Naruto woke coughing, voiding his lungs of some liquid. He discovered that he was lying on his stomach with his face in a shallow pool of water ―along with the rest of his body the blonde noted as he did a mental check of his physical condition.

"Uhng," he moaned, pushing himself up on all fours, coughing a couple more times. "Where am I?" The rippling drops of water dropping off his clothes were the only other sounds.

Looking around, he could see that it was dim, dank, and downright dreary. He was in a corridor with a familiar pattern lacing the walls. 'Oh, I'm in my head,' the blonde thought with some trouble. His mind felt muddled and hazy.

The teenager attempted to stand up but suddenly felt dizzy and stumble against the wall.

Naruto stabilized himself and slowly walked down the hall towards where Kyuubi would be.

Reaching the featureless court in front of the kitsune's cage, Naruto walked out into the open. Once there, however, he didn't know what to do.

"Did you come looking for answers?" the fox growled.

"What?" Naruto blanked, puzzled by the unexpected question.

"Don't bother me brat." The fox's statement was firm, annoyance lacing every word.

The boy became curious at the fox's aggravated tone and a mischievous grin spread across Naruto's features. "What's wrong, Kyuubi?" Naruto teased lightly moving his hands to his hips and tilting his head. "Fox got your tongue?" The boy held a wide smirk.

The Kyuubi let a low rumbling snarl escape him. "It just so happens-" the fox began, hissing the words. "-That your stupid chakra is making me lethargic."

Naruto blinked. "What?" He dropped his arms, thoroughly confused. "My chakra's doing what?"

The nine-tails seemed in an especially sour mood and sighed heavily. "Your chakra is especially oppressive right now," he huffed, irritated. "Now go away and let me sleep."

The boy balked. Seeing the blonde's confusion, Kyuubi decided to repeat himself. After all, finding an explanation that the idiot understood was the easiest and fastest way of convincing the brat to leave.

"Your chakra is stifling," the fox stated grudgingly.

"...Why would that be?" Naruto was perplexed by this information.

"Because you got yourself turned into an infant, idiot!" The fox sounded like he was accusing Naruto of some horrible crime. Ironic coming from the being who could have ―and attempted― to wipe out Naruto's entire village.

"It wasn't my fault!" the boy shot back. "Itachi ambushed me!" Then Naruto processed the fox's words. "Wait, what did you just say?"

"You're and idiot."

"No, not that. The part about getting turned into a baby. Why would that affect you?"

The fox didn't answer.

"Kyuubiiii !" Naruto called, almost wining the fox's name.

A low rumbling emitted from behind the large gate.

"Why is my chakra suddenly different?" Naruto pressed when the kitsune didn't answer.

A few seconds later the response came. "Because your chakra has reverted to its raw state," the demon snarled.

Naruto blinked, bewildered. "Raw?" he repeated, baffled. "I don't get it."

His tenant growled out another sigh. "Why do you think that I was sealed inside you while you were an infant?" Kyuubi was about to continue but was interrupted with an answer to his rhetorical question.

"Because I was available," Naruto said matter-of-factly, betraying no emotion.

The fox didn't acknowledge the statement as it was unimportant and continued. "It's because when a human is born their chakra is undeveloped and in its raw state, therefore it automatically protects the newborn from nervous- and chakra-system threats; such as viruses, illness, and foreign chakra." Kyuubi clarified. "However, when a human develops their coils and control, their chakra is refined and usually loses its ability to perform automatically." Naruto scrunched up his features, clearly considering a thought, but Kyuubi pressed on with his explanation, eager to rid himself of the boy's insistent questions. "In other words, your chakra system has reverted to its unrefined state due to the jutsu you were caught in, and it is suppressing my own chakra in a rather efficient manner," Kyuubi bitterly bit the last few words.

Naruto remained silent for a few seconds before voicing his thoughts. He wanted to point out that Gaara's sand protected him automatically and it was controlled by chakra, but he needed to stay focused if he was going to get answers. But before he could even begin to form his question, the blonde's vision blurred and he felt consciousness tugging him away from the inner workings of his mind.

'Uh, no, wait…' He still wanted more information, but he couldn't find his voice. The fox was saying something; he sounded almost… anxious. But that couldn't be right. Naruto's fuzzy vision was beginning to blot out and eventually everything went white.

Naruto woke up crying like his life depended on it.

