NOTE: THIS CHAPTER WAS RECENTLY REWRITTEN. IF YOU HAVE NOT READ IT AFTER THE 18th OF JULY, PLEASE RE-READ.

Look, you're all welcome to verbally curb stomp me for not updating, but I'm back on the sane-train and I'll be working on my stories again. Stuff happened. Now I'm back. Isn't that nice?

Breathe. Can't. Breathe. Water. Coughing. Is that me? Tsunade snapped into consciousness, heaving water out of her lungs, and gulping in huge breaths. She was lying down, but she didn't know where. She could see the sun, that was always a good sign, but her eyes were stinging and her vision hazy.

She filled her lungs with glorious oxygen, feeling her hair matted against her forehead, wet. Had she been swimming? Her head certainly was. She prized herself off the ground, her wet clothes weighing her down, and struggled to see her surroundings.

She stifled a gasp. She was standing on a plane, barren dirt stretching out around her for a couple of miles. And sprawled out across the plane were the villagers of Konoha.

She stumbled to the nearest villager, a small boy, and dropped by his sides, searching for a pulse.

She let out a sigh of relief. They weren't dead. But something was keeping them in some sort of coma. The boy's heartbeat was there, but sort of... transparent? She couldn't tell.

She let some chakra leech out of her hands into the boy, trying to diagnose the problem. She could sense something gripping his mind, some powerful force. Genjutsu?

She heard dirt crunching underfoot behind her. She slowly turned around meeting the gaze of a man.

He was really tall bordering six foot five, and was completely bald. He didn't even have eyebrows. He had a lean, skinny face, and his eyes were sunken. He was wearing a red and black robe, and a discarded mask was hanging around his neck, recently removed. A thin sword hung from his hip.

"Well..." He crooned, with a sickly grin. "Looks like one of the mice escaped the trap."

Tsunade wanted to yell at him, to call him a sick bastard, walk over there and send a chakra-charged fist through his head. But she couldn't move. She couldn't even peel her eyes away from this man

. She managaed to blink, and in the split second she closed her eyes, the man was inches away from her. She felt a stabbing pain grow in her gut.

"A fate fitting of one who talks politics. The only screams of your death echo only in your head." He whispered grimly.

And with that he pulled the sword from his scabard, and drove it into Tsunade's gut.

Tsunade tries to scream from pain as the felt the blade split pierced through her torso, bursting through her back. But she couldn't make a sound, all the while she felt tendrils of cold worming from the wound, making her numb.

As Tsunade felt consciousness fading away, she tried desperately to move, to somehow fight against him.

But there was nothing she could do. Before she completely blacked out, she realized with horror, that in her own death, she was a prisoner of her own mind.

Wolf walked next to Sakura, studying the pink haired, girl through the corner of his eye. There was something he liked about this girl, but he couldn't put his finger on it. After the fight with the Dawn cultist, she had proven herself, and now Wolf knew she was worth bringing along.

Sakura looked back up at Wolf and smiled. Of course, even if he was smiling, she couldn't see it past his hood.

The trip back to Dusk HQ was fairly silent, until they were interrupted by a worried yell. "Sakura!"

Said girl turned her head to the source of the voice, down the track, where a very gloomy blonde stood.

"Naruto? What's wrong?" She asked as she drew near.

"Sakura... You better come back to the caves... We've got some bad news." The jinchuriki answered, turning away and trudging down the path.

Sakura looked worriedly at Wolf, before running down the path after Naruto.

Bear ran past her in the other direction, stopping in front of Wolf.

"Konohams gone, we didn't get there fast enough." He reported.

"SHIT!" Wolf yelled, punching a tree next to him a leaving a decent sized hole in it. "How'd they manage to do it so fast!"

"I don't know! Digit reckons they must have a way to accelerate the process. But that's not the worst news."

"Oh, Come on Bear, what could possibly be worse than this?" Wolf asked, irritated.

"Cat's gone missing."

"Well... fuck."

The small girl stopped in her tracks, the tall figure next to her halting alongside. The figure looked down at her questioningly.

"We have a visitor." She said calmly.

Her bodygaurd gave a quick nod, then vanished. Cat sucked in a breath nervously. She was in a tree several metres away, and had been surveying these people for a while.

She had recieved news that their 'backup plan' was in a village close by. Soon after leaving the cave complex, she had encountered a large amount of Dawn cultist bodies, and off in the distance she spotted these two, headed toward Konoha. She had been fairly lucky, and until now she hadn't been spotted.

