EDIT, Christmas Eve, 2012: Here it is. The last edit.

Almost there.

.

I'm expecting this to end in five-ish chapters, by the way, if not four. (Followed by an epilogue that will have no point but fanservice and amusement, subjects which mostly make me grind my teeth in frustration and disappointment, but can make me struggle to hold in a squee of utter joy, depending on the day.)

January…25th? Too early for me to be walking around. …Naruto POV

People at Chambers said sometimes that hospitals work around the clock, which means all the time, and I didn't believe them because people need to sleep and they have to let their employees sleep, or else I don't even know how they're doing it. But they do work around the clock, just by switching people out. That never even occurred to me. So...so I'm dumb, I guess. What else is new. The point is, the people at this hospital work around the clock, too. It's not even dawn, and there are still just as many nurses around as when we first came in here. They're leaving us alone for now, though.

Three of my friends had to sleep in the room right next door, because there's just not enough room for nine people in one room so that's too bad. Anyway, most of us are gonna be on the floor or something since there's only one bed and one chair in every room. Too bad for them. In this room, some people dragged in a long couch for us, and that's where I got to be with, while everyone else stood or sat on the floor. I get the couch because I've got the little one sleeping in my arms and we're not gonna have her on the floor.

The nurses objected when they saw it earlier, but Neji showed his fangs at one of them a little to make them go away and they did. And I know that's bad and Sakura will hate that he acted aggressively to the humans, but their plan had been to put her in an empty room with the security guards outside it. And that is a goddamn joke so we wouldn't let them do it. I'll tell her that when she wakes up, but for now, she's with me and everything's good. Her sore neck can get better right here.

The only bad part about this is that I've been hungry for a while. And the hospital food is okay, but I want a TV dinner, the kind with a steak inside. Or the ribs Zetsu made. Deidara suddenly got up and interrupted my food-thoughts. He had to sleep on the stood up and stretched, pulled on his left wing, and walked over to the window. He pulled down a couple blinds with one claw and instantly said, "Whoa, shit."

"Hhuh?" I was still tired, so...I don't know.

"There's people out there. Just standing in the parking lot, a whole bunch of them."

"And how many is a bunch?"

"Gotta be...seventy, eighty. At least." I came a little more awake. From alarm. I remembered this feeling from a whole ton of Chambers tests, like the feeling you might get, if you're lucky, when an automated gun is coming around to point at you. And even that went away when Sakura shifted her legs. Her legs were basically in between my legs, so she kicked me a little bit. Deidara just laughed at her. "Uh, didn't mean to wake you."

"Well, you didn't," she said, blinking a couple times. "I'm still unconscious and in a minute I'm gonna get up and start sleepwalking."

"Who's sleepwalking?" Neji had slept on the opposite end of the couch, sitting upright while Sakura and me were sprawled the long way. My feet were still sort of on his lap but he didn't look like he cared and I didn't, either.

"Looks kinda like those people are." Deidara gestured to the window again. "They're just...standing there. Staring up. Not even waving signs or anything, mm. That's just creepy! What do you think they want?"

"They're probably here for us." I told him.

"No shit Naruto, but why? To meet us or shoot us or something else? And why at four forty-five in the morning?"

Neji stood up and shook his head wildly, like a kitty right from Youtube. I'll tell him that later, ahaha.

"We should neaten ourselves…" he stopped to yawn. "and deal with it very soon. I don't think hiding is any answer."

"I don't, either. We ought to go out there and speak to them." I like when she says 'we'. It's my favorite little thing in the world to notice. "After which, I'll advise everyone to stay in their homes, basements if possible. And only that if we can't get a significant amount of people into shelters of some sort. Even local gyms would do. Even..." Sakura sighed. Deidara looked away and stared at his arm or something. My fingers were sort of new the pocket of Sakura's new pants, and I poked the edge of it. Karin was suddenly coming into my head and this made her go away. I scratched the pocket and wondered how much time it would take to talk to those people.

Sakura started to talk again. "There's no telling when Karin will send more of her monsters, or even mercenaries. The sooner we get regular people out of the way, the better. We need space for, for...a conflict." Deidara nodded at this, but moved towards the door as though he meant to leave. But he stopped at Zetsu's bed to stare at him real quick. Sakura got up from my lap, and I moved my tail so it wouldn't be in her way.

