Chapter 17

"Ow..."

"Raito, are you ok?"

"Yes, but I know of a certain woman who's not going to be for long... what the hell? Haku, do you have any idea..?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

Currently, they were sitting in a room, tied in chairs, back to back. Every single one of their fingers was tied to the point of immobility. Additionally, the room was plunged in darkness.

"If we break the legs of the chair, where I'm assuming your feet have been tied as well, I think we might be able to smash the rest of it..."

"Don't even bother," interjected a voice that was all too annoying, by this point. Hoshi flipped on the light. "It... is time."

Raito didn't like the way she said that, and Haku thought the way she said it needed an evil laugh. Instead of that, though, she snapped her fingers, and both Haku and Raito were surrounded by people armed with tools of torture.

Namely makeup paraphernalia and hair styling tools. Raito's scream echoed through the village until she passed out from the lack of air.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Raito, we have to get out of here."

"I agree. Any idea how?"

"Not a clue, you're the one that comes up with these things."

"You want me to get into a dress that looks like a giant rainbow? I don't think so."

"Is that..?"

"Sakura? I think so. SAKURA! SAKURA, WE'RE IN HERE!"

"Did you hear that?"

Hoshi moved in front of the door, wishing she had gagged the two ninja. She hadn't expected them to be so troublesome.

"Nope, I didn't hear a thing. Now..."

"NARUTO!"

"Did someone just call my name?"

"Excuse me, but I think there's someone in there," Sakura said as politely as she could.

Then the two of them felt stinging on their necks, and everything went dark for them, too.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Oh great, there goes our rescue. I've got my fingers free, just give me a second to reach the kunai... there."

Raito slit the rope on her hands first, then the rope that bound the two together. Both of them undid the ropes binding their ankles to the chair, and then Haku got to Naruto and Sakura while Raito worked on cutting a hole in the wall.

"W-what's going on?" Naruto asked dazedly as soon as he came to.

"We're getting out of here," Haku whispered. As soon as he got Naruto's hands free, he decided Naruto could finish the rest of it and got to work on Sakura.

"What happened?"

"They're crazy," Haku whispered. "They got us first and locked us in here when we wouldn't cooperate for their parade, and then you guys. We have to hurry, if you're free, please help Raito with the wall."

Raito and Naruto quickly finished scoring the plaster, and then rammed their shoulders into it until it gave way. Haku picked up Sakura, and the ninja burst into the street. They immediately ran into Ren.

"What in the hell is going on?"

Raito looked up at him through her ridiculously long and glittery rainbow colored eyelashes. "Thank you for volunteering to help us." She grabbed his wrist and ducked behind a nearby building before he got the chance to protest. "You can be look out until I get back into normal clothes."

"Good god, it looks like a rainbow threw up all over you two."
Raito looked down briefly and saw that she had been switched into one very rainbow-y dress covered with sequins and that she was covered with even more glitter. She didn't even want to know what the crazy lady had done with her hair and face.

"That's more or less what happened," Haku told him. He caught the clothes that Raito threw at him, the same ones he had been wearing earlier, and summoned some mist. Finding a bathroom in the get up that they had been wearing would draw too much attention. By the time they had finished, Sakura was just starting to wake up.

"W-what happened?"

"Crazy make up woman, remember?" Naruto told her.

"Wow, you two still look like you got attacked by a rainbow on steroids," Ren said.

"Make one more comment and I'll make something look like it was attacked by a rainbow on steroids and you won't like it," Raito threatened.

"Come on, we have to get out of here."

"Just a second," Haku said. He cast a simple genjutsu to cover up the fact they looked like they had been attacked by the glitter monster. "There.

Sakura, can you walk on your own?"

"Who do you think I am?" She sounded offended.

Haku wisely chose not to answer, and they ditched the rainbow clothes in the alley.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Kankuro should have some makeup remover in here somewhere..." Raito said. There was no way she was going to let Clare see her like this and take pictures for blackmail later.

