A/N: So, school starts at the end of the month for me. But I'm actually really excited for it, since it's college and stuff. Anyways, here's the story! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Gaara, Hidan, or Shikamaru. Or the story of Naruto. Please enjoy the story while I go cry silently in that corner.

A/N: Ahaha^ that's what I wrote back in, like September. And, hey, I did really well my first semester. Got a 3.46 GPA, though I was hoping for a 3.5 or great. Damn Geology… argh…. Anywho, enjoy, it's been forever, I know. I apologize profusely.

Chapter Four

Escape

Kye's POV:

We were pushed down hallway after hallway until we were pushed through a door into another empty hallway, lined with doors. I was in front, but I could still hear the grunt of a man behind us. My captor turned his head, only to be punched in the nose. He let go of me, and I jumped back, ready for a fight, but Neji had already taken care of everything.

"Now what?" He asked me, looking at me.

"Now," I said, bending down and grabbing one of the guards. "Now, we figure out where to go. Tie up that guy. Once they come to, we'll get the information we need out of them. Then, we put them in solitary confinement."

It only took a few minutes for them to wake up, but it felt like an eternity, and I was paranoid someone was going to come looking for them.

I was at the door peaking down the hallway when Neji's voice called to me. "They're up."

"Finally," I muttered. I went over to one of the guys and knelt before him. "Alright, we're looking for a laboratory. Where is it?"

"I'm not going to tell you anything, girl," he said.

"That's not a very smart thing to say," I said, and I grabbed him by the neck and lifted him up, choking him.

He struggled for a bit before he finally said, "Okay, okay, I'll talk just please," he coughed. "Please, put me down." Saying all of that took the rest of his breath away, so he sat on the ground panting and catching his breath when I let him go.

"It's just down the hall," he finally said. "You can't miss it."

"Good," I said, and I smacked him across the head, knocking him out. I did the same with the other guy and we locked them in the solitary confinement cell.

"We need to hurry," Neji said. "They've been gone for too long, now, they'll send people after them soon."

I nodded. "We should change our disguises, too."

Neji nodded, and we took the appearance of the guards before locking them away. As we walked out the door, two more guards came running down the hall.

"There you two are, we got worried," on guard said.

The other one looked suspiciously at us. "What took so long?"

"The two put up one hell of a fight," Neji said.

"But they're locked away now," I said.

"Good, we need you to return to your post now," the first guard said.

I froze, this would ruin our plan. Or slow it down, assuming that no one found the actual guards in solitary confinement.

I was about to speak when an all too familiar voice spoke behind me and Neji.

"There you two are, Lord Orochimaru has been looking everywhere for you." I turned my head to see Sasuke standing there. He didn't look at us, but addressed the other two guards first. "Can you cover their post?"

"Yes, sir!" The other two guards said, and turned and left.

Neji, Sasuke, and I stood there in silence for a while, all staring at each other. Well, Neji and I were staring at Sasuke, while Sasuke was looking where the other two guards were standing.

Finally, Sasuke looked down at me. "What the hell are you doing here, Kye? Or is this Jade?"

"Jade is gone," I said, ignoring his first question.

"I thought you hated me, so, I repeat, what the hell are you doing here?"

"That's none of your business," I said. "And if you know what's good for you, you'll stay the hell out of my way."

He glared at me. "I'm not your friend; I never was."

That stung a bit. Sure, Jade had liked him, but I thought we had been friends. At least some what. I pushed those emotions aside, however. "If you're our friend, then why even give us a chance to run?"

He glared at me a little longer, but then his face softened, and his shoulders slumped a bit, and he looked away. Finally, he turned and started to walk away. "Get out. Now. I'm going to pretend I never saw you, but if I see you two again, I won't hesitate to kill." With that said, he disappeared down the hall.

"Well, wasn't that nice of him," I said sarcastically, but then I sighed. "Let's just get this mission done."

Neji nodded and we proceeded down the hallway quickly and quietly. We saw the lab at the end of the hall, and as we entered it, we saw Sasuke retreating down another hall. He paused a moment, but didn't look back, and I knew he had sensed us. I shook my head and turned to look at the lab. Surprisingly, it was empty.

"Is it night time or something?" I asked Neji in a whisper.

"I don't know, but this seems too easy," he replied. We looked at each other. "It's probably a trap." I nodded.

"We're already here," I said. "So if it's a trap, we might as well spring it." Neji smiled slightly and nodded. "We should split up and search the room." Neji nodded again, and we hurried to opposite sides.

I started sifting through papers on a table, looking for maps, plan, notes, anything I could that was possibly related to the byakugon. The first desk I was at was a bust byakugon wise, but I did find some of his other research, and I figured it was semi-important, so I grabbed it to show to Lady Tsunade. I moved to a desk, and started sifting through the papers on top. Nothing. I pulled out a drawer and fingered through the files, and still found nothing. I went through all of the drawers, and moved onto the next desk, and still came up with nothing. I looked around and tried to find something that would help me, and I saw computers on one side. I hurried over there, feeling this would be my best shot. I started looking for the obvious "Byakugon" file, knowing I wouldn't find it, but it was still worth a shot. Coming up with no "Byakugon" file, I started opening all the files, finding nothing until-

"Neji!" I called.

