"All done," Sakura muttered to herself as she surveyed the camp with approval. Her scanning eyes stopped on the baby bag that the kind lady had given them earlier. (Kana was her name if Sakura remembered correctly.) She assessed the pastel blue background spotted with skyblue-winged orange ducks with a smile and she recalled a small baby that was supposed to be a 16 year-old teenager. Who, now that she thought about it, was probably starving since he didn't have anything to eat since he got himself into this mess.

"Sai," Sakura called over her shoulder while turning to her own pack to look for a small pan she remembered packing. "Would you bring me that baby bag so I can prepare the milk Kana gave us to feed Naruto with?"

"Okay." Sakura heard Sai respond after a second.

"Speaking of the little brat, where did you put him down Sakura?"

Sakura turned to Yamato and gave him a questioning look. "What do you mean, he's right over there." She turned to point at the base of the tree she'd just left and froze. Naruto was gone.

Sakura stared at the empty space where a small blond baby should have been, "Oh no…."

0o0o0

Great... Sasuke thought as he watched the little blonde toddler franticly crawling around the forest floor. Karin had explained that the thread of chakra extending from his body was connected to that baby. She had also expressed her confusion concerning this fact; apparently it was unheard of to have foreign chakra envelop one's body and connect to a person other than the jutsu's caster. Unfortunately, this situation couldn't be ignored; he had discovered that the hard way.

Even though he was apparently stuck in this undesirable situation, Sasuke could still appreciate the irony of it: Naruto had always been saying how the two of them had an unbreakable bond, and it was looking like he was right. No matter how much Sasuke disliked it, the simple fact remained: he and Naruto were, in effect, tied together.

Sasuke thought back to his conversation with Karin, making sure he hadn't missed something…

Karin was silent as she inspected the unique chakra signatures, "Hmm."

"What is it," Sasuke's voice was more ordering than asking, yet still the calm monotone.

"I think the chakra thread is connected to the jinchuuriki." Since they were not in direct view of the host, she couldn't be absolutely sure. "But the thread's chakra signature is different than his, so he must have been caught in the jutsu too."

Sasuke didn't like her wording: he didn't like to think that he was 'caught' by a jutsu. A jutsu cast by his brother, a jutsu that wasn't even directed at him. "Are you sure?"

She knew what her leader was referring to, "I'm 97% sure of it, the thread connects your body to the jinchuuriki's."

Sasuke sighed inwardly, but showed no emotion on his face or with his posture. He turned and stared in the direction Karin had been inspecting. After a few moments, Sasuke spoke, "Stay here."

"What?" Karin and Suigetsu demanded in unison, they shot each other a glare.

"I'm ordering you to stay here," Sasuke said simply.

"And why is that?" Suigetsu inquired starkly, like a teenager demanding for an explanation.

Sasuke didn't answer him, he simply repeated, "Stay here." And darted away before any other questions could be presented.

"Well that's just great. Now what are we supposed to do?" Sasuke heard Suigetsu complain far behind him.

It hadn't taken long to locate his target. Sasuke was curious to learn more about this strange jutsu, and most importantly a way to counter it. One thing he had learned so far was that darting away and putting distance between himself and the person he was connected to seemed to make him ill; he wondered if even their nervous systems were connected somehow.

A small prowling presence caught his attention, likely some predator. Sasuke simply did nothing, deciding to wait and see what happened next. Maybe he could learn a little more about the jutsu.

He watched as a slight rustling in the underbrush caught the blonde's attention. As the toddler changed direction toward the faint sound, the sharingan user watched, feigning disinterest for no one in particular. Seconds went by as the little boy crawled toward the sound. Sasuke felt the killing-intent the moment before a small, young wolf pounced on the crawling kid.

A scream of pain erupted from the gaki as the wolf cub dug its fangs into flesh. Suddenly, there was pain in Sasuke's arm. His eyes darted to the place where, judging by the intensity of the pain, a wound should have been. There was nothing. The pain continued, pain as if he himself had just been bitten.

Sasuke glanced back toward the blonde gaki and realized that the kid's arm was bleeding. Sighing, Sasuke leaped to the forest floor, grabbed a small rock, and chucked it at the brown wolf cub. The small animal yelped, released the gaki, and darted away.