She, and sort of Itachi and Sasori, would be the only ones really good talking to people. The rest of us would just wave and maybe shake people's hands. And I hope no one misunderstands me on the first meeting. That would just...not...be cool. I hope I'm lucky.

It took another hour or so for everyone to shower and look nice and have their clothes washed, and even then Sakura was fussing over how everyone looked and the way they stood and things like that. She smoothed Sasori's hair kept a typical neutrality as he purred for her, and made a few creases in Itachi's shirt so he wouldn't look "like a farce" and whacked Deidara with her wing when he kept licking the edges of his canines. She did this as we huddled in and around Zetsu's room, (he still slept) and when we went in two groups to the bottom floor, and when we waited near the lobby. She refused to let us actually go in the lobby, since some people were there and the doors and windows near it would let anyone outside who was close be able to see us. So we waited near the end of this one storage hallway for...for something.

Sakura pulled Sasori away twice, and Kakashi once, to ask them things. I don't know if she expected them to be private; she must know I could hear them well enough, with two ears open or four. She was telling Sasori who she'd be in charge of keeping in line once we got outside, and who he'd be in charge of. What I didn't get was how they were gonna keep anybody in line in front of a billion cameras and not make it all obvious and stuff. And she told Kakashi the routes to run if things didn't go well. No one else got told anything.

We waited and waited and Sakura whispered and fussed. Kisame stayed pacing up and down the hall and the lady at the receptionist's desk, who could alsmot see us, broke out sweating every time he came sort of near. I was kind of sweating, too. And my left fox-ear hurt. I don't even know why, it just did, I think it was nerves or something. I asked Sakura and she said not to worry, and just breathe deep, and I did.

I also wondered what the crowd outside was like now. It was around 6:15 now and I could tell with just a twitch of my ear that the crowd had grown and that they were shuffling around outside. Sometimes cars honked at them, too. I admit it, I got curious and stepped closer to the lobby and even looked out the front doors. I wasn't close enough that they'd open by themselves with that magic thing inside them that makes them do that, so it was probably still okay. I saw camera flashes and lots of people and something about the crowd and their eager faces made my ears twitch and a smile appear on my face.

"Get back" is what Sakura hissed at me three seconds later, and she pinched her little talons into me and pulled. She pulled ridiculously hard, too, and I almost fell on her. "Naruto, you don't even go near the door unless I tell you to! We're doing this exactly as I say and I mean exactly. This, this..." She halted and was probably searching for a word. Kakashi stared at her while she fussed and tapped her foot. "This...ugh...press conference, will shape the rest of our lives. Public feelings on us will be hugely shaped by whatever we say, whatever expressions we make, and yes, Naruto, the way we stand."

"If you say so," I said, and she squinted at me in a way that was totally not positive and chilled me. I would bet some bits of my tail fur fell out from that look. "I mean on the last bit, the standing. Everything else, I get it, Sakura, I do. I know how important this is." I do. I know I'm not...taking charge like she is, but I do understand.

When she left my side again, it was just about when Kisame was coming back from another pace down the hall. He stopped by me and whispered, "What the hell do we do if they throw things at us? What if they yell and throw rocks at us?"

I know I'm no Sakura, no Sasori, but I know very well what our destiny is going to be if the result of this "press conference" turns out to be fear and stone-throwing. Lots of people throughout history have been "stoned", which is the older sense of the word, not the new one that means drugs. To be stoned really means to have rocks thrown at you, like if they think you're a witch or something and your village thinks you need to die. That's being stoned. That could be us and...and that's...that. Sakura wasn't in the vicinity to tell him what to do, so I just said what I would do. "If they do that, we walk back inside. Real slow." Was that an okay answer? Please, please let it be okay.

Let this be okay.

The time's come and I'm scared now. The hospital employees, patients and visitors were all avoiding us now.

Now.

Sakura came back from someplace with vending machine treats for us. I got two candy packages in orange wrappers that I recognized, but I couldn't really read it. The first letter was R, and they smelled of chocolate. "Thanks," I told her. But quietly. I felt quiet now. I might even have felt impending doom now.

"I'm sorry for bringing this so late. I forgot all about eating, is the truth." She said. She opened her own food-thing, which looked like a granola bar. "Eat, Naruto. There wasn't enough money for me to bring you a full stomach's worth, but the cafeteria's closed and we must have something. A fuller stomach means an alert mind. I need you alert and ready. No stuttering, no random growling or hissing at something you don't like or understand. Calm and friendly to all."