0o0o0

The first thing the young man became aware of was the sound of demanding crying. Nonetheless, his mind felt comfortable, which slightly worried him. After all, comfortable was a sensation he had scarcely felt in the last three years. Slowly, his mind found the path back to consciousness, and he opened his eyes sleepily.

His head had been hanging forward and the first thing to fill his eyes was the still-wrapped-around-his-torso Chibi; the picture framed by his dark hair. Said chibi was crying up a storm and sounded very much like something needed to be done about something.

Sasuke raised his head to discover why someone hadn't silenced the kid.

His head jerked back in surprise ever so slightly at the scene in front of him: every single Konoha Nin was staring at him and the gaki. He couldn't believe himself, he had actually slept through the entire team waking up and getting ready to depart. The sun was just rising and, from the look of it, most of the team had woken no more than five minutes ago, but he was still irked with himself for not stirring awake.

After about eighteen minutes of the gaki's wines, blubbers, screams, and tugs on his shirt, Sasuke wasn't sure his sanity could take any more. Swallowing his pride in favor of keeping his emotions relatively in check, Sasuke voiced his question, "Will someone deal with this?"

The sound of the Nuke-nin's voice seemed to shock everyone, save Kakashi and Sai. Even Naruto had momentarily stilled, but the boy soon returned to protesting against whatever it was that made him so unhappy.

Kakashi, however, looked more like he had won a bet rather than surprised that Sasuke had commented on the situation.

Sai seemed to be perpetually interested in the goings-on around him.

Sakura was the only one to actually make a move. She walked over to the kettle situated over the freshly-kindled campfire and poured some of the steaming contents into a bowl and began blowing on the foaming white liquid. After maybe a minute, she seemed content with the temperature and poured it into a bottle.

The pink-haired woman started walking toward him and the kid —no doubt to take the gaki away and feed him— but it seemed that Kakashi had a different plan in mind as he intercepted his student, a mischievous glint in his exposed eye.

Sasuke allowed an internal heavy-sigh to subdue him. Like he needed any further subduing; within the last two days he had gotten himself caught-up in his brother's jutsu, captured by the enemy, restrained by someone presumably younger than him, humiliated by an infant, and was now subject to his former-sensei's strange impulses to achieve Kami knows what.

Sasuke waited, having no choice to do anything else as he remained bound and tethered, for Kakashi to get on with it.

Naruto hadn't even noticed the jounin's approach and jerked when the bottle was placed in his open mouth.

"There, Naruto," Kakashi said. "Eat up."

Kakashi didn't let go of the thermos as the blonde inspected the object that had been stuffed into his mouth. Moments later Naruto glared at the bottle, which made Sasuke mentally snigger. The raven ignored everyone as his mind focused on the insanely odd situation unfolding right before his eyes.

Sasuke could just imagine what the gaki must be thinking, "What is this? Where's my bowl of ramen?"

The crazy thought was enough to make the normally-brooding-boy unable to reign in a chuckle.

A few eyebrows raised and heads turned in his direction.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious —and once again annoyed with himself— Sasuke attempted to slap his mask back on his face, but he could feel that something showed through. Not willing to be the subject of entertainment any longer, he closed his eyes and began wiping away all emotion and thoughts that had been present moments ago.

Movement on his lap grabbed the Uchiha's attention and he opened his eyes to look at the source. Naruto was thrashing against the bottle, trying to get it out of his mouth, yet kept a firm grip on Sasuke's clothes. "Naruto, you need to eat," Sakura cooed in an attempt to make the infant see reason. Sasuke almost rolled his eyes at the idea of reasoning with a toddler.

"Sorry, kid, but you just can't eat anything else," Kakashi said pointedly. "Your body wouldn't be able to take it." He sounded like he was explaining this to the sixteen-year-old rather than the infant.

Naruto stopped thrashing, only to stick out his tongue underneath the bottle and scrunch up his eyes in a decidedly 'yuck' face.

Sasuke remembered that Naruto didn't have a problem with milk, at least he had heard about his ex-teammate downing half an expired-carton of the stuff, so it didn't make sense to him why the boy was having a problem drinking it from the bottle. Oh. That was the problem: it was in a bottle. Sasuke decided to keep his insight to himself, he definitely wasn't about to give the scarecrow in front of him anything else to hold against him, so he remained silent.

"Come on, Naruto, just drink it," Yamato moaned.

'Like that's going to happen,' Sasuke thought to himself.

After a few moments of Naruto plainly refusing to cooperate, Sai voiced a suggestion. "Sasuke-san, why don't you try asking him to drink it?"