Sasuke reproached himself. What was he doing here? He needed to be searching for Itachi's trail. The black-haired young man turned away, not bothering to hide himself from anyone. He ignored the pain-stressed excited voice emanating from the blonde behind him. He ignored the curious, ebbing pain in his arm. He ignored the sounds from the Konoha-nin as they approached the gaki's position. He ignored everything as he darted straight in the opposite direction.

0o0o0

Sakura eyed the spot where Naruto had been. She glanced around the camp, panic growing, for any sign of her tiny teammate. He was nowhere to be seen.

"Maybe he wandered off."

Sakura couldn't even think about how obvious Sai's statement was. All she could think about was finding Naruto. "Fan out!" Sakura ordered her teammates, completely forgetting about the chain of command. "He couldn't have gotten far." Her team uttered no questions and showed no hesitation.

"I'll stay at camp," Yamato offered, a slight grin on his face. Everyone nodded their understanding. Sakura was grateful they wouldn't need to waste precious time discussing who would watch camp. Her team darted off to comb the perimeter. Sakura herself decided to search behind the tree she had left Naruto sitting under.

"Naruto! Naruto? Naruto!" Sakura called as she looked behind tree trunks, bushes, and other underbrush for her tiny teammate.

As she rounded a cluster of trees, Sakura thought she could see an orange spot through the trunks several dozen meters away. "Naru―" Sakura pulled up short, eyes widening at the scene in front of her. Naruto was crying out in pain as a young wolf not much larger than Naruto held its jaws around Naruto's arm. Blood splattered the ground.

Sakura couldn't speak, but she was running long before she even realized she could move. Fear plastered itself to her face. Seconds later, Sakura noticed a projectile flying trough the air. The pup yelped, released Naruto and darted off. Still running, Sakura averted her gaze from the toddler to find who had thrown the object.

Sakura's legs suddenly felt like tapioca pudding as she unconsciously slowed; her legs clearly not wanting to hold her weight. She struggled to keep from slumping to the ground. "Sasuke..." She barely breathed.

0o0o0

Naruto crawled through dried leaves, twigs, mulchy underbrush, bushes and dirt. He didn't remember it being this difficult to force his way through the forest before. Then again, there was probably a good reason for that.

A rustling sound in the leaves caught his attention. "Sasuke?" The boy thought as he turned to inspect the noise. Glancing around, trying to locate the source, Naruto crawled towards the noise. Suddenly a dog not much bigger than himself charged at him, managing to sink its teeth into his arm before his body had time to react. Well, before his new body could react. "What the!" The blue-eyed boy cried. "Let go you stupid dog!" Naruto yelled, trying to get the dog off of him.

Suddenly the dog let go with a yelp and ran away. Confused, Naruto glanced around and spotted a dark figure turning away. "Sasuke!" Naruto yelled. He almost couldn't believe his eyes; in less than two days, he had seen Sasuke twice! His friend began running away. "Wait! Sasuke, come back!" Naruto tried to crawl after him, but soon remembered the small holes in his arms. Pain shot through his limb and it buckled under him. "Darn that dog!" The blue-eyed boy cursed as his face hit the dirt. "Wait! Sasuke!"

Sasuke didn't disappear like he normally did; he simply kept running straight. His figure was already appearing smaller in the distance. Naruto started to feel the nausea coming back, but he pushed the sensation away. "Get back here, Teme!"

"Naruto!"

Sakura? Naruto turned to see her jogging towards him. He pushed himself back up and somewhere in the back of his mind he hoped that she wasn't too mad about him getting hurt again. "Sakura, go after him!" Naruto hollered. But all he could hear was the sad crying emanating from his core.

Suddenly, the nausea overpowered him and the blonde started throwing up uncontrollably, collapsing to the ground.

"Naruto!" Sakura cried, coming to his aid.

Naruto up-chucked several times, completely emptying his stomach. He looked up when the dry-heaves slowed, trying to find Sasuke. He knew it was futile; Sasuke would already be gone, but the boy looked anyway.

The blue-eyed baby's eyes widened. There on the forest floor was Sasuke. He seemed to have collapsed. Another series of dry heaves forced Naruto to pry his eyes off of his friend.

"What happened?" A calm voice asked behind Naruto, slightly quite from the distance.

"I'm not sure," Sakura answered automatically. "Naruto was injured by a wolf cub, and both Naruto and Sasuke collapsed at about the same time."

