A/N: Hey, guys, sorry for the slightly late chapter. My best friend was over for a few days, and as I hadn't seen her in months…. Well, yeah. :) But here it is now—at quarter after one a.m. I stayed up late for you! :P

-/-

The tower was in sight but, damn it, carrying an injured teammate made us a hell of a target for other teams.

Raiyo had been able to stand on his own every once in a while from there to here, had occasionally carried his own wait, but the blood loss had gotten to him, and he was out. Eiji and I took turns carrying him piggyback, but that left one of us open to fight freely.

Against—well, against damn high odds, when several other ravening squads attacked at once.

I slid Raiyo to the ground in time to spin a shuriken through another kunoichi's throat, then twisted around to shove a kunai into her teammate's shoulder. I had no damn time to breathe, no time to even glance over my shoulder and see how many shinobi Eiji was beating up at once. Hands drenched one again in that hellish red substance, I spun around, practically crying with exhaustion.

Eiji, shoulders slumped, trudged over toward me and picked up Raiyo, carrying him bridal-style instead of piggyback. She was too damn tired to sling him over her shoulder, like me. It just took a hell of a lot more effort than either of us had left.

"Almost there," I whispered hoarsely. She nodded, and we limped, battered, toward the tower.

-/-

At least our maps had still gotten us there early, earlier than a lot of teams. At least we had a break, damn it, a time to rest—

And a medic for Raiyo.

"Look at it this way, hun," Eiji said wearily, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. We were both sitting on a wooden bench outside an infirmary. Inside, medic-nin worked to save Raiyo—although they'd never save his eye. "You saved him, girl. Seriously, they'll take him from the shinobi ranks—he'll never have to die."

I laughed weakly, bitterly. "Eiji, you still think he's gonna give up? Hell no. He was in those trees to save us. Damn it, Eij, he's gonna stick around. For both of us. And he's only more likely to get himself killed."

She shrugged; I glanced over to see her face. I couldn't read it. "Then it's his fault."

-/-

Finally, a medic opened the door and strode out. I couldn't tell from his face whether he had good news or bad news, and I sure as hell didn't get the chance to find out. Before he could speak, I convulsed, coughing, hot agony clawing its way up my legs and into my belly. Something warm spilled over my chin; I touched my fingers to my lips and them came away bloody. Strangely, the red was tinged almost a sickly green. It shone dully, and I wanted to puke.

"Sunako?"

I glanced at Eiji, but I had no control over speech. Something very heavy had attached itself to my tongue; my vision twisted violently, and then I hit the floor, pain shooting through my knees as they collided with the wood. Suddenly, I was staring dizzily up at the ceiling, which whorled like a whirlpool; and my limbs were numb, though I felt like I was moving.

Above me, the door opened again. I heard something…. Raiyo. Same as me. Convulsions. Thrashing was reopening our wounds; I could feel stitches splitting down my arm, as if to prove the medic's point.

It was very hard to think, but I tried. Just Raiyo and me. What hadn't happened to Eiji? The grass. She was unconscious with the damn genjutsu, so the grass left her alone.

The damn Kusa-nin had not only fed chakra into their thrice-damned grass until it came to life and gnawed on us, they damn well poisoned it, too.

After that, I closed my eyes and let the world go black and silent, because the spinning ceiling was making me sick.

-/-

Bruises dotted my arms, radiating a dull ache across most of my body, which hinted at more bruises under my clothes. The medic-nin I woke up to wore a white doctor's coat over a fishnet shirt and took the long hair thing too damn far: Pulled back in a silvery-blond tail, it reached all the way down his back.

"You'd better get up," he informed me, leaning against a counter with his arms crossed.

"What the hell happened?" I demanded, scowling.

"You were poisoned."

Oh, hell. Yeah, I remembered that now. "Raiyo?"

"He didn't want to get up, but I convinced him. I doubted two fine young ladies such as yourself and your black-haired teammate would want to be disqualified after you've come so far."

"Come—Hell, we're still in it?"

"You are if you get up now. The preliminary battles begin rather soon."

I groaned and muttered darkly, "Damn it, I just woke up."

"Then you better hope you don't get picked first." He grinned cheekily and pointed the way through the open door as I swung my feet off the white-sheeted bed.

-/-

I think Raiyo had had damn good reason not to want to get up. In fact, I didn't know what the hell kind of doctor that man was, because Raiyo sure as hell should have stayed in bed. He looked woozy and dizzy and it was damn indisputable that he couldn't walk a straight line.

At least Eiji was supporting him. He had an arm around her shoulder, and any other damn day, this might have been a state of bliss for him. Right now, he was too damn busy misjudging stairs and tripping over his own feet. No way in hell would he win a fight. No way in hell would he survive a fight.

"Raiyo," I said sharply. "If you get called, get the hell out of that fight, ok? Forfeit the match."

He turned his head to look at me, and I flinched away from the bandages crisscrossing his missing eye. Crimson still spattered the white cloth, as if red rain had dripped from the sky.

"I can't," he muttered. "Can't—"

"Raiyo, the damn Hokage just finished telling us that we're all on our lonesome from here. We are not working as a damn team anymore. So forget what that moronic doctor said and forfeit the match."

"Sunako…"

Snarling, I rounded on him and grabbed his shoulders, forcing the two of them to stop stumbling along. He winced. "Raiyo. Forfeit the damn match."

He avoided my eyes—a damn kindness actually, because I couldn't stand looking into his—and mumbled something that sure as hell wasn't satisfactory.

-/-

Thanks the desert gods, I did not go first. Neither did Raiyo.