"I can be calm and friendly." I said, but everyone around me could hear how hollow the words were.

"Can you?" Sasori murmured next to me. I didn't even look at him.

"I can. I will." The candy tasted good, but my stomach didn't feel any better. "I just...feel...nervous. Really nervous, and really suddenly, too."

"You only need to follow my lead." the little one said. "I'll be going out first, and when I call you, you come out. You answer any questions as clearly as possible. And don't fake any of your emotions, but for aggression, which you must hide at all costs." I nodded at her as she talked, not even an arm's length in front of me. I could have leaned my head into her shoulder. Rested. Hid. It's been a long time since I wanted to hide.

Somewhere on my left, I couldn't see, Deidara. "For god's sake, will you wear a coat this time? It's twenty-eight degrees out there," he said.

Sakura took up all of my vision now. I saw her shaking her head and smiling a little. She looked...like herself. Really nice. "I'm wearing long sleeves now, Deidara. I am prepared for winter." (She's worn shorts all her life, but she's never cold, never. I still wonder why. That's so weird. She doesn't even have fur.)

"I will never understand that part of you," Sasori hissed. He curled his tail around his legs.

"You don't need to." She passed between Kisame and Neji and threw away her wrapper. "It's time now. I'm going."

"N-now?" Kisame squeaked (Squeaked, really squeaked,) but Sakura just told him "yes" and walked away. Nobody stopped her and I felt more and more anguish churning up in me as she got farther away. My ears fell and my voice fell. I whined like a pup. One time, Neji might have hissed at me or clawed my ears if he heard me doing that but if he did this time, I didn't feel or hear a thing.

The sliding doors opened for Sakura and camera flashes awaited her. People screamed and I screeched in horror, and my heart squeezed itself. But Sakura didn't stop. She walked outside and we couldn't see her. Voices erupted and suddenly somebody was holding my tail and keeping me from clawing my way on the ground to run outside and help. The person's grip hurt and no matter what, I couldn't get away from them. TI just stayed there with my ears open and had to listen to the chaos.

And I heard the first thing she told people, that I could hear, was her name, and that she didn't want to hurt anyone.

The first question was whether or not she was a test tube baby. She laughed and said yes.

God, she's really doing it! This is it.

Neji came up next to me and the two of us were probably the most pathetic canine and feline pair ever, with our ears pinned like a sewing project flat to our heads, and our tails twined not in affection and our own brotherhood, but terror like a deadweight cloud of storm over our heads. Like biting our nails, unable to do any little thing. We sunk to the floor before any of the others. My hearing played to my advantage and at least I could hear the words being passed around. Sakura asked people for order and quiet. One at a time, please, I'll answer everything I can, haha, thank you, and stuff like that. All this...diplomatic, nice stuff that made people sit down. That's...good. It's good. I'm crossing my fingers right now.

Order did come and she did answer single questions. Someone asked, loudly, "Where did you come from?"

"Fucking loaded question, that." Kakashi scoffed.

Right after him, lots of similar ones came. "What the hell are you?" and "Do you actually fly?" and "You belong to the government, don't you?!" and five camera flashes in a second.

My ears were stone-still. I caught her answers easily. "I'm a successful science experiment, I'm proof that genetic mutation and splicing really does work. I don't belong to the government, to anyone. And you know where I'm from." They and their cameras and phones all slowed, or paused. They all noticed that one. "I'm from Chambers Incorporated, and I know the media sometime has a problem with lying, but that's not a lie. Not at all. I'm from the laboratory that burned up over in Tillamook. I escaped just a few weeks ago. I flew out and that was the first time I ever flew."

It took me one second. Just one. I slipped away from Neji and crawled forward, pulling even by my claws. I pulled up to a spot where I could see Sakura, standing in her pretty new outfit and her sweet face and her twitching wingtip. There's a plant and a large table by me that could mask me from outside sight. I hope it does. I need to see her and I don't care if someone sees me.

A second passed. A man stood up outside. His clothes are neat. Immaculate, actually. That's a good word. He's definitely a reporter, I would bet my life on it. There's a second person trying to beat him, trying to stand up faster, and I can absolutely sense that he wants to know if Sakura was the one who wrecked the lab. I feel in my bones up to the tips of my freaking ears...and when the first one fumbled and tripped, I laughed out loud.