"So that body lying defenseless over there is Sasuke?"

Naruto could feel the harsh stare Sakura was shooting at Sai in spite of the convulsions rolling through his body.

"So, what do we do about it?"

"That's a good question, Yamato," Kakashi said. "Any suggestions?" he asked openly but seriously, not removing his detail-observant eyes away from the collapsed nuke-nin.

Naruto could feel the nausea subsiding. 'Ugh. Ok, whatever the heck that is, it is officially getting on my nerves,' he thought as he attempted to right himself, his stomach drawn in and tight.

"Sakura," Kakashi began. "Take Naruto back to camp." This was obviously an order.

Sakura knew that Kakashi must have some sort of scheme in mind and she didn't think she liked it. Suspicious of what kind of plot would require that Naruto and herself not be present she asked, "You have a plan, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Yes." She waited, but Kakashi said nothing more.

Fear began to build again as Sakura asked, "You're not going to ki—"

"No," Kakashi interrupted her worrying reassuringly. "Now go," he said firmly.

The command, combined with a satisfying answer, snapped Sakura out of it, "Right!" She acknowledged as she scooped up Naruto and began running back towards camp. Hands, already glowing soft green, cupped around his injured arm.

"Hey, wait, what are you doing?" Naruto exclaimed, not wanting to be carried away from Sasuke.

After about five seconds Sakura had carried Naruto about 30 meters, which intensified the boy's ill condition. Naruto couldn't think about anything except not throwing-up on Sakura. She would kill him if he did that. The little blonde clutched Sakura's vest, eyes pinched shut, desperately trying to control his stomach.

0o0o0

Sasuke couldn't move.

His black hair ruffled slightly in the breeze as he laid there on the forest floor doubled-over. His stomach convulsed and heaved in spite of his efforts, but he managed to keep everything contained.

As the tremors began to subside, he went over what he had learned from his experiment: One– Some invisible thread connected him to that gaki; Two– The connection seemed to tie their nervous systems together since when the gaki was bitten he himself also felt the pain; Three– Traveling quickly in the opposite direction seems to cause extreme discomfort and ill effects on the body.

Sasuke felt the nausea slowly creeping away as time passed and his body apparently got used to the sudden distance between the gaki and himself. He was about to raise himself off the ground when he faintly heard the copy-nin call, "Now go." Seconds later, Sasuke was plagued with uncontrollable heaves and his stomach repeatedly expelled its contents.

He wasn't exactly sure what had happened behind him, but he could make a guess. D*** them. He cursed before another set of heaves rolled through him, shutting down his thought process.

After the spasms had slowed, and he could focus on his surroundings, quiet footfalls could be heard on the hard earth. Uhg, great… He tried to get up in order to escape, but every attempt he made at movement set off another series of dry-heaves, paralyzing his other muscles.

Sasuke wasn't sure how much time had passed. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt this sick, but he knew enough of Konoha ninja to remember their caution. He must have been lying there longer than he had calculated.

"What do we do with him?" He heard one of them ask in an almost inaudible tone.

"First we immobilize him," responded an equally quiet voice Sasuke knew well.

Sasuke, however, had no intentions of being 'immobilized' and channeled his chakra to every part of his body that was in direct contact with the ground and gave a mighty shove.

Unfortunately, his senses were so jumbled that he couldn't tell up from down as he tumbled in the air. Spotting a tree branch, Sasuke reached to grab it, but missed and tumbled away, smashing through thin limbs and branches on his way back toward the packed, unforgiving earth beneath him.

"Watch it!" He heard the first voice call out.

Watch it? Watch what? Sasuke's muddled brain tried to figure out the strange exclamation.

"I've got him," a new voice stated somewhat blandly when suddenly Sasuke found himself slamming into a blotch of something black. Immediately after that dozens of slithery black ropes seem to wrap themselves around the Nuke-nin's entire body.

"Nice going, Sai," the first voice praised.

Sasuke faced the three ninja, a simple motion since he was in an upright position. He took note of the black ropes and realized that they were snakes. 'I've seen these before,' he thought with a little effort before giving his utmost attention to the threat in front of him.

"Hmm," the guy with a bland voice, and bland face, began. "For a nuke-nin, he was surprisingly easy to catch."