Sasuke was so shocked by the proposal that he sat frozen, a condition the body was fervently trained to never get trapped in. But there he was, unable to think, move, breath, or blink. If it hadn't been for the disapproving sound that emanated from his lap, Sasuke might have remained like that until he passed out from lack of oxygen.

Glancing down (and restarting his respiration), charcoal eyes were met with hyper-blue irises. Those eyes seemed to pin him to the very tree he was already tied to. Sasuke blinked the moment Naruto turned his head and broke eye contact. The Uchiha mentally shook his head, he was going to have to stop making eye contact if he was going to react like that.

Naruto looked at Sai and made some sort of annoyed babbling noises, the kid then turned to Kakashi and repeated the process with a few wining interjections, then he turned back to Sasuke. The raven blinked, staring at a point on the gaki's forehead in an attempt to not make eye-contact. 'Now what?' he wondered, not sure that he wanted to know and waited for the gaki to do something. The little boy on his lap, however, did absolutely nothing, just laid there staring up at him, waiting —expectant— Sasuke realized. Did he seriously want Sasuke to request that the boy drink the milk? Sasuke was so exasperated that he let out a quiet groan.

A few seconds later Sasuke turned away and spoke. "Gaki," he said almost inaudibly, reluctantly. "Drink."

Silence reigned.

There was absolutely no way that Sasuke was going to give the Konoha Nin the satisfaction of facing them, so he sat unmoving and waited for something to happen.

After a few seconds Sasuke could hear the sound of liquid being swallowed. He looked down and saw that Naruto still looked none too happy, but he was drinking.

A few swallows later, Naruto's expression shifted from reluctant to surprised. It seemed that the little brat had realized he was actually hungry and began to drink more fervently. One tiny hand moving to hang onto the bottle, the other remained firmly clamped onto Sasuke's shirt.

Not a word was uttered in fear of the gaki rejecting his only (current) form of sustenance.

Kakashi discretely propped the bottle up on Sasuke's chest while Naruto laid there enjoying the liquid's warmth in the chilly morning air.

At this moment in time, Naruto appeared to be absolutely content; he had closed his eyes and was drawing the white froth into his mouth blissfully.

0o0o0

Naruto couldn't believe his taste buds, this stuff was… good. Not quite as good as ramen —nothing could ever be as good as ramen— but it was not too far behind. He couldn't figure out why it tasted so much better than he remembered.

Memories of old times reminded chibi blonde that he had just followed the suggestion of his arch rival: drinking the milk. A little mortified, he started to tell Sai and Kakashi off for suggesting such an outrageous thing, but then found himself unreasonably curious as to whether or not Sasuke would actually ask him to drink.

But that train of thought could wait. Before he boarded any more trains he was going to enjoy his drink to the last drop.

Closing his eyes in utter ecstasy, the little blonde subliminally reached for the warm container full of food while keeping a firm hold on Sasuke.

He had a delicious drink in one hand and his best friend in the other, what more could life offer?

Naruto felt the bottle shift a little, but he was able to follow it easily and continued drinking, dully aware that shuffling and other sounds of movement were floating around the campsite.

After what seemed like only a few minutes Naruto realized that he had finished the creamy-goodness, but he kept pulling the nonexistent liquid into his mouth. He could still enjoy the memory of the yummy stuff flowing over his tongue, after all.

Naruto didn't think that he could ever get tired of reliving the sensation of drinking the milk with Sasuke right next to him, but he figured that since time didn't seem to mean anything to him at the moment, and he did want to get Sasuke back to the village, he should probably get himself ready to leave.

The little blonde stopped sucking, opened his eyes, and discovered that Sasuke was studying him. Naruto beamed a bright smile —that only he could display— at the sullen person in front of him. Said person looked as though he'd just been shocked out of a too-real daydream.

Naruto eyed him, slightly concerned at his reaction. Sasuke appeared to be annoyed at being caught off-guard and glowered. This action only succeeded in producing more bright foxy grins and some happy chortling, which alerted the team.

0o0o0

Sasuke was, yet again, annoyed with himself. This time he'd been unfocused on his surroundings and the gaki had noticed. So he glared at the kid, who only made that little face of his stretch in an almost-unnaturally wide grin and he made some stupidly happy sounds. The teams attention was effectively snatched.

"It would appear that Naruto has finished his milk," Sai commented. "Shall we be going then?" he asked, turning to the team's captain.