Eiji did. Battered, bruised, and weary, she stood tall in the middle of the wooden room and faced Yamanaka Ino as if she'd been resting for five damn days.

She sure as hell hadn't.

Nonetheless, when the proctor said Go, kunai spun through Eiji's callused fingers like miniature storms. They zipped toward Yamanaka, who dodged with a practiced flip, like a cat sliding through the air. Eiji launched herself forward, bokken out to catch Ino's return barrage of shuriken as if a snake whipped back and forth instead of a piece of wood.

She stumbled as she landed, worn out by days of fending off enemy shinobi while subsisting on roots and berries. Ino's punch took her in the stomach, driving her upward slightly so that she sank back down to meet a side-kick to the center of her chest.

I watched with narrowed eyes and tried my damndest not to let myself pray.

Rubbing the spot, Eiji climbed cautiously back to her feet and snapped through the signs for a shadow doppelgänger. The duplicate hopped straight into the air, chakra sending it high; Ino watched it start to come back down (with no discernable purpose in mind; it wasn't doing anything), then gave a haughty grin and flung several more shuriken at Eiji, using the distraction as an opening to leap in.

Above, the clone (still falling) rained kunai down on the enemy. Ino jumped back, blades sticking haphazardly out of her shoulders, blood leaking down the side of her head. The doppelgänger twisted in order to gain momentum for a kick that Yamanaka easily blocked; and the real Eiji dropped to a crouch and swept Ino's feet out from under her with an outstretched leg.

Having devoured too much chakra already, the clone disappeared, and Eiji scrambled to kneel on Ino's chest, kunai at the blonde's throat, flipping black hair out of her eyes with a quick toss of her head. Her bokken lay abandoned less than a meter away.

Ino's hands came together, arms contorted slightly so that her fingers were positioned in front of Eiji in an almost heart-shaped seal. She seemed ready to enact a last-ditch attack, before Eiji's fist took her in the side of her bleeding head, knocking her unconscious.

With a weary-but-satisfied grin, my friend climbed off her opponent, looking up at the proctor for confirmation of her victory. Nodding, he declared her the winner; Ino's sensei hopped down to retrieve her while Eiji gathered her bokken and trudged back up to us.

Unlike Ino, she didn't receive any physical support from Aruno-sensei, just a wave of cheerful, chatty congratulations, which we all did our nauseated best to ignore. Raiyo and I offered our own, much more subdued congrats as Eiji collapsed next to me, laying her head on my shoulder.

"Damn it, Eij, had me damn worried when you almost fell."

"Can you relax, girl?" she replied, grinning up at me. It wasn't until she went on that I realized she was not talking about her battle. "Seriously, hun, you haven't stopped swearing since I told you about the Chūnin Exams. Calm down and concentrate, would ya?"

I paused to watched Akimichi Chouji and Hyūga Neji battle it out for a moment. Maybe it was my yearning for Suna hitting me harder than usual—maybe because Gaara was here—but she was right. I'd been sullen and dark except when I was absorbed in the match. Hell, I was even thinking angry.

"Ergh. Sorry, Eij." I smiled weakly. "I'll sure as hell try."

We both laughed mirthlessly at accidental irony; and I tried not to look at Raiyo, because I didn't want to try and apologize to him again, too.

-/-

The Akimichi-Hyūga battle ended predictably. Honestly, I was surprised that, with his skill and drastic recent personality changes, Hyūga wasn't a chūnin yet; this was almost certainly his year. After that, Inuzuka Kiba battled it out with Rock Lee; and Haruno Sakura fought some ninja from Takigakure. I fell into a half-waking daze as I watched, trying to will my injuries healed with rest, apparently. Eiji nudged me awake long after my vision had blurred toward slumber.

"You'll want to see this next match," she grinned. Eyes narrowed against the still-present sleep, I glanced toward the blinking-bright screen.

Rough wood scraped under my ungloved fingertips as I too-hurriedly pushed myself to my feet. A splinter, whisper-thin and razor-sharp, tunneled into my hand, but I hardly noticed.

"Oh, hell. Hell, hell, hell. Damn it!" The words that followed my tirade were far more colorful, and Eiji watched me patiently.

"Going to give up?" she asked when I was done.

"Hell, no," I snapped, stalking over to the railing. Vaulting over it was not my style, but my opponent was already in the ring, and his expression told me that taking the stairs would keep him waiting just a little too long.

I climbed onto the wooden rail, feeling the cool smoothness from countless shinobi hands and feet. Across the room, stone hands rose from the ground in a solid sign, a jutting mountain reminder of the fierce violence that was damn likely to ensue.

I didn't so much jump as let myself fall. And before I could start readying my pitiful handfuls of sand with pulses of chakra, it rose into the air and waved encouragingly over my head in wisps of golden cloud.

Because the glaring yellow letters on that damn screen said Izari Sunako vs. Gaara, and obviously that damn computer wanted me dead.

-/-

As with all his thoughts, Gaara wasn't sure if he believed in fate. He spoke with slow certainty, but there was the distinct possibility—that drove him deeper into insanity than the blood lust and the demon itself—that everything he believed bled over from the Shukaku's dark consciousness.

His thoughts were not his own. Ever.

Nonetheless, it might have been fate that it was the sand girl who approached now to fight him. Or it might not have been—the Shukaku whispered tantalizingly of the scarlet-soaked sand, of the gold-dust already infused with chakra and blood, and the host couldn't think straight—ever again.

It would not matter, in this crimson-coated lifetime, who she had ever been.

Or who he had been, either, because that child was gone.