It was as though Konan had handed down a death sentence to Kisame. His stomach sank down into the heel of his boots, and for a minute the shark was legitimately worried that his knees were going to give out on him. It couldn't end like this; he couldn't be sent back to Earth before he could make things right with Itachi!

But as horrible as that one moment was for Kisame, in the weeks to come he would have traded anything to travel back to this point in time.

A Falk suddenly burst into the tent, interrupting the conversation as he gasped for air. Normally Konan would never allow such an intrusion while the leaders were speaking on important matters, so this soldier either had gravely important news or a death wish. "Commander!"

"What is it?" Konan demanded. "'Ave you found ze source of ze attack?"

"Commander, it's horrible! The attack wasn't on us, it was on Regi!"

You could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed. Finally, Konan stuttered out a small, confused, "What did you say?"

"The gas flooded Regi's slums and sank down to us through the sewer systems! Some kind of militia is moving into the city proper; they must have been hiding out and gathering support for months!"

"Zat is impossible! Jiraya would 'ave said-" Konan stopped in mid-speech and hissed under her breath. "Jiraya betrayed us. I should 'ave known, when 'e didn't come to collect Itachi after learning of ze attack."

"Jiraya would never do that!" Tsunade shouted, slamming her hands on the table. "He's stuck his neck out for us so many times I've lost count! He cares about the VUM more than anyone else in the whole city of Regi!"

"Ze Jiraya I knew would not betray us, but zere can be no ozer explanation for a gap in information zis large," Konan argued. "And if Jiraya kept quiet about zis, who knows what else 'e didn't tell us. 'e may 'ave even informed zis mysterious adversary about our bases in Regi. Zis is bad; we'll 'ave to fall back to Emergency base LASAHO."

"Commander-" Tsunade began, but her plea fell on deaf ears.

"Evacuate ze base at once! All our defenses are to be considered compromised!" Konan immediately turned her attention to Kisame. "Get your men, get on a ship, and do it fast." As soon as the command was given she rushed out of the tent with the other VUM leaders in tow, screaming commands in her native tongue to the scout and nearby guards. Moments later, Kisame heard a dull boom and felt the earth quake beneath his feet. Compromised indeed.

-n-

Sasori had no idea how it had happened. One minute he and Deidara had been helping Tobi deliver various pieces of mail around the camp, and the next instant a messenger had run up and told them to drop what they were doing, and prepare to evacuate. A minor explosion punctuated his sentence as the Falks on guard duty rushed towards the tunnels that led to Verden's surface. The entire camp soon descended into a panic, and Deidara and Sasori had to fight their way back to their tent through crowds of screaming Falks. "I'm getting sick of always being on the run," Sasori snapped as he began shoving his belongings into his canvas sack as quickly as possible. "Do you have everything?"

"Yes, let's go, un!"

BOOOOOOOM

A massive explosion rocked the entire camp as debris from the metal ceiling above fell to the ground below. "Damn it, what's going on up there?" Sasori wondered aloud as he and Deidara regained their footing and bolted towards the ships at the edge of camp, having to divide their attention between panicking soldiers on the ground and a collapsing ceiling above.

In their rush they caught sight of Hidan, who was looking around in confusion as masses of shrieking Falks ran by him in an effort to escape. "Hidan, what are you doing!?" Sasori demanded, grabbing his friend by the wrist and pulling him towards the escape shuttles.

Hidan jerked his hand away, however, unwilling to follow his friend. "Kakuzu's missing. I think he's on guard duty in the tunnels!"

Another explosion shook the camp so badly that Sasori nearly lost his balance. "We can't wait for him here; it's suicide!"

"Tch, fuck that!" Hidan threw his bag towards Sasori and spun around, rush back towards the camp. "I'm gonna go find him! Wait for us, ok?!"

"Hidan-"

"Sasori danna, we have to move!" Deidara cried out, grabbing his friend and pulling the two of them towards the ships. Although it crushed Sasori to do so, the man had to follow Deidara and pray that Hidan would come back to them in one piece, hopefully with Kakuzu in tow.

-n-

Kakuzu, meanwhile, was running in the exact opposite direction of camp. The explosions above them were large enough to destroy skyscrapers, if his estimates of the blasts were correct. The tunnel system under Regi wouldn't be able to handle the weight of all that rubble suddenly smashing down on it; it was now only a matter of time before a total collapse occurred.

But he had a duty to his fellow soldiers to make sure that everyone got out of the side tunnels safely, and right now he was still a couple of men short. As soon as he got them out, it was back to camp to get on a ship and fly out of here. Konan's evacuation was probably in full swing by now, so the sooner he could wrap up this fiasco the better.