For some reason, this particular ninja was grating on Sasuke's nerves. He decided to punch the guy's lights out and fought against his bindings to do just that, triggering another fit of dry-heaves.

"Take it easy, Sasuke," his former-sensei soothed, which made him all the more irritated.

Sasuke's strong-will was bombarding him with the desire to fight, but he pushed the feelings back, resigning himself to remain still. He was getting fed up with the bazaar, intense ill-effects on his body, not to mention what they did to his mind. He hated it, hated it more than being immobilized. Closing his eyes, he waited for the intense need to void his stomach to subside.

The Konoha Nin shuffled a bit. "Ok, so now that we have him, what do we do with him?" the man Sasuke had never met asked.

"Now that he is in custody we have to return him to Konoha," Kakashi stated in a you-should-know-this tone of voice.

The un-named ninja made an annoyed sound. "I know that," he declared shortly. "I meant, how are we going to transport him?"

There was a few moments of silence as they deliberated. Sasuke opened his eyes and was now able to get a good look at the new shinobi. He wasn't anything special; just an identifying piece of metal framed his facial features. A face guard? That didn't make much sense since it didn't cover his face. Sasuke's musing was interrupted.

"Let's just get him back to camp for now. We can discuss travel details in the morning."

"Right," Sai and the other one said in unison.

"Sai," Kakashi continued. "Would you make an ink-creature to carry Sasuke?"

"Understood."

Moments later, Sasuke was in a most unfavorable position: sideways between the jaws of a mythical cat with a mane.

Since they were traveling towards the Konoha Nin's camp, and therefore towards the tiny gaki, Sasuke's body was recovering marginally. Sufficient was his returning energy that he felt like scowling at his captors. He tried to move his arms, but they were stuck fast; he couldn't even move his fingers enough to make one-handed signs. This Sai was thorough.

As they walked, Kakashi and Sai headed the group with the mystery-nin guarding Sasuke from the rear and out of sight. He watched as his former sensei gave some instructions to Sai; the raven-haired man strained his hearing but couldn't make out any words. Then Sai gave an almost invisible nod. Not a good sign. Sasuke was sure that whatever they had planned, it likely meant that he'd have no chance of escape considering the copycat ninja and this ANBU-level kid were present. Not to mention the unknown skills of Sasuke's guard, whose name he still didn't know.

Besides, even if he could escape —thanks to this connection between himself and the infant— he wouldn't be able to stray too far from the little brat…

He didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.

It didn't take long to reach the camp. Sasuke surveyed the environment, as he usually did, but stopped when he heard an outright happy scream. He turned toward the sound and found an overly-excited toddler, whose arm was being bandaged courtesy of a duplicate of Mr. Anonymous, cradled in Sakura's arms. Well, 'cradled' wasn't exactly the right word, seeing as how the boy was pushing away from the restraining arms with all his might as he reached towards Sasuke. It seemed to take quite a bit of effort on Sakura's part to keep him from doing a face-plant, while the clone (or the original) did his best to quickly finish tying off the dressing.

"Calm down, Naruto," Sakura was trying to control the gaki before he injured himself further. "Stop it or you're gonna make me drop you." The little orange-and-black clad kid just thrashed all the harder at her words.

Sasuke heard Kakashi sigh openly, "Naruto!"

All heads jerked towards the silver-haired leader; his order for the boy's attention apparently successful.

Kakashi didn't move from where he stood while he addressed the little bundle of energy, "I can see that you are excited to see Sasuke," Sasuke had to stifle the urge to roll his eyes —'understatement of the month Kakashi.' The masked-man continued before Sasuke could realize his mind's little spasm of emotion. "But we need to be efficient in getting the both of you back to Lady Tsunade, got it?"

The gaki, however, didn't get it; for he immediately squawked, fused, and made other obscure sounds. And didn't stop.

Kakashi sighed again.

Sasuke could hear Mr. Incognito back there move It sounded like he put his hands over his ears, which fit with the man's words: "Ugh, not this again…" While the two jounin expressed themselves, Sai remained silent, albeit with no small amount of interest on his face. Sasuke wasn't sure if his recent brush with illness was still affecting his perception, but it appeared to him that Sai, whose half-turned head allowed the pale ninja to keep a watchful eye on their captive, was the only person who remembered their newly caught prisoner at this moment in time.