So the other man gets to ask the question, The Question.

"Sakura. Did you have any part in that lab's destruction?"

Shit shit shit shit no tell them no, was that the plan I forgot

Cameras flashed on her and her hair fell in her face a tiny bit, and her shoulders went up and down with the movement of a long breath. Sakura thought. And my heart rate was fast and painful. My heart beat in fear for her.

"I did."

"That's not right," I hissed and behind me, Deidara sunk his claws into my arm. Frustration, fury, fear. I smelled a little of all that on him. The people outside were bellowing. It was too loud, my god, too loud. Itachi told everyone to be calm but even Kakashi was shivering.

"My friends and I did that. We killed those people."

The questions and screeches got louder. Someone asked about Karin, the agent "investigating" Chambers, already discovered fake, and if we killed her, too. They asked how she killed the employees and if she ate human meat. I bowed my head. Submissively.

"I can't possibly justify that unless you understand who those people were!" She was screeching, too. "And your media coverage is more or less useless when it comes to that. Will you hear me out and listen to the reasons why we've done what we did? Don't I get that right to be heard?"

("Human rights" and "no, it'd be animal rights" and "murderer" and "shoot her")

They got quieter for her. The flashes were fewer now. Sakura sighed and her lips and brows together made an expression that seemed heavy and worried to me. I stared. "We killed those people because they killed us. I can't...I can't possibly make you understand everything. But you have to know those people were worthy of every drop of hate you have in your body. They ruined me and destroyed me. You saw what was in the laboratory!" Anger was on her now. She didn't hide one scrap. "That part is no goddamned tabloid lie. The tools, th-the knives and needles, the experiments they wrote about with starvation and bone re-breaking, that was me. That's what happened to me." Now it's melting. It's the face of the little one I wanted to curl around and protect my whole life. I feel nostalgic, and heavy. Like I'm turning into Itachi. "Every day, without pause. If you want to spit at me and argue about whether I should have 'animal rights' or human rights, you can't, because up until three weeks ago I didn't have either of those. They dragged me around in a dog collar, broke my arms one day and induced seizures the next and eviscerated me and let me watch their hands inside me..."

The rest I can't hear because my ears are full of a rushing noise and it has to be blood rushing through them and all through the rest of me. I breathed deep to calm down, and stop shaking. But I still wanted to scream. What is she saying, to the whole world? That's her ugly secret. That's just her, and only we nine are supposed to know of that hell. How do we even...

"You can find proof yourself. It's in the laboratory, spilled everywhere. The records and the pictures and everything else, and some of it has be released by now. Some of you must have seen those things."

They are quieter now. It's too many long breaths of quiet where I'm biting my nails into the palms, and then someone says he did see released photos of the cleaning rooms. He doesn't say it, but we know and perhaps the public will soon know that those rooms are where used equipment is temporarily stored: the cutting things that haven't had the blood washed off yet.

"Not surgical equipment," he says, and he's sure right. "Saws. And cutting boards with red on them."

"I saw that article," a woman said after him.

"There were saws sometimes." Sakura added. And she is quieter now. I got back to watching her instead of putting all my attention into my ears, and I can see how tensely she's holding herself. "It's not pretty. It's disgusting. I hated and feared every second of what they did." Neji put his tail round mine again, and he's not as mortified now. But I can't relax. I sit and listen as the speed demon talks at length of Chambers and their dialy routines, and the other experiments from other lands around the world, the failed, ugly ones, the monsters that never could do anything but breathe and twitch. Some bits actually, actually manage to bore me because I lived them all a million times, too.

"I know the stigma against killing, I know the laws against killing. I know I ought to be prosecuted or even persecuted for it. I don't deny what I did...but I will never say that it was wrong." They paused here again. Our youngest stared down a crowd of wondering, accusing humans. We waited.

"After years of that treatment, by that kind of people, all for the purpose of us being war weapons-for anyone who would pay for us, not only this country-made me hate them with all my heart, For what was happening to me, I would confidently say that I was defending myself. If we didn't do what we did, those workers would have captured us again and started that treatment right up again ,and I'd probably die being shot full of holes on a surgical table. And then they would make another experiment like me and rip her up, too, or send her to a battlefield to murder soldiers if she was successful enough. If you want to punish me for it, please for the love of god, wait until you know everything I have to say, because I'm not the only mutated freak of nature around, there are others and they are dangerous. Let me finish telling you everything before you judge me or or sentence me. Please."