He suddenly heard shrieking from up ahead, accompanied by something that was making a high-pitched metallic wine. A soldier rounded the corner from the tunnel up ahead, shooting blindly behind him. "Run!" he shouted before a red blast sliced him in half.

Kakuzu's eyes widened in shock as a hulking machine rounded the corner. It was boxy and walked on four legs, albeit somewhat clumsily as it constantly seemed to be losing its balance. A single red orb set in the center of its body scanned the room, although what it was looking for Kakuzu couldn't tell.

The orb suddenly focused a beam of red light on him. Immediately thereafter, it began beeping wildly and turned its body to face the Falk. Ah, that was it.

Kakuzu leapt to the side just as the machine unleashed a series of red blasts in his direction. He took cover behind a pile of rubble and quickly extracted his gun from its holster. The body looked too sturdy to be damaged much by a small handgun, but if Kakuzu could damage the legs he could cripple the machine before it got any closer to camp. Still, damaging the machine would involve ducking out from cover for a moment, thereby making himself completely vulnerable for a few moments.

With a click of resignation, Kakuzu drew his weapon and ran to the side, hoping beyond hope to hit the robot before he himself was struck down. Whatever plan he had didn't matter, however, because at that instant a huge section of tunnel ceiling above them collapsed on the Falk and robot.

-n-

BOOOOM

Hidan collapsed to his knees as a massive tremor ripped through the VUM base. "Damnit, what the hell's going on up there?" As soon as the shaking subsided the Jashinist rose to his feet, holding his arms out to the side for balance. It might have made him look ridiculous, but Hidan had only a limited amount of time to evacuate his friend before it was too late, and he was not going to waste any of that time by falling again. Sasori and Deidara would probably buy him a little time by the shuttles, if not Kisame, but he still didn't want to press his luck. "Dumbass, what the hell are you doing out here?"

The Jashinist began running along the wall at the edge of the camp, peering down the tunnels jutting out from the settlement every now and again in the hopes of finding Kakuzu. The longer he went without finding his friend (or any live Falk, for that matter), the more anxious and desperate he became. "Dumbass, where the hell are you?!" he shouted as loudly as he could.

A slouching figure suddenly emerged from a tunnel in front of the Jashinist, leaning heavily against the wall. Hidan immediately recognized the dark head of hair and scars on the figure's arms as belonging to Kakuzu and charged towards his friend. "Dumbass, we have to go-oh shit."

Kakuzu was bleeding, and badly. A gaping wound on his right side was leaking dark black blood down his side and onto the ground, despite his attempts to stem the bleeding with his hand. Swearing again, Hidan ripped off his shirt and pressed it against the Falk's side. "What the hell happened?"

"Tunnel collapsed," Kakuzu quickly signed before taking hold of Hidan's shirt and holding it against his wound.

"Damn, that must've been the shaking I felt," Hidan muttered. "C'mon, we have to go." The Jashinist made to help Kakuzu walk, only to be pushed away by the Falk. He tried once again, only to be met with the same, slightly more forceful results. "Dumbass, what the hell?"

Kakuzu slumped down onto the ground and pointed back towards the camp. The gesture was obvious; Kakuzu intended for Hidan to leave him and save himself.

Hidan did what any reasonable and understanding man in his position would have done, and slapped Kakuzu across the face so hard that it jerked the Falk's head to the side. "Are you fucking serious?!"

Kakuzu stared up at the human in disbelief.

"Like fuck I'm just going to leave you behind!" Hidan swore, already bending down and trying to force the larger man to his feet. "We've been through too much shit for me to just leave your ass behind to get fucking flattened by collapsing tunnels! If you think for half a minute I'm gonna turn into some fucking chicken shit coward that'll abandon you, you're even more of a dumbass than I thought! Now get off your ass and start walking or so help me I'll haunt you for the rest of eternity when this fucking tunnel collapses on both of us!"

Motivated either by Hidan's words or Hidan's hands digging into his ribs, the injured Falk rose to his feet and leaned heavily on the human. Together, they weakly limped towards the ruined VUM camp.

-n-

"We have to go now!" a Falk soldier argued, hissing angrily at Deidara as he moved towards the door lock.

"Close that door and I will rip out your eyeballs with my fingers and eat them!" Deidara snapped, smacking the other Falk's hand away.

Deidara and Sasori had found themselves on the last remaining Falk ship, the other shuttles already having evacuated the camp long ago. They'd managed to keep the ship from taking off due to a combination of begging, bribery, and now threats of dismemberment. Deidara wasn't stupid though; he could feel the tremors above them getting more frequent and stronger with each passing minute. A total collapse of the nearby tunnels was now not just a possibility, it was an imminent threat.

