Please pardon my INEXCUSABLE DELAY. And thank you again to you reviewers, without whom I probably would have taken a fair bit longer. I thank you so much- that we shall now fight with knives.

Disclaimer: Gen, Shu, Hourai, Hourai's minions, and Haruko are the work of my imagination. Other characters (like, mebbe, Ino and Kimimaro) are pwnd by Kishimoto Masashi. If you wanna argue about that, I'm afraid- nay, TERRIFIED that I shall be forced to bite your face off.

Gen Nerai sat behind the counter of his shop, fanning himself. It wasn't a hot day but Gen was the larger sort of man, who tend to sweat at all times regardless of air temperature.

Living and working in a one-horse town like this gave you plenty of time to sit and think. His neighbour, Shu, was expecting piglets soon. No change since last week, but it was only a matter of time.

His shop was the best, and therefore only tailor in the area. People came to him for clothes. And shoes. He claimed to be able to make any kind of clothing, which was fine, since the local folks didn't go for anything too fancy most of the time.

Gen sighed heavily and waved the fan at the counter, sending a few specs of dust sailing through the air. And then, someone he didn't expect to see walked in. True enough, he never expected to see Kimimaro about. Quiet lad, kept to himself. Never got drunk and caused trouble like the other youngsters. Good customer too. Liked to keep himself looking snappy, he guessed. Always paid up-front, proper like.

'Ah, Kimimaro-kun' he said, raising himself to his feet to greet his favourite customer. 'How are you? Taking care of yourself, I hope. It's been a while, come in, have some tea.'

'Another day. I'm in a hurry.'

'You should have thought about that before you came here, then. Eh? You expected to come see ol' Gen and not have him talk your ears off?'

Kimimaro sighed. 'Alright. I apologise.' Resigned to his fate, he joined Gen at a small table deeper into the shop, in amongst the piles of cloth and racks of coats and set down his bags carefully.

'Nah, don't sweat it. I recon I can guess what's eating you,' Gen said sagely, pouring cups of tea with one hand and fanning himself vigorously with the other. He must have had a pot on hand just in case somebody came by. Kimimaro sipped his tea. It was…unremarkable. Not bad, but not masterfully made either. The flavour was good, though.

'Now then, Haruko hasn't been bothering you again, has she?'

Kimimaro sipped his tea again.

'On the money, eh? It might help if you…you know…talked to her.'

'…'

'Yeah, not your style, I guess.' Gen always enjoyed talking to Kimimaro, even if he did tend to carry out the whole conversation by himself. 'Anyhow, something seems a little different than usual today,' he said, eyeing off Kimimaro's shopping. There was a lot of it. 'What were you after? More shirts and pants? I have some done up for you already.'

'Oh…' Kimimaro seemed thoughtful for a moment. Gen liked to have a few sets ready, so Kimimaro could purchase them at his leisure, seeing as how he went through the damn things like an axe through firewood. Didn't seem like that was why he dropped by, though. '…I'll take some of them as well.'

'You were after something different?' Gen treated him to a particularly suspicious eyeballing.

'Yes.' Kimimaro rose and collected one of the bags he had been carrying. Without explaining any further, he handed it to Gen. He didn't quite get it, but took the bag anyway, and looked inside.

To his not-very great surprise, it was full of clothing. But a few glaring details jumped out at him at a glance from his experienced eye. 1) They were not white- Kimimaro's preferred colour. 2) They were muddy and, unless he was greatly mistaken, bloodstained. Gen looked back to his customer and set down his fan carefully.

'Is there something I need to know about?'

'No.'

'Hrmm…' he fished out what at some stage might have been considered an article of clothing, and gave it a looking-at. It was purple, a pretty nice shade of it too, and had a decidedly… feminine shape about it. But it also sported nasty gashes, with dark stains around them emphasising how nasty they must have been to their occupant. 'Are you absolutely sure this isn't going to land me in any trouble?'

'Fairly sure.'

'Eeeegghhhh- okay. What exactly do you want?'

'Clothes of the same size.'

Gen looked back at the garment, his face glistening with sweat. 'I take it you're not going to be wearing them?'

'No.'

'…Anybody I know?'

'No.'

Gen may not have been the smartest man in the world, but he had a head on his shoulders, and was a little better than most at that psyco-whatsit stuff. His mother, rest her soul, had always said he was naturally talented. Probably why he understood Kimimaro so well. And the information he had compiled about the situation so far was as follows;

Slim, female, acquainted solely with Kimimaro (if Gen didn't know her, neither did anyone else in town), between the ages of sixteen and nineteen.
Situation: not-so-good, Health: also not-so-good if the clothes were any hint.
Most likely not local, and not a topic of idle conversation. Conclusion: best handle with care.

'I take it you'd appreciate it if I stopped asking questions?'

'I would.'

'And that I should probably keep this between the two of us?'

'I'd like that.'

Gen threw his hands up in defeat. 'Okay, fine. I'll see if I have anything of the right size. And you tell me all about it when this thing blows over, yeah?'

'We'll see.'

Ino wafted around the room, bed sheets tied around her, under her arms. By sitting up in bed, and gradually trying to stand up, she had managed to reduce the adverse effects of being vertical. She just had a headache now, but it was nowhere near as bad as it had been a few hours ago. She probably should have been resting, but she had an odd feeling that it was best to move around a little.

