Kyo leaned down and checked the knife in his boot, his nearly waist length turquoise, green and blond hair falling forward over his shoulder in the thick braid that he kept it in when he was'nt relaxing. Behind him he could hear his two younger brother rustleing around trying to get everything that they will need on this particular mission.

It was weird.

Out of all the missions he and his brothers had been deployed on, this was the going to be the worst. Not because the person they were going after was their target per say, but because their target was their baby sister.

The same baby sister that was flesh of thier flesh, and blood of their blood. The need to search out, find and drag his baby sister back to the base and put her back to sleep again rose up in his chest, making him growl in irritation as he straitened his spine and looked at his brothers.

Rimi-his younger twin brother by three months, turned his head and looked at him from his one good eye, the molten gold reminding Kyo of a cat's eye as his brother pulled his mid back legnth teal streaked blond hair back into a pony tail at the back of his head and checked to make sure that his eye patch was in place.

Kyo looked away from him and looked at their youngest brother. Lucifer looked back at him, his emerald green eyes staring a hole through him as he tied his collar bone length reddish blond hair back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck and then picked up his pack. "I'm ready when you are Kyo."

"Me too."

Kyo looked at the two for a second longer than was nessisary, a habit that he had formed after the mission that they had almost lost Rimi on two years ago. He memorised their faces, needing to assure himself that if something should happen, that he would always remember how they looked, and just how damn proud of them he was.

The squirts had come a long way in the past seven years, both had worked, trained and fought until they had dropped. They had matured-though Lucifer was far more mature than Rimi was at this point, but Kyo was sure that that would change...in another thiry or fourty years, still he was proud of them.

"Alright. Lets go." He said as he picked his pack up off of his bunk and slung it over his shoulder and started walking.

(*************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Kakashi barely had to register and to duck the fist that Sakura threw towards him. he made a funny sound and dropped to the floor as her fist hit the wall where his head had been. "How could you! How could you keep something like this from us! We're supposed to be a team!"

"We are." Kakashi said weakly as he looked up at the girl as the wall came crumbling down. Holy shit. If she had landed that blow he would be dead now. Sakura turned around and growled and grabbed him by the front of his vest and yanked him up off of the floor.

"Then why would'nt you tell us?" She cried, freash tears slipping down her face as she stared at him. Silently pleading with him to give her an answer. Luckily Kakashi could tell her why he had kept what he had just told them all a secret, and for once it would'nt be a lie.

"Naruto...from what I understood of the replacement system that was created by him... The clones were meant to be able to slip in and out of our sight when the life of one of the other clones ended, they would simply switch places. And because of the fact that they can transfer one soul to another... Whenever one was dying it would pass on its power, it's stregnth, it's knowledge and feelings to another. The system was designed, much like the clones...to be flawless so that no one could tell one replacment from the others. It took me a while to catch on, even after I met the first clone replacement."

"But why?"

Kakashi gnashed his teeth and roared at the girl, "Because he didn't want anyone to feel guilty! He wanted you, me and everyone else to keep going about our daily lives without worry, or fear or guilt-" Sakura flinched and looked as if she had been struck as Kakashi continued to yell.

"Make no mistake about this Sakura, we are all guilty of something. Some act of cruelty and hostility towards him. Many of the people in this room may have even had a hand in his death, though they may not be aware of it. And through it all, he wanted us to be so happy, and feel safe, to make us think that he was invulnerable so that we would think that nothing we ever said or did to him would, or could ever really hurt him. He didn't want anyone to know that he was being forced to abandon us! This is his way of trying to hold on to the life that we took from him without thinking!"

Sakura let him go and staggered back as he glared at her, his body fairly shaking with rage. "But we would have done something..."

Kakashi laughed, the sound echoed in their ears, loud, and insane sounding as he pushed his fingers through his silver hair before he quieted down and glared at her again-no this time he was glaring at all of them. "You damn liar. You would'nt have done anything but sit back and watch. The person you are now, Sakura, the person we have each become, is different from the person we were back then. If you had been given a choice between saving Naruto and watching him die...you would let him die without a second thought. Because that is the person you used to be."

They all looked at him in shock as he turned his back to them, effectively ending the conversation as he wondered where the girl was.

In his mind they were all guilty of killing Naruto. In his mind they didn't deserve to be saved. They were all horrible, and uncaring people who had ruthlessly trampled on the heart of a sad and lonely child before they had killed him.

Naruto's blood was on their hands, all of them.

Even his own.

And there was nothing that they could do to erase the stain.