It was the same blade that had separated her from the murderous Sound Shinobi back in the Forest of Death- only it suddenly seemed much less protective, very much like it's holder, and a lot more chilling to see bared. Placing her hands softly against the silent forest bodies at her side, the one with permanent bunhead narrowed her eyes and crouched close to the comforting smell of bark and decay. Kazeki spotted her, though, and called across the divide to her:

"Tenten, what the hell are you-"

His voice was cut abruptly off by the gale-force impact of the sword's guard striking his gut; Ryuuichi hadn't even used the blade. The gray-haired teen folded like a old bedsheet, and tumbled a good story before regaining his footing, this time on a lower, living limb of the towering oak. Ryuuichi had hustled down, leaping safely from dank limb to limb until Kazeki finally settled; his face had not yet altered from it's permanent, almost crocodilian smile.

"You're in the wrong yard, chibi." he shouted into the thick gray air, voice emanating upwards. "I didn't off you before, but if you keep stalking me like this, I might just change my mind."

From Kazeki's chest growled a cry, primal as the sun that had shone on their fathers: "Ryuuichi!" he shrieked, renting the sky.

"Yep, that's my name. Don't wear it out." the dark-haired Nuke-nin advised smilingly.

"Fuck you!" Kazeki shouted with a ferocity that actually rendered him fearful, flinging off the whole of the universe in the statement. "You're not leaving here alive!"

"Think so, huh?" Ryuuichi crowed back. The resound of his blade meeting the stiff, living tree trunk echoed as if through canyons, causing Tenten to startle. She couldn't see at all what was going on, only hear their garbled intimidations curling up through the midafternoon mist.

"Last I recall, you couldn't even draw a kunai without stabbing yourself!" sang down to where Kazeki stood, feet apart in expectation.

Small sounds teased from above; he dodged, fleeing higher into the tree canopy. The specter of Ryuuichi bounded easily along after him, stopping when he stopped, but not needing to desperately catch his breath as Kazeki did.

"Little Brother Kazeki, piddling after me in the Academy." came from an entirely different direction than he expected; Kazeki stood his ground, listened for the minute whistle of Ryuuichi skipping over the skeletons of branches.

"Goddamn fricking famous Kazeki, falling down on missions, catching frogs and dreaming when he should have been training. So entitled!"

The kick appeared from blank air, and Kazeki's short-shorn hair scraped the bottom of Ryuuichi's steel-bottomed sandal when he dove to avoid it. His opponent vanishing, Ryuuichi stood and guffawed.

"Where's your big bad daddy to save you, now? Fucking kind of me to kill your teacher instead of him, huh? Especially because he RAN AWAY-"

"Shut up."

The ground shattered around Ryuuichi's feet, tendrils of air tearing like razored fingers across the boy's homely traveling cloak. Two-stepping expertly, the spiky-haired child avoided the other barreling, limbs of the Fuuton technique with more expertise; left, right, and back into the danger zone nearly on his back to allow the blast to slip harmlessly past.

Arm blades smoking, Kazeki stood with a fist raised to his old, old friend when the heady mist cleared, short jacket billowing against his heaving chest.

"Your sins are yours to atone for, as are mine." he said quietly, never abating. "At least I would never use my father as an excuse to do what you did."

---

Whoever heard of a battle breaking just so one party could consume his medicine? Lee got his wish, though, and was rip-roaring wasted before you could say 'bottoms up'. Kaguya Kimimaro was holding his ground, watching Lee become more and more… um, volatile. And tipsy.

Lee's head, suddenly too heavy for his neck, fell ground wards and plunked loudly against the earth; dipping and weaving, though, the boy whipped himself back up into a standing position.

"Heyy… Whattya think yer doing in my field!?" he suddenly screamed, stabbing his finger in the general direction of Kimimaro's left flank.

Katana extended, Hirako sidled towards the pair with hesitance and fear; he met Kimimaro's gaze once, twice, and then turned towards Lee and clutched the braided hilt with both hands in a defensive position.

"Kimimaro, what happened to the other kid that was here?" the young boy asked.

"… Hirako." the elder Kaguya simply responded, his face altering not one iota.

"Lord Orochimaru told me I have to kill that kid!" he shouted, waving the blade at the menacing, stumbling form of Lee. "Where'd Uzumaki Naruto go!?"

"I BEFORE E!" Lee shouted back.

"He is pursuing Lord Sasuke." the white-haired teen said succinctly. "He went towards the Valley of End. Go. Now."

Hirako cast a troubled glance over his shoulder, towards the albino apparition he had seen in the shadows of cages. Kimimaro, his brother, the demon in the box he was told never to speak to-

"Kimimaro-kun…" he pleaded, brown eyes narrowing with welling sympathy. "I wanted to-"

"I know what you wanted." came the instantaneous reply. "I knew you, Hirako. Now finish Orochimaru-sama's orders. I will wait for you here."

With a nod, the young boy sprinted off into the trees; having inclined his head to follow the progress of his sibling, Kimimaro stiffly turned back to face Lee. The addressed was discerning that his wrist could flick back and forth, and was observing this phenomenon with such intensity that drool escaped the side of his cherub mouth.

"You have a very lovely daughter," Lee hiccuped. "Very lovely."

"Now, I'll be finished with you-"

"You dunno…zicxdeen- uh, SIXTEEN FLUID OUNCES!" Lee responded, slurping up his drool and plunging towards the bone-manipulator. Limbs and bone blades crossed in heart-stoppingly close quarters, evasions following counter taijutsu much faster than Lee had known they could be. The pair were matched for speed, but the brute rage and unpredictable movements of the Konoha-nin tipped scales to his advantage; Lee could not be clocked, as limb after limb contorted wildly and drove Kimimaro to a locked, blocking position, even when Lee was reducing to standing on his hands and kicking wildly at his opponent. It was all Kimimaro could do to evade, until a sliver of a moment appeared.

"Tsubaki no Mai!" Kimi cried, and plunged his blade forward with a new burst of speed. The flights of Lee's lanky body were infeasible to the sober Shinobi; there was simply no way to land a hit.

Luckily, there was a better alternative.

When Lee flipped backwards for a breath, Kimimaro tripped the wire snare that had been lain beneath his feet; as Suzuki's weapons slung across his chest in an 'x', the Otonin gave a savage shout and whirled, twisting the ropes against his bone blade; the result of this forceful step was Suzuki being dragged from her hiding place in the randy grass. Quickly gathering her feet, the girl wrestled to a reclined stance and threw her weight against the bond to the unshakable Kimimaro. She was grunting, searching for an opportunity to gain the upper hand and ensnare the vulnerable target- but Kimimaro held fast to the thin wires, so thin as to draw blood at his fingers, and waited for exhaustion; when Suzuki's grasp weakened, almost imperceptively, Kimimaro rose and flicked the weapons from her waxen fingers; within the blink of an eye netted the girl by her right arm, with a mere twist of the wrist. He now yanked the plastic stripe roughly between then, sending her careening into the air; she hit the ground hard, face-first, and rolled to a pause at Kimimaro's feet.

As the dust settled, Kimimaro faced the half-conscious Lee with triumphant posture.

"Will you still attack, with your comrade at my mercy?" he asked.

AN: Don't worry, it's not going to get stupid or anything- Suzuki gets hers. Why must I be so cruel to my own characters, I wonder?...