As if on cue, Sai turned to him and gave a convincing fake smile with eyes to match. "You know, you're the cause of this commotion," he said pleasantly.

Sasuke couldn't keep from showing his reaction. Expressions like surprise, confusion, and 'how-do-I-have-anything-to-do-with-this?' flitted across the nuke-nin's face. Sasuke pushed the emotions away in an attempt to keep them off of his face, but was failing miserably.

A perpetual delighted squeal broke into his self-reproach. He refocused on his surroundings and found the gaki smiling a huge, open-mouth grin and reaching as far as his chubby arms would extend. Reaching for him.

"Kakashi," Sasuke heard the nameless shinobi complain again. "Make him stop. I can't take his whining anymore."

Curiosity began taking over his better judgment and Sasuke risked a glance at the copy-nin. To his dismay, said ninja was looking right at him with a calculating gaze. Sasuke watched as his former sensei looked back at Sakura who was fusing over a wiggly blond baby.

"Sakura," Kakashi said drawing attention to himself. "Bring Naruto over here."

She hesitated for a moment, but her answer came. "Hai," she acknowledged as she started for her sensei.

Sasuke didn't like where this was going. He watched as the small baby in the kunoichi's arms started to reach even harder toward him now that the space between them was slightly smaller. The gaki reached so hard that his wiggling had completely stopped. Sasuke tried to put an indifferent expression on his face, but couldn't be sure if that was actually what his facial features showed. Ever since he'd been sick there was very little that he could control; and it bothered him.

He stared as the kunoichi tentatively approached, much too slowly for the infant's taste. His former best friend reached and grabbed, squirmed and wriggled, and reached some more. It was quite a sight. If Sasuke let himself think about it, because of his limited emotional control, he'd laugh outright; and he refused to do anything of the sort. So he focused on an emotion that he knew well: hate. The young man began to literally glower at the little boy, but that didn't deter the gaki in the least. As a matter of fact, it seemed to have the opposite effect as the blond reached more determinedly.

Sasuke watched as Sakura stopped in front of the masked ninja, the gaki sprawled out in her arms like a baby bird trying to fly for the first time.

The nuke-nin began to worry when he saw Kakashi was taking the excited baby out of Sakura's arms. The feeling of dread came when he saw Kakashi walk past Sakura and face him with an eye-smile that caused an involuntarily shiver, an action he profusely hoped that Kakashi hadn't noticed. Unfortunately, 'noticing actions' was something the copy-nin was famous for.

Sasuke eyed his former sensei as the man walked the short distance between them while placing the small bundle of energy on top of one arm and wrap the other arm around the gaki's chest so that he faced forward. He watched helplessly as the ANBU-level jounin placed the small blond in front of his face. Said blond reached out his hands and grabbed a fistful of black hair, while the other tiny hand latched onto his nose.

Sasuke resisted the urge to squint his eyes shut, but he still couldn't completely repress all of his reactions. He shot the brat a narrow, hot glare, which was promptly met with a gleeful smile and chortling.

He stared, annoyed, and still parallel with the ground, at the boy in front of him, only to discover that his annoyance could triple when he saw the obvious smirk displayed by the single eye directly behind the tiny face.

"So, what do we do now?" a voice broke into Sasuke's awareness.

"We have to get back to Konoha," answered the ninja whose name he still didn't know.

"Before that," Sakura began. "Naruto needs to be fed. He hasn't eaten since this afternoon."

Sasuke noted the twilight in the sky, not an especially long time to go without food. But then again, they weren't talking about the same rambunctious, ramen-inhaling, teenager. This here was an infant.

"That's right," the unnamed jounin interrupted Sasuke's brooding. "Let's get the fire going so you can heat something up." The man sounded excited to get a hot meal.

Sakura acknowledged the suggestion, smiling and quickly darting away, with Mr. Nameless tagging along like a pup. Kakashi, apparently done torturing his ex-student, pulled the gaki off of Sasuke's face and tried heading toward the rest of his team, getting no small amount of protest from his bundle. One form of protest included the gaki keeping a death-grip on Sasuke's hair; though the Uchiha did not cry out when his head was pulled to the side, there were a few choice words raging in his head.

"Naruto," Kakashi reasoned, trying to pry the gaki's fingers loose. "He's coming with us, you can let go." The tiny blonde would not be deterred and tightened his grip. Sasuke was not at all enthused about this whole affair.