They oblige. I can see people staring at her, and nodding. Good, that's good. Okay. Sakura continues her story and tells more about Chambers, information we've all known a long time. Secrecy and lots of money. And Karin and Kabuto, the masterminds who still roam free and the only two to escape our attack on the lab. I know much of it, I know I've heard some before but never understood it, and I still don't. I don't want to repeat any of it. So I won't. But it did feel like a long time before I notice she's kept the whole story focused on herself, without any mention of how we saw most of those trials and tortures, too. And she never mentions the white rooms and how we would chase her. I didn't at all notice how she left those things out until I heard, "It was just the way for my friends and me."

Everyone except Number 9 latched on to that word. I...wrapped my whole self around it.

"Did she call me that? Really?" I was scratching the floor now. "Is she lying? Covering for us?"

"Be quiet!"

"She's hiding the truth of the Predator and Prey game." Kakashi said, talking fast. "That's what it means. She's going to say-"

For a second I can't hear Kakashi because my ears are full of people yelling about who the 'friends' are and if "Sharkzilla" is one of her fellows. They must mean Kisame, because we have problems if there's another Sharkzilla around here. Sakura raises her hand in this nice, peaceful gesture and says, "Yes, he's one of them. That's Kisame. He's with me."

'With me? What is going on?'

"There are nine of us total, all born in that same building. Maybe you already know that from lab evidence. I'm the last, the youngest. I've known the others all my life. I would have introduced them sooner, but...well, I wanted the truth about the laboratory out as fast as possible. Now, you can...you can meet the others."

A couple of guys scream for "Sharkzilla". Sakura waved her hands and then clasped them together, saying, "Okaaay," like this is kind of joke or a playful scene or whatever, and...and now she's turning back towards us. She walks a little way into the automatic doors and they open for her. "Kisame." She said. And she doesn't show any surprise at seeing most of us having creeped up closer to the door like she said we should not do at all. She just said, "You're first," to our favorite sharkman and...and he walked towards her.

I sat up and barked at him, "You'll be okay, Kisame!" He didn't turn back to me, though. Sakura asked him how he felt once he got close. I couldn't even hear his reply. And that was kind of startling.

Poor guy was probably sweating up a storm, I realized. When he got outside the camera flashes started anew, and people shrieked at him. It took an extra moment to realize they were shrieks of amazement, not terror. Kisame put one hand in his pocket and let the other hand down. It was one of the "cool people" poses that we had seen in magazines recently. It didn't...look like him that way. Sakura must have noticed, because she told him to relax, and rubbed the side of his arm. He stood normally after that.

"This is him, Mr. Bank Robber Stopper." Sakura said, with a hand on his sleeve. He noticed, and looked at her. "Kisame was called Number 7. He's, uh...a gentle giant, I guess. He gets sick pretty often and...and you look sick now, Kisame. Feeling okay?"

That sounds...kind of...obvious. Is she telling him to get his act together and calm down or, or making a cutesy joke or what? Kisame's face doesn't even change. He just looked over into the crowd of people and their phone cameras and regular cameras and said, "I'm...I'm nervous. This was a big plan of Sakura's, exposing ourselves to the public like this, and I, uh...I've worried my ass off thinking you would stone us to death or shoot us. Thanks for being understanding so far."

Another silence. Another heavy silence. Shit, he must have said something wrong! This is bad! Did they even understand him? If they didn't, oh...

And then some guy laughed and said, "It, It's fine! Sure!" and even though that doesn't really mean anything and he was probably being a wiseass, people start shuffling on their feet again and talking and asking things. I could see smiles and soft chuckles being passed around, signs of a good mood. Someone asked Kisame how he knew Sakura. And here's another frigging moment where I feel my tail fur falling out in suspense. I hope he says something good.

"I've seen Sakura around the lab since she was a little toddler, but I didn't interact with her till she was nearly a year old." He stopped, not even for a whole second, to look down at her. I think he's still terrified. "She'd aged several years by then, still a child but definitely enough to, well, be my friend, or something like that. I thought she was mute at the time, so we couldn't communicate so well, but she was still the only person in my whole world who didn't want to fucking stab me."