Something rustled behind her, and she stopped dead. She swallowed heavily, flexing her hands.

She whipped around, about to swing a fist into the figure behind her. When she turned, she saw a hood, and could just faintly see a face beyond that. She swore she knew that face. She hesitated. Immediately she was met with a swift kick to the stomach, and she rocketed out of the tree, the breath smashed out of her.

She smacked against the sandy ground hard, gasping for breath, trying desperately to fill her lungs with oxygen.

She stared up at the sky, and two shadows were looking down at her.

"I don't think she's with those other guys. Maybe she needs help." The female voice crouched down closer. "Where do you live?"

"Three kilometres up this road.. -cough- Caves... Please, we need he- Ungghhhh." Cat choked out, her stomach aching. Her vision began to haze due to lack of oxygen, and she could feel herself beggining to faint.

Her attacker visibly tensed. He dropped to a crouch, placing his arms under her torso and knees, and hoisted her up. She wriggled slightly, she didn't need any help from this bastard, she could walk.

Another wave of pain changed her mind.

Then he spoke, with a smooth, mischievous, yet obviously male, voice.

"Dusk. Hmph."

If Cat had any energy at all, she would have probably asked him how the he'll he knew what she was. She blacked out.

By the time Sakura had reached The Dusk complex, she was practically sprinting. She thundered through the entrance tunnel, and propelled herself through the door to the conference room.

She stopped, breathing heavily, Looking around. Naruto was sitting in the corner, looking at her with dread. Hinata was sitting up against a wall, hair over her face. She had been crying. Even Shikamaru looked worse, sleeping in a position that seemed about as sad as sleeping can be.

"What's going on? What happened?"Sakura asked hesitantly. Naruto sat up and looked straight into her eyes.

"Konoha's gone."

Those words echoed in Sakura's brain, as if she was trying to register what it meant. Gone? How could it be gone? She began feeling dizzy, and stumbled to a wall, holding a hand out to steady herself.

What about her family? What about the rest of her friends? Sakura, for the first time in a long time, cried. Shinobi were never to show emotion. Right now, she didn't care.

Naruto stared at Sakura, who was choking out sobs. He struggled to keep his own grief on a leash, and having Sakura breaking down in front of him.

She needed some time to cope with the news. He noticed Hinata had been abnormally quiet, she hadn't said a single word since they had been at Konoha, and he was worried. He walked over next to the Hyuuga, and sat himself down.

"Hinata? How are you holding up?" He asked, hoping she was okay. She hadn't said a single word since they had returned.

Hinata looked up at Naruo slowly, her eyes red rimmed and teary. God, she looked terrible. Naruto looked into her eyes, at all the sadness and pain she was experiencing.

Naruto couldn't know what she was going through. Her whole family had been in Konoha. Naruto had never even had one of those.

Naruto put his arms around Hinata and pulled her tightly into a hug. It was a feeble attempt at comfort, but it was the best he could manage. Hinata put her own arms around the blonde hesitantly, and cried into his shoulder.

Naruto didn't know how long they sat there for. Five mintutes? Ten? An hour? But it would have gone on a lot longer were they not interrupted by Wolf and Bear knocking on the door.

"I've got news. Konoha's not completely lost yet."

As soon as he said that, all eyes were on him. Wolf looked at their expressions, and could feel their stares boring through him.

They were only kids, but right now they would have thrown themselves in front of a train to help their village.

He walked into the middle of the bone white room, and sat down, the Leaf ninja moving in towards him, including Shikamaru who had recently woken up from his grief-nap.

"Is this gonna be another really long explanation speech? Cause the readers are gonna get annoyed with it." Naruto said, breaking the fourth wall.

"Fox, the author warned you about this, now shut up, you're supposed to be grieving. Also this is a fairly plot heavy story, but this should be the last lengthy explanation." Said Wolf, pleasing the Author.

"Basically, Dawn has taken your village, but we don't know why. This isn't the first time this has happened, but this time their motivation is an absolute mystery."

"Wait, so you've gone throught this before? So you can easily get our village back." Said Sakura hopefully.

"Not exactly. Last time..." He choked up hesitantly, before continuing. "We failed miserably. The village, and all of it's residents were lost. We barely escaped with our lives. But it won't happen this time." he finished determinedly.

"Okay. So what's the plan then?" Naruto said, back to business. No point grieving over something that wasn't lost, he thought.

Bear shuffled into the discussion. "The way you're village was taken, is through a Kekkei Genkai. It's comes from a family that speciases in seals, and they developed the ability to seal massive object inside actual people. In this case, it was a village."