Sai on the other hand seemed to be openly enjoying the proceedings. A little too much, Sasuke noted.

Kakashi finally got the gaki free and quickly backpedaled to keep the greedy little hands out of reach of a certain someone's black hair.

Sasuke watched as all but Sai clamored toward the camp site, the gaki expressing his displeasure freely.

He kept his eyes and attention trained on his captors. Sai turned and ask "Shall we?" as they started toward camp, with a prostrate Sasuke in tow.

Sasuke's mind began working nonstop to find a way out of this predicament. He didn't think that it would take too much to break free if he didn't wait too long, but there was a small problem: as soon as he took off, he'd just collapse again like he did earlier. Sasuke considered reasons for the sudden shift in the state of his body. The chakra connection definitely had something to do with it, but Sasuke didn't have the same level of chakra-sensing ability as Karin so he couldn't study his condition as much as he would like.

A sudden thought made him stifle an exasperated sigh. He wasn't looking forward to who he'd be stuck with for further study of this unusual situation. Karin on the other hand was guaranteed to have a different opinion.

About fifteen minutes later, the Konoha team, plus one nuke prisoner, were positioned around the small blazing campfire. Sakura and the brat were situated across the fire from him as the kunoichi attempted to feed her fussy charge with a bottle of milk; Sai was seated close-by on his right and Kakashi over to his left; while the last one, Yamato the others had called him, was busying himself serving the stew that Sakura had conjured.

By this time, Sasuke's senses had sharpened back to normal, which was both good and bad. Good because he hated having his senses dulled by anything; and bad because he could now smell all the mouth-watering elements in the stew. Sasuke hadn't eaten since the day before and he could feel his stomach grumbling at him to relieve it of its empty state. Fortunately, the growling couldn't be heard. Yet. He had trained his body to keep silent, but he wasn't exactly sure what his body would do now that he seemed to be stuck in an oddly-emotional state.

Yamato finished serving his teammates and offered Sasuke a bowl, but the young man was determined to get his blank expressions back so he simply stared ahead until the bowl was removed. His stomach, however, had no such inclination and protested as the hot food was pulled away. His two guards both inclined their heads a little, but made no remark.

Sasuke looked down at his bound figure: the ropes across his chest were tied to his securely bound wrists behind his back; his legs were held with bindings fastened around his ankles and lower thighs, just above his knees; and to complete the prisoner look, his body was tethered to the tree behind him. Not to mention several black ink-snakes slithered around, just for good measure.

Looking up, Sasuke made eye contact with the tiny eyes across the camp fire. Those piercing blue eyes. No hint of anger, free from the weight of revenge. Deep, mesmerizing pools that held Sasuke's attention. They seemed totally out of place on the too-small body.

A feminine voice snapped Sasuke out of his trance. "Naruto, you need to eat," Sakura's voice chided gently. "You don't have as much stamina as you did before." A few winning cries answered the kunoichi, but the chibi never took his eyes off of Sasuke.

What on earth did that crazy kid see in him? He had done so many things to the blonde. He'd walked out; they'd fought each other as enemies; he'd betrayed them. He had done just about everything within his power to break the bonds between them. Yet, here he was, his former friend, still claiming that they had a bond even when reverted to an infant he displayed undeniable interest in Sasuke. He stifled the urge to shake his head. The blonde was crazy; that's all there was to it.

Time passed and darkness fell, but when sleep was suggested, the chibi protested. Loudly. Yamato had expressed something slightly stronger than annoyance only to be subject to teasing from his superior. Eventually, though, the kid fell asleep. He wasn't convinced to sleep so much as exhaustion simply took over. Time passed quietly now, Sasuke watched as the fire slowly died and the embers' glow ebbed.

Yamato took the first watch, followed by Sai. As the moon rose, Sasuke continued to contemplate the bazaar situation he was in.

A rustling close-by roused his attention. Glancing over to the source of the sound, he discovered that Kakashi was relieving Sai's watch. The Konoha nin had decided that Sakura would be solely in charge of the gaki and thus exempt from watch duty, and since ninja from the hidden village of his birth tended to have two-hour watches, Sasuke ventured that dawn would come at the end of this watch. After about fifteen minutes of listening to the sound of sleeping people, Sasuke thought he heard some rustling off behind the tree line to his left. A small movement by Kakashi told him that it was not his imagination.