But before Kakashi could get a word out, Yamato voiced a concern. "Are we sure it is safe to travel in such a big group, especially with a prisoner and Naruto in the condition that he is?"

Kakashi seemed to consider these facts and then made a decision.

"Having a prisoner is going to slow us down further," he stated. "And we need Lady Tsunade to inspect Naruto as soon as possible."

This statement instigated a debate among the Leaf Nin on what would be the best course of action —Sasuke strained his hearing, as the ninja had floated out of earshot, but couldn't quite make heads nor tails of the syllables he caught.

"Okay," the copy-nin concluded when they had made a decision. "Sakura, why don't you and Yamato go on ahead with Naruto whil—"

"No!" Sasuke blurted out before he could think, effectively cutting Kakashi off. He really, really didn't want another round of the separation-sickness (as he had dubbed it for lack of a better phrase); still he regretted opening his jaws. Everybody stopped, startled, and stared at him with different levels of surprise and curiosity. Sakura seemed too shocked to move. He made a self-conscious sound and amended, "Ah, never mind," he countered himself quietly, deciding to shut his mouth before his foot found the opening. D*** it all! What was wrong with him? He had never in his life had so much trouble keeping his own expressions, emotions, and reactions from getting loose. Why was it happening now? Never mind, he thought he knew the answer to that. D*** him, he cursed again. Sasuke wanted revenge on the caster of his predicament now more than ever.

0o0o0

"Uwaaa!" Naruto was crying and he didn't even know why. The only thing he knew was that one minute he was watching his team put their backpacks on and the next his body was extremely uncomfortable. He started whimpering —without ever giving his body permission— and then a full out wail ensued.

Sai, who was closest to him, bent down to inspect the infant. "What's wrong, Naruto?" The pale ninja sounded like he was attempting to tell a joke. "I thought you'd be happy sitting on Sasuke's lap."

But Naruto barely heard him. Something near his lungs hurt like hell. He didn't want to cry out loud; he was used to hiding his pain and making sure that his comrades knew as little of his suffering as possible. But now his usually-controlled body was screaming up a storm.

"Is he ok?" Yamato asked worriedly. "He sounds like he's dying."

Naruto clutched at Sasuke's garment; the bubble of stabbing pain in his chest was getting unbearable! The little blond wriggled his body trying to find a position that didn't feel like a kunai was stuck in his stomach.

"Come here, Naruto," a soft, motherly voice said reassuringly. Naruto was suddenly lifted up and placed over a shoulder where his back was promptly, and firmly, patted.

An unknown amount of time —a too long amount of time— passed before Naruto suddenly released an embarrassing series of belches.

Moments later he felt blissfully relieved.

'Whoa,' he thought with wonder. 'That was awesome!'

A few seconds of silence followed.

"What was that?" Yamato asked, genuinely confused by the whole episode.

Sakura answered him with the air of a sensei. "Sometimes gas bubbles get stuck in a baby's stomach. Infants are unable to burp on their own; their muscles have not yet learned how to do that. Therefore, when a baby needs to burp, they start crying because the bubble applies pressure to their organs and is painful." Naruto blinked at the Iruka-ness of her explanation.

Yamato lifted an eyebrow. "Huh. You know, Sakura, you know a lot about babies," he praised.

"Not really," she denied blushing a bit. "I only know a little that I learned from the medical books Lady Tsunade gave me. They weren't very detailed when it came to infants."

"Speaking of Lady Tsunade," Kakashi interjected. "We need to get these two to her as soon as possible."

Naruto wriggled and squirmed as the adults conversed on what would be the best mode of transportation for himself and Sasuke. Sakura eventually set him down, allowing him to wander back to Sasuke's side. '"Adults?"' he repeated scowling. 'Great, now I'm even thinking like a kid!' After all, he had done a lot of growing up in all his sixteen years.

Reaching the raven, Naruto maneuvered his body to sit comfortably. This time he didn't climb onto Sasuke's lap. Instead, he leaned his back against his friend's leg and sat on the ground watching his teammates continue their discussion.

After about 20 seconds, though, he was thoroughly bored. Sasuke's muscular leg twitching uncomfortably behind him and he hoped that they'd be able to remove the bindings soon.

Suddenly a black ink-snake slithered over Naruto's ankle and he screamed like a… well, like a baby.

"WHY DO THESE THINGS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME?" He shrieked —of course garbled syllables were the only thing anyone could make of his exclamation. Naruto's screech was reduced to hiccupping whimpers in a matter of moments —"Kami forbid if I have one normal day~!" he had wined— and in that amount of time everyone became thoroughly alarmed.