"Found it," her partner in crime answered. He tossed her the bottle, and in no time they were back to normal. Ren had already been threatened into silence, Naruto had been blackmailed, and Sakura seen anything, leaving nothing to attest to their adventure besides themselves. Haku replaced the bottle, and jumped out of the window. Raito had to do it the harder way, and as soon as she put her foot on the sill an alarm went off and some kind of ancient jutsu went off that froze her in place.

She cursed enough that it would have done Hidan proud under her breath.

Kankuro felt a tug on his chakra which signaled that someone had tried to break into his room. He excused himself from the living room where Clare and Gaara were cuddling anyway and went to check it out. Quite possibly one of the last things he was expected to see was Raito crouching on the sill.

"Raito-chan, I hadn't realized that you were obsessed with me to the point of breaking into my room." He made himself comfortable against the door frame, perfectly content to leave Raito in the position she was in.

"I'm not," she replied. "Now will you please let me out of here?"

"On one condition. You have to be my girlfriend for the week."

"What?"

Kankuro shrugged. "Take it or leave it."

Raito didn't look pleased, but consented anyway. Kankuro released the jutsu that was keeping her in place. She nearly fell flat on her face. Kankuro helped her up and put his arm over her shoulder. She looked at it disdainfully, but didn't say anything or try and shake it off.

"Let's get one thing straight right now, I am not kissing you."

"Nothing beyond kissing," Kankuro countered.

"Fine," Raito agreed. "But I still reserve the right to smack you."

"Only if you defend me from Clare." Kankuro hadn't forgotten the influence Raito had on Clare.

"What, can't deal with your younger brother's girlfriend?"

"She hits hard," Kankuro defended. "And she kicks too."

"I'll call her off then, but only if you don't really deserve it. Are you satisfied?"

Kankuro held her more closely. "Come on, it's not that bad. I'm good looking and cool, you should be proud that I even noticed you."

"Remind me again how long it's been since you last had a girlfriend?"

Before Kankuro could reply, the phone rang. Raito picked it up. "Hello?"

"Raito, good. Are you available to help Hidden Waterfall at the moment?"

"I am. What happened?"

"I'll tell you when you get here," Shibuki told her. "Bring Haku as well."

"Of course. We'll see you in a few days." Raito hung up the phone.

"Well?" Kankuro asked.

"I have to go, something's happening that I have to be there for."

"Wait a minute, what about our agreement?"

"Long distance relationship?" Raito offered. "This isn't something I can just ignore, you should have thought of that before you said that was your term."

Raito pecked him on the cheek and then darted out of the room though the window, this time being careful not to touch the sill.

"Took you long enough," Haku chastised when he saw her. He was leaning against the building, waiting for her. "What happened?"

"There was a jutsu on the window frame, I got trapped and now Kankuro thinks I'm his girlfriend. Too bad we're going to be in Waterfall."

"Why? What happened?"

"I'm not sure, but Shibuki said we need to get down there if we're not busy, which we aren't."

Haku watched the moving branches of the tree above them for a second. "We should tell Gaara then, shouldn't we?"

"I suppose..."

They went to the front door and knocked. Clare sighed, and got up to get it. "What?" she asked annoyedly when she saw who was there.

"We're leaving Suna, there are other places where we're needed," Haku informed her.

Clare pouted. "Already? But we just got back."

Raito shrugged apologetically. "Not much we can do about it. Tell Gaara that if he gets himself kidnapped or killed, again, we aren't getting him back."

"Oh, I don't plan to let him out of my sight long enough for that to happen," Clare told the other girl.

Raito raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Haku hugged Clare, and then they started walking back to Konoha.

"We're not going to come back here for a long time, are we?" Haku asked.

Raito shook her head. "Nope. I am never, ever going to get that close to the CICOP and C." She shivered. "That was pure torture. So, what do you think's going on in Waterfall?"

"It's a blind spot, you know as much as I do. That's the only place where we don't have eyes, Shibuki guards the entrance too carefully. He may just want an escort to wherever he's going."

"That's true," Raito mused.