That definitely earned him some points. Man, look at those people grin. That quote's gonna everywhere. It'll be in the papers and on lots of the websites that people read and it'll be popular, and people will know him by his joke about stabbing people, and like him. It's like this is falling into place again! Already.

The others were called out, too. Sasori came next. And people gawked at his tail and how he would weave it around, but I spat a little at him because he was just being a prissy showoff. Then Neji and Deidara went together, and then they made a joke about Sasori being a prissy showoff, which the people laughed at. Then it was me going out there into the flashes and people with funny clothes, and...and soon everyone but poor bedridden Zetsu was out and totally exposed and and...it felt so weird. I felt like I weighed nothing. Sakura was right about how she wanted to do, and totally did, a majority of the talking. She told a few more Chambers' horror stories. She told how we experiments would stare at each other as we passed in the halls, and how we would play in the white rooms when we were put together. And from just those interactions, we all became friends, and knew each other.

There was no mention, could be no mention, of Sakura calling us her friends, and labeling our chasing games as actual games.

She'd gone from seeing our truth as a lie all her life and now she disguised her lie as our truth for the cameras. It was confusing, and frustrating and I wished I could pounce and question her right now.

Later. God, we will talk to her about this later. I'll chase her and pin her by her wings myself if I have to. But now I can't do shit. I'm stuck answering some jerk's question about if my fox ears can actually function as "real ears" and if I was born that way or they got "grafted" on, and I forgot what grafted means. I told him they were perfectly normal ears that were a part of me my whole life, and you bet he heard me in perfect English, without one animal, gibberish syllable.

"I need to put a stop to your questions," Kakashi said above everyone. All eyes went straight to him, and people asked him why, and to please not go and to shut up and lots of other...random things. "We wanted to..." He looked at Sakura but I didn't really see his expression. I bet he was asking her permission, that's what he should do, anyway.

"We wanted to show ourselves to the public once and for all, so you know the truth of us." the little one said. "This is everything I have to share about what we are. But that's not everything, not by a long shot."

"There are more of us." Deidara interjected. His arms are crossed now and he looks like he's the fricking boss of the cameras now. "They're not friendly, and they will kill you."

I felt the wrongness of that like Kisame kicking me in the neck. And the quietness that came right after was chilling. That was too direct, Deidara. Look at them. Look at those faces. I hear them whispering. For god's sake...you...fucking...!

The first reaction was a woman gasping and saying "Excuse me?" and the people's quiet shuffles and light stutters got a little louder and the one screeching voice telling us that we were liars, honest to god made me dizzy. Neji grabbed my shoulder and told me to breathe and, well, I assume I did.

"There are nine good experiments and that's all of us." Kisame shouted, raising both his hands for attention. "There are others from the other labs, ones that Karin is using. She's dropping them wherever she wants to cause whatever chaos and death she wants."

"Shut up!" Sakura hissed at him. In an instant she's appeared by him, making the little humans gasp and flinch, and shoves at him. The poor guy fell flat on his butt. Embarrassingly. People continued to whisper and wait for more answers.

She told them, "He's right. I'm sorry," and slapped her hand over her face. It covered her eyes, and I could see her mouth twitching. There could have been oncoming tears. "There are more experiments, from laboratories all around the world, and it's very likely that Karin has taken as many as she can and wants to cause pointless violence before she's caught and jailed for good."

A man rose up. "Why the hell didn't you-"

And Sakura flared her wings out halfway, taking a step forward. "Because if that's all you heard from me, all you would know or do is panic! This entire country would fall into a riot and thousands would die for no reason!" She stepped back, looking sheepish now. "And you would try to kill us!"

("I would never!" and "This is the government's fucking fault, I can't believe this, I can't believe this utter shit!" and "Please! Please! Where are the other ones?")

Now Itachi requested attention. "We don't know where they are." He said. "We want you all to take shelter for that reason. We can hunt down those remaining experiments, and find Karin, with minimal death if people stay safely in their homes or in shelters."

"She's in the country, I'm sure of it." I said, looking at him.

I could see Sakura bowing her head a little. "You can recognize the other experiments by their...their bodies." She said. "Very few of them will look human to you. We nine are the only human-shaped ones, and the only intelligent ones. And even the only ones who want to do good. All the others will truly look like monsters. If you see one you must hide."