"Ok, that didn't sound normal," Yamato stated worriedly.

"The slithering blotch scared him," Sasuke informed them matter-of-factly.

Accusing eyes shot at the responsible party.

"What?" Sai questioned with fake innocence.

No one answered.

Naruto, unable to stop his whimpering, sighed internally. 'Baa-chan better be able to fix this…' he complained.

Half an hour later the team was back on course, and Naruto was none too happy with his current placement. Kakashi-sensei had picked him up initially. But then he had cheerfully been dumped on Yamato, who had passed the blonde off to Sai. Naruto did not like being hot-potatoed between his teammates, but the feeling paled in comparison the utter distain he felt for the situation Sasuke had been placed in.

At that time, even though he knew that his sensei was probably right, he seriously felt like punching somebody.

"You got it," Yamato acknowledged his superior's command and immediately began a series of hand signs. Seconds later a wooden wagon was growing out of the ground, complete with an Asian-style roof. The cart looked like a large cube was meant to fit into its interior. "How's that?" he asked proudly.

Kakashi stared at the newly formed structure with an expression that said "you really like to overdo things, don't you?" It was amazing how the scarecrow managed to proficiently express himself with only one-third of his face exposed.

"What?" Yamato challenged self-consciously.

"No, it's… fine," Kakashi didn't sound all too sure of himself.

Yamato picked up on his tone. "If it's too much then I can just change it," he said as he brought up his hands.

Kakashi put a hand out to stop him. "It's fine, Yamato," he stressed. "Just finish up."

Yamato eyed his captain for a few seconds, just to be sure. Satisfied with what he saw, he walked over to Sasuke and ran through a second series of signs.

This wood-style moved faster than the first. The wooden arms wrapped around Sasuke's wrists and ankles, forcing the standing man to his knees, and a successive pair of wooden limbs surrounded his neck and abdomen as his entire body was surrounded by a wooden cage. Then Yamato used his jutsu to lift the cage and place it into the wagon's stronghold, where a paper seal was placed on every corner.

Sasuke looked about as happy to be confined as Naruto was to see him there; both boys glared at Yamato and Kakashi in turn. Sasuke was pointedly ignored while Naruto's expression went unnoticed.

Kakashi turned toward Sai as he said, "Ok, we're ready."

Sai nodded and quickly drew something on his scroll that came to life the moment it was finished. The ink-creature —which looked like a tall, slender lion— walked over to the front of the cart and stood between the axles to be hitched.

After that the team had finished getting ready and resumed traveling on the road that would take them home. Naruto, However, didn't have any more time to brew.

Kakashi, who was in the lead, put up a silent hand signaling a stop. Instantly the team was ready for action. Sai quickly and discretely passed Naruto to the Irounin since medical ninja were supposed to remain as uninvolved in a conflict as possible. Like that rule had ever stopped the pink-haired kunoichi.

Stretching their senses to pick up on where the threat might be aimed from, the ninja prepared for an attack. Naruto also stretched his senses but, being in the state that he was, could not extend them much farther than around his team. He cursed under his breath for his uselessness.

Kakashi made a motion and Naruto refocused.

The copy-nin gave Yamato and Sai a pointed look and they disappeared. Sakura held Naruto protectively close as seconds of tense silence ticked by.

0o0o0

The orange-maned man sat unfocused with a tree to his back; the forest felt dim and melancholy regardless of the crisp morning air and sun rays dancing among the canopy. Jugo couldn't even smile at the birds now perched on his shoulder as he sat with pretzeled-arms resting atop his knees. He was worried about Sasuke; he was worried that they wouldn't find him before he started on a rampage again; he was worried that the remaining members of team Hebi might kill each other before they found him.

They had gone after him after realizing that he was too late coming back; there was no way that Sasuke wouldn't return before nightfall, lest his team murder each other. Therefore something was wrong and they had headed out. It had taken some prodding on Jugo's part to get Suigetsu to join them, and a bit of coxing to keep Karin from launching too many verbal attacks on the nuke-nin.

But in the end, they all managed to work together and track their captain down, and discovered that he'd (somehow) been captured. Unfortunately, the Copy-cat ninja was among the group from Konoha and had noticed their approach. Jugo had convinced some badgers to cooperate and successfully diverted the threat, but that tactic forced team Hebi to retreat and hide.