She bumped off a wall airily, almost falling over. She managed to break her fall with a handy chair, but it still hit home how weak she was. Her head was foggy from the headache, and she felt light-headed as well. She tried to remember why it had seemed like a good idea to get up again, but found it hard to focus her mind. She couldn't remember too well.

She tried to put strength into her arms and lift herself up. Her elbows waggled in the air rather than straighten. Strength had fled her again. God this was pathetic. It was almost comical- her; strong, fast, deadly shinobi- too weak to stand up.

'Haha…hahuhuh…' the chair was uncomfortable. It had corners and edges, things not meant to be pressed into someone's body. 'Huahahaha…' what the hell was she doing here? 'Hahahaha…what is this?' why did she deserve this? 'Ahahahaha! Why did this have to happen to me?' why was she laughing so hard when there were tears streaming down her face?

Hourai. He'd been deceiving everyone from the beginning. If she ever found him, she'd tear out his throat, open his stomach, sever his spine, cut off his fingers- anything that would make him suffer and make him die a slow and painful death.

The rage fled her as soon as it had come, leaving her with only her tears. Since it didn't seem funny anymore either. Everything came out, all at once. All her gripes, old wounds, her injured pride and body- all of it. She couldn't remember having cried that much for a long time.

It was well into the afternoon when Kimimaro made his way back through the trees to his home, laden with many bags. Gen had chosen not to give him any advice on which clothes to buy for the woman, so (after much deliberation) he had chosen an outfit which was modest, but fetching at the same time (he hoped so, anyway). A blouse and a skirt. Gen had also thoughtfully included underwear.

Upon entering, he saw the woman was in the main room again, slumped over a chair. If she kept wandering around like this, he was going to have to tie her to the bed every time he went somewhere. He set his bags aside and checked to see if any of her injuries had opened again. None had, but two from earlier hadn't closed yet, and the shoulder was still being stubborn. As he checked, the woman stirred but didn't wake. The fact that she was using his bed sheets as some kind of dress did not go unnoticed, but he already had a solution to that.

With as much grace as possible, he hauled her upright and swept her off her feet. This did wake her, and she stared up at him blearily. Kimimaro noticed that her eyes seemed irritated and bloodshot. She must have been crying. He wasn't sure what she had been crying about, but her face held a certain amount of confusion and self-pity mixed with drowsiness.

Saying nothing and drawing no comment in response, Kimimaro carried her back to the bed. She didn't even resist when he took the sheet off and tucked her back into bed. She was being awfully cooperative. He brushed a few strands of hair away from her face. After realising what he was doing, the woman favoured him with a smile. It took him off guard, and he hesitated a moment before withdrawing his hand. She took this as her queue to clear her throat and give voice to something that had, apparently, been a subject of interest for some time.

'I…still don't know your name…'

'…Kimimaro Kaguya.'

'Yamanaka Ino… that's my name,' she added, unnecessarily. Her name seemed…uniquely unsuited to her, in Kimimaro's opinion. A boar in the mountains? Given what had happened these last few days, she seemed more like a delicate flower. The idea of a blonde-haired boar making a ruckus made him smile, just a little.

She didn't seem to notice, however, and quickly drifted off to sleep once more, murmuring his name to try and commit it to memory. Kimimaro remained seated, watching her sleeping form for some time. He took in, not for the first time, her tear-streaked but otherwise peaceful face, he curves of her body under the sheets, the gentle rise and fall of her chest…

He had some trouble breaking out of his revere. More than he was comfortable with.

A dark figure darted silently from tree to tree, going from branch to branch. It was followed by three, similarly silent and dark figures, moving in a similar fashion. They were doggedly following a trail of footfalls, damaged branches and scored bark to reacquire their quarry.

The apparent leader of their group stopped suddenly, a hint of white catching his eye, and waved the rest of his squad to a halt. He jumped lightly to the ground and approached what resolved to be the broken remains of a porcelain mask. He glanced up.

There was a corpse impaled on the tree, its feet dangling just above head-height like a macabre puppet. There was no question of it being a corpse or not. The living didn't have that much blood outside their bodies. With another flick of the leader's wrist, one of his squad jogged forward and began climbing the tree like a spider, sticking to it with his hands and feet in a way that a normal person would think impossible but was second-nature to shinobi.

Another hand gesture sent the last two of his squad scampering away through the trees, back on the trail. As the one climbing the tree went about the grim business of freeing the corpse, the squad leader knelt down and picked up the largest piece of the broken ANBU mask. Its surface was clean, unlike the trunk of the tree directly below the corpse. The recent rain had washed the mask, and the earth, clear of bloodstains. It had also erased all tracks on the ground, where the trail of destruction continued.

By the time the corpse had been secured, the two who had continued on returned, bearing bad news. They couldn't find the woman. The squad leader scowled. He had been afraid of that.

'We need to talk to Hourai,' said the corpse collector levelly, rifling through the deceased ANBU's clothes.

'Yes. We do.'

Next chapter will be better. I'm slightly disappointed by this one, myself. I will try harder.