The copy-nin seemed to decide that he should go and check it out. Getting up from his post in front of a tree adjacent to Sasuke's, the silver-haired man maneuvered silently past Sakura and her charge and knelt next to Yamato's sleeping figure. "Hey, Yamato," Kakashi called faintly, shaking the man's shoulder. Yamato, however, was completely oblivious and groggily muttered something about not needing any sugar cubes. Sasuke was beginning to wonder if this guy was any good as a ninja at all. "Yamato, wake up!" Kakashi said more forcefully, keeping his voice low as to not wake up the rest of his team, and shook the man a little harder.

"Ugh, what?" he asked Kakashi in a muddled tone.

Kakashi wasted no time explaining things. "There's a disturbance just outside of camp, I'm going to check it out."

The sleepy ninja yawned and nodded. "Got it, I'll watch things here."

Kakashi acknowledged the statement and cautiously left to inspect the area.

Yamato sat up and began rubbing his eyes with the heal of one hand, murmuring something about never getting any sleep. Sasuke closed his eyelids to hide the rolling of his eyes; this guy was decidedly pathetic.

Mr. Pathetic had sauntered over to the dying fire and stirred it alive, causing flames to dance in the air once again. Not even a minute later the sound of twigs falling out of the canopy caught both of their attention. The disturbance would not have been cause for alarm if it weren't for the fact that Kakashi had just gone to investigate his own set of sounds. Yamato glanced back at Sasuke and declared seriously, "I'll be right back," as he darted off to inspect the noises.

Yup, this guy was a moron. A complete idiot. Not quite up there with Naruto, but getting close.

Naruto…

Sasuke had been avoiding even the mere thought of that name, but now that he'd accidentally let it through, it was darting from one thought-train to another with many questions trailing behind. However, Sasuke didn't get the chance to ponder them, the sound of fabric being dragged along the ground wormed its way into his awareness. Blinking at the black hair in front of his eyes, Sasuke refocused his attention and glanced up.

'Speak of the devil and he will come to you,' Sasuke thought grudgingly for on the ground just beyond the campfire the gaki was doing his best to haul himself out from under the dragging blanket towards him. The brat was half out of the blue blanket that Sakura had securely wrapped him in, his little hands clutching at the dirt, rocks, and fallen-foliage in order to pull himself around the campfire that separated them. Sasuke was vexed by his own thoughts and immediately shut down all cognitive progression; he had almost thought the scene was cute.

When Sasuke was sure that he could keep his mind under control, he opened his eyes only to reveal that the gaki had managed to leave the blanket behind and was in the process of closing the gap between them.

Sasuke stared blankly. The sounds from the fire were hypnotizing. Sasuke automatically focused in on Naruto, memorizing every aspect: the way Naruto crawled, as if he'd just learned how; the way his clothes fit, as if they were borrowed; the way his expressions changed, rotating between glee, hope, and determination until those emotions seemed to merge on his little face; the way those piercing electric-blue eyes held Sasuke's gaze without fear or anger. The raven-haired man couldn't pry his black eyes away. Not that he tried.

He watched as Naruto determinedly closed the space between them. Once within reach, he put his tiny hands on Sasuke's foot and used it to prop himself up on his knees.

The simple gesture snapped Sasuke out of his trance and he deliberately tucked in his bound legs. With nothing to hold him up, the gaki did a face-plant in the dirt. Humor and concern surged through Sasuke's emotional track.

The little infant pushed himself up on his splayed arms and looked at Sasuke. It was all he could do to keep from bursting out laughing, for the tiny face was completely covered in dirt with a lone leave stuck to the boy's forehead. He expected the baby to brush at his face to clean it, but Naruto had a different plan. Instead, the kid left the dirt and continued crawling toward his friend, his brother.

Sasuke wondered vaguely what he could have done in life to deserve such loyalty from this person.

Naruto put one hand in front of the other in his quest to reach Sasuke. Sasuke, on the other hand, was scooting away as much as his bound body would let him; he had no intention of making it easy on the gaki. Alas, when Sasuke could move no further, Naruto reached him. The little gaki pulled himself up onto Sasuke's legs. The Uchiha glared at this pest who was worming his way towards his torso.