"What is-" he froze as he saw what I was looking at. It was a picture of Hinata. I clicked on the arrow pointing at her eyes. The computer zoomed in on her left eye. The picture of her eye moved to the left of the screen, and her byakugon was now activated, and on the right side, words filled the screen. All the information they had on it.

"How do we take this?" Neji asked.

"Um, I'm not-" But I stopped talking as a box popped up on the screen asking if I wanted to download it on a disk. I looked around the desk and found a floppy disk. "Wow, these are so old," I muttered to myself, but I vaguely remembered using them. I grabbed it, and put it in the computer, pressing yes on the box. Another box popped up asking for a password.

"Of course, now it asks for a password," I said. "Um… um… well, this is Orochimaru, so let's try… 'snakes'." I typed it in, and it came up negative. "Hmm… Oh, well, for the hell of it, let's try 'stevenviper'." Shockingly, that actually worked. "Huh, guess we rubbed off on him. The file took a couple of minutes to download, but it felt like hours. Neji was keeping an eye out for approaching enemies, but he kept reassuring me that there was no one there.

"This is too easy; it feels wrong," I said.

"But all that information is right," Neji said. "It's also information they shouldn't know."

Finally, the download was done, and floppy disk popped out. I slipped it in my bag with the other files, and before I left, I wiped the computer of the information I just took, and we turned to leave. We were only halfway across the room, when Neji suddenly turned around, pushed me to the side, and sent a kunai flying towards where we just were. I thought he was trying to hit the computer, but as I looked I saw someone was standing.

My eyes widened.

"Kye, dear, would you please take the hideous disguise off, it really doesn't suit you," Orochimaru said in his snakey voice.

I glared at him, but none the less released my transformation jutsu, and Neji did the same.

"Now, hand over that disk, please," he held out his hand expectantly.

"You knew we were here," I said. "Why didn't you stop us sooner?"

"And risk ruining my lab? I think not," he said approaching us.

"Yeah, well, we're still in your lab, so you stopped us a little too soon," I said. Though all the tables and desks were at the sides, the center was pretty empty.

"Oh, on the contrary, you're right where I want you," he said. He had stopped a few feet in front of us, and, without warning, the floor started to move up. I looked up in surprise to see the ceiling opening above us, and I looked around in even more surprise to find that we rose into an arena. I looked around to see the stands set up like a gladiator ring, and there were people sitting in them. Not a lot, though.

"So you're going to fight us?" I asked.

"Hand over the files you took from me and I won't have to," he said.

I glared at him. Then, without taking my eyes off him, I whispered to Neji, "Do you see anyway that we can run from here?"

He was silent for a moment, then said, "If we have a distraction, I suppose we could run like hell."

"As long as you know a way we can run," I said. "I'm about to do something really crazy, then you have to try and lead us out of here."

"Kye, what-" he started, but I didn't wait for him to finish. I took out the floppy disc and held it up for Orochimaru to see.

"Is this what you want?" I asked.

"Ah, very good, Kye, dear, I knew you'd see reason," he said, holding out his hand for the floppy disc."

"Yeah, well, too bad, 'cause you sure as hell are not getting it," I said, and I tossed the floppy disc on the ground and stomped on it, crushing it to pieces.

"Dammit! Why'd you do that?" He screamed, and while he was temporarily staring at the broken pieces of the floppy disc, I turned and pushed at Neji.

"We need to go. Now!" I cried.

He nodded and led the way. We jumped up into the stands, punching and slashing at enemies as we made our way to the top.

I hesitated at the top, seeing nothing except a lake bellow us, and we were a good twenty feet up.

"Kye, jump, it's our only option," Neji said. I looked back to see Orochimaru coming behind us. "Kye!" Neji yelled my name, but didn't wait for me to react. He grabbed my hand and we were falling in the air. I didn't scream, but my eyes widened as we fell. Neji wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him. He took out a kunai and slammed it into the wall to try to slow our fall, and it worked a bit, but we were still plummeting towards the lake a little quicker than I would have liked. "Take a deep breath and hold it when I tell you to," Neji ordered. I nodded, and he kicked the wall, sending us as close to the center of the lake. "Now!" He ordered, and I did as I was told seconds before we went under, all the while, he never let go of my hand.

We surfaced in a couple of seconds, and got out of the lake. We didn't bother looking back, and I didn't need the Byakugon to know that we needed to run like hell to get out of here alive and not captured.

We didn't stop running for a while, until we were just outside of Iwagakure*. We were both breathless, but that was better than being captured - or killed.

"I can't believe you destroyed that!" Neji said. "But at least we're out of there alive."

"It's not necessarily all gone," I said. "This might be a lot to hope for, but if we can get back to Konoha quick enough, I may be able to use my Kekkei Genkai to telepathically show Darcy what I found, and she can use her Kekkei Genkai to write it down… at least, I hope it can work that way. But, at the very least, we destroyed what information Orochimaru had."

"That's true," Neji said. We looked at each other for a while, and then he suddenly smiled, ever so slightly. "You did a good job, Kye.'

"Oh, you too, I guess," I said.

"You guess?" He asked with a quirked eyebrow.

"Oh, whatever, you know what I mean," I said, "Let's just hurry up and head home."

He just laughed as he followed me around Iwagakure and back home.

A/N: I bet you guys missed me. I hope you liked it. I think this chapter was pretty damn good, if I do say so myself, and I do.

*Hidden Stone Village