"What!" Naruto spat in disbelief. "Our village is sealed away inside a creepy old guy!"

"Correct." Wolf answered. "But the man who sealed your village has mutated his ability somehow. His name is Yozaji Suziya. His ability drew the eye of Dawn, for if Dusk agents were hiding out somewhere, Yozaji could seal the whole area inside him, and then they could release them in an open area and rip them to shreds."

"So what's the mutation?" Hinata asked, with an inquisitive look.

Digit , who had slipped through one of the doors during the conversation, answered in a pippy voice. "Yozaji is the only one in his family who has the genetic material to seal off something as large as a village, but when he has something sealed inside of him, it has to borrow his life force to keep it inside him, so while a village is inside him, he gains the body of a ninety year old."

Wolf quickly followed on. "This would obviously be a problem, as it makes him an easy target in this state, and he cannot travel to a secure place quickly, so he has mutated the kekkai genkai to combine with the vortex transportation jutsu. Basically, big hole appears in ground, bad guys jump down hole, hole fills with vorpal water, stops angry people with sharp things chasing them."

Shikamaru saw the obvious flaw in their plan so far. "How are we supposed to get through the vortex? We can't exactly breathe underwater."

"Its quite simple." Digit replied. "The trap is rigged so Yozaji can get through safely, as of his kekkai genkai, right? Anyone else gets sucked into the vortex, nasty end. So, we find someone with the same kekkai genkai, and we're through."

"Wait, so we gotta find a relative of Yozaji to get through the trap?" Sakura asked.

"Its the only way through the vortex. That's why we sent Cat out. Yozaji had two sisters, but one of them died in the previous incident. All that's left is the youngest."

"Thing is, Cat's gone misiing, so now we're stuck up a creek without a paddle." Wolf growled angrily.

"Are you sure we can trust the sister of this sick freak?" Naruto asked.

Someone coughed at the door, making everyone look toward the entrance. Seven jaws dropped simultaneously.

Standing at the door was a small girl and a large hooded figure, who was holding the slumped body of Cat.

"My big brother may be a sick freak, but don't judge me because of it." Wolf stared at the hooded figure. He swore he knew him.

Said person stepped forward and lowered Cat. "Sorry." he said in a smooth, calm, quiet voice.

The girl stepped forward, held out her hand and introduced her self, speaking in a polite voice. "The girl tried to sneak up on us, but it didn't work. Yuki Suziya. If I heard correctly, you're in need of Yozaji's last sister. I know where she is."

Wolf stood and shook her hand. "Im Wolf, we work for Dusk. Look, we need you to get us to her."

"Why should I?" She asked curiously.

"BECAUSE HE JUST DESTROYED MY VILLAGE!" Naruto yelled, frustrated that the onto person who could help them might not.

The girl visibly tensed. "This is serious then. Okay, you want Yozaji's sister? I'm here. Sorry, I didn't know he had done something like this again."

Again? Naruto silently locked this away in his head, thinking it may come in handy later.

In that case, welcome aboard miss Yuki. May I ask who your friend is?" Gesturing to the tall hooded bodyguard.

"I call him Guard." The small girl replied. "He doesn't speak much.

He gave a curt nod, and everyone in the room was uneasy about his presence.

"I dont know about he rest of you, but im wrecked, and I honestly can't handle any more surprises today. I'm calling it a night." Bear announced. "Yuki, Guard, you can sleep in the quarters if you want." He said, sweeping up Cat and taking her through a side door, into the main complex of the cave system. The rest of them realized that they were absolutely buggered, so they followed suit.

When Naruto had finally laid down on his bed, all the events that had happened in the previous forty-eight hours rushed through his head.

He looked around at all the people surrounding him and sighed. This small group of ninja was the only thing that could save Konoha. No pressure. He didn't think he would be able to sleep, but he fell into a deep slumber soon enough.

Im back in the game :D Anyways, I hate the summary at the moment, it does the story no jusice, and since I'm too lazy to get a beta reader, if you guys can, can you write a summay for me and post it in a review? Thanks. And, usual practice, ANY ideas for the story, message me and I will see if I can slot them in. (Story, ideas, Characters: If you message me with an OC, I'll contemplate fitting it in if I have space) Remember: Every time you read one of my stories and don't review, a puppy is punted into a woodchipper. Please, think of the puppies.

P.S. I also slapped in some NaruHina in this chap, not much, u it's still there.

Peace out.

SS60 SiX