Naruto grabbed Sasuke's shirt with both hands, pressed his face against the cloth, and began rubbing the dirt from his face. Sasuke blinked at the sight in front of him. He couldn't believe his eyes; this—this brat was using his clothes as a washrag!

Sasuke, being unable to move, simply waited for the gaki to finish. When Naruto pulled back, most of the dirt was gone with dark streaks across his cheeks and forehead. Sasuke couldn't withhold his grin any longer and it slipped through his protective veneer, but it was re-masked seconds after it escaped. Naruto looked up, missing the grin that flashed across his features, and stared intently into Sasuke's eyes. After a few seconds, the chibi ninja yawned widely, toppling over backwards in the process yet managing to remain mounted on Sasuke.

Naruto rolled onto his side, pinwheeled until his head faced Sasuke, and scooched closer to his friend's warm body. Once Naruto had maneuvered his small frame to wrap around Sasuke's warm figure, he fell soundly asleep.

Sasuke gawked then recomposed his features, silently chastising himself for being surprised that the boy had fallen asleep so quickly. With Naruto asleep and the watchful eyes temporarily distracted, Sasuke looked at Naruto. Actually looked at him. His charcoal eyes traced over the three identifying lines on both cheeks. The boy's eyes made no motion indicating dreams, his breathing was slowing slightly yet remained quick. His face was obviously smaller and looked younger, but Sasuke was surprised at how little his face had changed.

Naruto made a content sleepy sigh and pressed his face comfortably into his torso. Sasuke wouldn't admit it to anybody, but he actually liked the reassuring pressure the tiny body created.

"Stupid squirrels," a quiet voice behind the trees stunned Sasuke back to Earth. He'd completely forgotten about the moron. Sasuke immediately closed his eyes, forced his muscles to relax, and slowed his breathing until he could pass for a sleeping body.

Yamato rustled into the camp, again mumbling something about missing sleep, and made the embers in the fire crackle. A sudden tension in the air told Sasuke that Yamato had switched to ninja mode.

So the idiot could be alert when the situation required it.

A few uneasy seconds later Yamato relaxed. "Kakashi, find anything?"

"Just a badger den."

Sasuke didn't like having his eyes closed around the ex-ANBU, but he wasn't about to be caught 'awake' with the gaki on his lap. Of course, he couldn't be entirely sure that Kakashi hadn't already noticed his farce.

Some more shuffling sounds near the campfire indicated that Yamato was rummaging through something. "Where's Naruto?" the man asked abruptly.

This was the part Sasuke was dreading, the part where his captors found the gaki and made assumptions.

It occurred to him that, before he had gotten caught in this accursed jutsu, he wouldn't have cared what anyone assumed.

Frantic movement grabbed Sasuke's attention. The moron must have begun to search for Naruto without thinking. "Yamato," Kakashi said quietly. The noises stopped.

A few moments later an answer came forth. "Well, would you look at that," the man's voice clearly held a smile. Sasuke could just imagine what they saw, but he decided to send that train-of-thought into a brick wall.

Sasuke allowed his mind to remain blank in an effort to continue with his façade.

After a few minutes or so, sounds of the night began to filter through. Yamato must have gone to bed. Kakashi was likely back at his post. Sasuke began to feel the pull of sleep, and the oddest sensation washed over him: he felt content. Even bound and tied to a tree, Sasuke was comfortable, and effortlessly fell asleep.

A/N: Woo Hoo! Finally got the next chapter Up! ^^ Sorry it took us so long, but this chappy is a little extra long this time so we hope that it makes up for it =] We've also discovered the joys of re-reading our own writing =P We've been cracking ourselves up over and over again!

Thank you to all our reviewers! ^-^ We can't stress enough how much your reviews make us get excited and joyful !

As for the next chapter (6), . . . it might be late. *depressed* We seem to have MAJOR writers block on this one and classes/work/family/finals/graduations aren't helping.

On a different note, no bad cliffhanger this time! =) And if you're one of those people who do consider this a cliffy, let us know. We'd just love to hear from ya! =]

And as always; read, review, enjoy, review, comment, review… hint, hint ^.^

Sis1: We are trying to become better writers and feedback is absolutely necessary for this process *nods*

P.S.
There is a way for authors to respond to reviews, isn't there? Help please, we be confused.