Jugo, spaced out as he was, didn't hear Suigetsu approaching and jerked when a hand was placed on his shoulder.

"Hey, answer me," Suigetsu demanded mildly. With an uncertain stare he asked, "You aren't going to freak out on me are you?"

Jugo looked up and stared at his teammate blandly. "…I don't know…" he said after a bit. Lowering his head, Jugo continued spacing out.

Several silent minutes went by without interruption.

"Ok, I can't take it anymore!" Suigetsu cried exasperated. Jugo jolted, surprised by the sudden sound. "We are going to go rescue Sasuke, right now!" The ninja declared.

Karin wore the same shocked expression Jugo was now sporting. "You want to go rescue Sasuke?" Karin asked disbelievingly. For the first time since they'd discovered that their leader had been imprisoned, Jugo's eyes lit up with hope.

"Well, not exactly…" Suigetsu drolled with a mischievous grin on his face.

Jugo was now confused, didn't he just say that he planned to rescue Sasuke? Now he didn't want to?

"What?" Karin burst out Jugo's question. "What do you mean 'not exactly'?"

"I mean that we could get ourselves captured along with Sasuke."

The kunoichi and Jugo were speechless.

Jugo thought the man looked pleased with his explanation.

"What kind of nonsense are you spouting?" the read-head cried tersely.

Jugo turned back to Suigetsu for an answer, but Karin wasn't done.

"How will getting ourselves captured help us rescue Sasuke?" she yelled. "Gah! You're such an idiot! That is the stupidest idea I've ever heard!"

"I am not an idiot!" Suigetsu retorted, hurrying to finish before Karin could rampage again. "And my plan isn't meant to rescue Sasuke!"

"Um," Jugo said quietly. They needed to stop before…

"Oh, so now you're abandoning our leader?" Karin shot hotly.

"No! I—"

"You always wanted to get rid of Sasuke, didn't you?" she stormed.

"Uh, wait," Jugo tried again, but his team couldn't hear him over their own voices.

Suigetsu grabbed Karin by the shoulders —something he never did— in order to make her shut up for a second. The momentary shock of physical contact was all he needed. "I'm trying to get Jugo here-" jerking his head in Jugo's direction, "-to Sasuke because if he snaps we can't stop him!"

They both glanced at the animal-lover.

After about four seconds of tense muscles loosening, Jugo saw Karin look back at Suigetsu with a sigh. "So, what's the plan?"

Jugo let out his own sigh of relief.

A bird landed on his shoulder with a chirp. The orange-haired man listened to the bird for a second before blinking in surprise. "Uh, guys, we're not alo—" but a kunai pressing against his throat cut him off.

"Don't move," the stranger commanded from Jugo's back. And he obeyed; silently pleading that his urge to kill would remain dormant.

A/N: We're late and we're sorry! After RL got out of the way, we found ourselves floundering. For some reason this particular chapter was really hard to write (we've discovered that Jugo is really hard to write). Another reason for our late update would include our beta leaving the state ―crossing the country― and therefore is out of action. That's right, this chapter is un-beta-ed, and we hope we didn't do too bad a job fixing it up.

Sis1: Sorry to anyone who might have had trouble finding our fic when we changed the summary, I had this weird urge to come up with a different summary for some strange reason and my silly sis let me go through with it.

Sis2: It's not like we couldn't change it back.

Sis1: Yeah, but one of our regular reviewers got lost and I felt like I was responsible for that...

Sis2: Oh pish posh, get back to the author's note.

Sis1: =] Got it. So where were we, ah- A note I wanted to make for the scene in a previous chapter ―the one where little-Naruto is bleeding after being bitten― I don't think anyone actually caught the significance of an infant bleeding but infants only have about two pints of blood in their entire bodies, therefore Naruto losing blood is somewhat of a big deal.

BTW, the thing about an infant's chakra being in a raw state, that's completely made up and we have no idea if that would actually work in narutoverse.

So how did we do? Is our writing improving?

Sis2: Feedback, guys, feedback! We must have feedback or we get stuck, which results in, you guessed it, late chapters.

Sis1: Speaking of feedback, does anyone have a guess as to what Itachi is doing? *mischievous smirk*

Sis1&2: Don't forget to type a message for us in that little box down there! Remember that reviews are a reader's best friend =] And great motivation for the author(s) =D Not to mention inspiration often sprouts from comments, critique, constructive criticism, suggestions, opinions, and one(or 100)-word-notes.