"Call the military!"

"Fuck the military!"

"You can't expect us to seriously-"

"I would fight."

Kisame and I were staring at each other, baring our fangs in worried, contorted grins, and I don't think either of us noticed one of the speaking people near the front approach us till he was dangerously close. He approached the left side of our little formation-line thing, where Sakura and Kakashi were. He stopped in front of them and everyone around stared at him. He looked older than any of us, and really fit, and he stood straight as a board. He repeated himself. This was the man who said "I would fight."

"I believe you." The man said; I watched Sakura's eyes remain wide and wondering as she looked at him. She didn't even blink while he talked. "I'm only one man and it's not like I fully understand you, and this. But I will do my part to defeat the invaders on my country's soil. I hope you would allow me." He held out his hand. "Major Rutger," he said.

He's a military man. A soldier and fighter. He shook Sakura's hand when she brought it up, and she smiled at him. "Major Rutger. Don't you need permission of your superior officer to charge into a dangerous fight?"

Mr. Military laughed. "Already done, Sakura. Listening to you speak isn't the very first time I've heard of these creatures you're speaking of." He must have seen us on TV, then. Or maybe his army commanders are already doing something without us knowing. But he wouldn't say any more. And Sakura shook his hand again, and thanked him.

"We will need military assistance." She said. Not sure if that was supposed to surprise me or not. "Major. What you and your people are about to fight will seem like they're not even from this planet. And they will kill many people before this is done. You have to know that." Rutger said he already knew. And as he spoke, another man appeared out of the crowd. A police officer, by his uniform. He promised to to help, too. More individuals weeded out of the crowd and voiced a desire to fight Karin's monsters. It might have been the greatest moment of humans I'd ever seen in my whole life. They swore to kill Karin with us. The idea of us being 'prosecuted' that Sakura spoke of seemed a long way behind us. Now, we were liked and supported, and probably going to every corner of the world in a hundred little videos. It was the best public intro we could have imagined.

Then a couple came up to me and their little daughter offered a bag of Skittles to me. Not that I'm an expert, but I want to say their English wasn't perfect. Something funny about it. But I understood them. And I took what they offered me and let their daughter pet my ears when she asked. A new flurry of pictures started, and this one was all me and this little girl, a total stranger, clinging to me and smiling. And her parents shaking my hand.

And then it was better than we could have imagined.

January 25th, the anniversary of the second best day ever (Kakashi always says very best is always yet to come) 9:00-ish at night. Yeah. …Deidara POV

There's something in this world that's better than imported chocolate, but I haven't found it yet. I just have the chocolate.

It's one of the things I was given by a total stranger today. By god, you wouldn't believe the junk I got handed by strangers in a hospital parking lot today. This chocolate package, someone's silver haircomb (definitely good for me), a gold sourvenir coin from Ethiopia or something, a figurine of a parrot that I've never seen before, a carved, fat bird made of clay, and drawings of me from the young people. Little kids, bigger kids, college kids. I must have twenty-five at least, of varying quality. There's something totally awesome from all of them. All these people tried to put me on paper the way they saw me, in a burst of color, always with so much blue. My wings are a sunburst of color on every one, even if they're not colored, whether the drawing is talentless or beautiful.

These, I want to store someplace. I want these safe. These sudden, random gifts to me are some of the best things I've ever looked at in my life. I want to come back and see them again sometime. For now, I'm memorizing them.

It's amazing, isn't it? For god's sake, I'm more famous than Mickey Mouse. I'm a mascot of the country now, all of us are. At least, that's the impression we got from all the pictures, the people asking for us to quote and confirm things, and people who used us to talk about American accomplishments and stuff.

Me, a mascot. Holy fuck. I'm a guy made out of a person-body and macaw-wings. My love is a girl made of a person-body and goshawk-wings, and my best friend a scorpion-tail, and my other friend a shark-body. We're famous.

Today rocked. So hard. After talking in front of that crowd this morning, even though all we did was reveal global conspiracy and danger, people...people congratulated us and said hi, and gave us candy. We were petted by children and we shook hands with little old ladies. People showed me pictures of me they had put on their Facebook and that's probably the most surreal experience of my life: seeing my face on another person's phone. Like, where even am I? Space?