As the two Falks continued to fight, Sasori leaned out the edge of the doorway as far as he could, squinting into the darkness in search of his friends. The power in the base had gone out not long ago, and now all the illumination available to the redhead came from the soft red lights installed on the edge of the ships. "Come on, Hidan. For once in your life don't be a total idiot…"

"Sasori, we can't wait much longer!" Deidara called out, once again smacking away the Falk's hand from the door lock. Given much longer, the two Falks would completely devolve into a full-blown fight, and judging from the other soldier's side Deidara would probably lose.

A flicker of movement in the distance caught Sasori's attention; a few moments later, he could make out two figures limping towards the shuttles. "They're here!" he called out before rushing out of the shuttle towards the figures. He truthfully had no idea if the newcomers were his friends or not, but hope was all he had at this point.

By some miracle of fate it turned out to be Kakuzu and Hidan, who were making terribly slow progress due to Kakuzu's injury. "Hidan, what happened?!" Sasori demanded.

"Dumbass is bleeding," Hidan grunted. "It won't fucking stop. We need to get him on a shuttle ASAP." Not hesitating for a moment, Sasori hooked Kakuzu's other arm around his shoulder and half-walked, half-dragged the injured Falk towards the shuttle with Hidan's assistance. They'd barely gotten onto the ship before the door was hurriedly closed behind him and the Falk soldier was shouting something into an intercom, probably telling the pilot that they were ready to take off. Hidan and Sasori had barely set Kakuzu down before the rumbling of the ship's engine caused the entire craft to vibrate, and in seconds they were off the ground and shooting off towards safety, wherever that may be.

"Shit, why won't he stop bleeding?!" Hidan swore. Kakuzu was still losing a lot of blood and had already bled through the Jashinist's shirt, staining Hidan's hands black as he pressed against the wound. "Sasori, get some bandages!"

In an instant the redhead was on the other side of the ship ripping the first aid box off the wall. He rushed over to his friend's side and crouched down, hurriedly extracting as much tape and gauze from the box as he could without making a mess of things. "This is all we have?!" he gaped, staring in disbelief at the mere handful of supplies the kit had provided him with. Someone must have used most of the bandages at an earlier point in time and had either forgotten to restock the box or else lacked the supplies to do so.

"Shit, gimme your shirt!" Hidan ordered. Sasori quickly took off his top and pressed it overtop Hidan's shirt, desperately trying to stem the bleeding. "Damn, Kakuzu, you a hemophiliac or something?" Kakuzu offered only a confused look, clearly having no idea what the word hemophiliac meant.

Deidara took a seat by Sasori and began to help the redhead tape the shirts down over the wound. "Falks are harder to hurt than humans, but it's harder for our bodies to heal, un," he explained. "Don't panic, un."

"Oh, pardon me," Hidan snapped, "I didn't mean to freak out, my hands are just covered in blood right now, that's all!" Ignoring whatever reply the blond was about to give, Hidan turned his focus to Kakuzu. "Don't go dying on me, you hear?! I'm fucking sick of seeing people die in this Jashin-damned war, and the next one isn't gonna be you, understand?"

Kakuzu glanced towards the Falk soldier on the other side of the room (who was still yelling into the intercom) and then grabbed Hidan in one arm and pulled him against his chest. Hidan made a startled noise, clearly not expecting something like this from his injured friend. Sasori only stared for a moment before he quickly turned his back to the pair and grabbed Deidara's arm, tugging the blond towards the other side of the ship. "Deidara, come with me."

"Why, un?"

"Privacy, Deidara."

Hidan paid no mind to the pair of them disappearing to the other side of the ship; he was too busy being confused as he was crushed against a muscular Falk chest. "Dumbass?"

"I'm fine," Kakuzu wheezed into his ear, voice softer and weaker than Hidan had ever heard it. "See?"

The Jashinist chanced a glance downwards and saw that Sasori's shirt, while stained darker, did not have blood dripping through it like Hidan's had done. Hidan was far from reassured by this, however. "We still need to get you to a doctor, stat," he argued. "You need actual bandages, and probably a fucking transfusion or something!"

"Calm down shii-shi," Kakuzu muttered before breaking into a coughing fit.

"Shii-shi? What the hell does that mean?"

"…"

"Kakuzu?" Hidan shook the Falk by the shoulder, trying to get some reply. "Oi, dumbass, say something." Still no reply.

The Jashinist leaned in closer and was startled to realize that Kakuzu's eyes had slid shut; the Falk must have passed out after his coughing fit. "Kakuzu, hey, wake up!" No matter how hard the zealot shook him, however, Kakuzu refused to respond. This wasn't good; despite the Falk's claims to the contrary, Kakuzu was clearly in need of medical attention. "Shit, dumbass, please be ok," Hidan begged, wrapped in the Falk's arms and covered in his blood.