I could make a bigger list of the stuff I got (there were two iPods also) but I want to sleep tonight, not list things. Except the military. To think of them isn't really making a list, but if I give them too much though, I'll never get to sleep.

It's 'cause of that short guy in the camo outfit, Rutger something. Colonel Rutger is what he is, I think. I forgot, whatever. He's an Army man and he likes us. He was standing around when some big-ass helicopters landed in the parking lot, loaded with dudes in camo, and they made it known with pointless acts of showing off their guns that we are very interesting to the US Army, and if you will come with us, young sir, you will be back resting in this hospital before the week is over.

The Army came to talk to us. And some folks from the Navy weren't far behind. Kisame asked if the Coast Guard would come also and one Navy guy said there would be no "Puddle Pirates" coming here. So...no Coast Guard? No Puddle Pirates? I'm not gonna mess with that phrase, I don't even know.

Sakura the Translator told the army people no and with a little lingual magic forced the camo-men to do their examinations in the hospital lobby. I knew they wouldn't push us around while cameramen are watching and our faces are probably on live TV. She totally twisted them around till they agreed to do their examinations in an open spot in the hotel lobby. Once they started shuffling off with their stuff, I snuck up behind her and licked her cheek a little, to play, and to tell her she was doing great. She yelped once and wiped at her cheek, and people laughed. The man with the FOX News camera definitely saw. So then, millions saw. I feel pleased in the quiet, inside piece of myself that my claim on her has been made on a television camera. And I feel pleased in the rumbling stomach part of myself where chewed chocolate ends up. Jesus fuck this is so good, thank you, Germans.

It's as though all's right with the world. I love this moment.

Just now, I took a trip down the elevator that played a sad Excuse For Music thing all the way down and I was glad to get back on the floor where Zetsu was. He was strong enough to sit up now and his bleeding had slowed so much they only had to change the bandages twice a day now. People with cameras came to talk to him, too, but I didn't see. Sasori said Zetsu was very calm and friendly, just as he'd been told to be, and he shook lots of hands. Very diplomatic, hooray for Congressman Zetsu. Now he's alone, though, and I don't hear the television in his room playing the channel he likes with lots of animals. He was watching a thing earlier with a guy who wrestled gators and tied their mouths shut, which is really dumb for humans to do, but they never learn and the show was cool anyway, so it didn't matter.

That blonde nurse who isn't actually blonde passed by me and waved at me as she went. I flipped my wingtip at her and kinda-sorta smiled. Don't want to look peppy and fake all the time, right? The lady seemed to think it was a cool greeting. I got to the room pretty quick since the layout of this building is getting familiar. The door was open and another man in fatigues was just leaving, thank god.

Zetsu was inside as usual, lying on the bed. He was doing recovery walks now, which meant he could totally jog if he wanted, but the nurses couldn't handle that level of recovery, so he pretended to be slower than he really felt. Kisame, Sasori and Sakura were standing and sitting all over the place. Kisame was laying on the couch with his stomach facing the rear of the couch where a person's back should have been resting, and his back faced me. I don't know why he was laying like that. He's weird. And blue.

The TV was on. Honestly, that was more interesting, so I watched. It was a news channel, which was okay—because news can be—

Karin.

Crap. But it's not like we could keep her face out of our lives forever. It was a damn nice day, at least.

Karin's portrait was taking up the entire screen. I growled without meaning to and I didn't care. The newswoman was talking, and I barely heard what the she was saying. What I could see was all I cared about. The television showed a bird's-eye view of three people running down a street with a horse running behind them. The horse tackled two of the humans and reared up, revealing an extra pair of dangling legs on its stomach. These legs scraped and slashed at the defenseless humans till I couldn't see their faces through all the blood and loose flesh that covered them. It was just like the monsters we faced after landing the plane that held Zetsu, Neji and Sakura. The same attacks, the same monsters that don't look like they're from our world. Same violence.

Like I was underwater, a thought came to me in faded, echo-ey tones: How could they show that on TV?

The speed demon was standing very near me and staring at the scene gravely. I lifted a wing and smothered her view of the horror with blue feathers. I felt her grasp my wing and pinch it but she didn't move it away.

"Our break time is over." she whispered through my feathers. "I didn't think she would attack for days. It's been hours."

"She's insane." Zetsu said, just real helpfully from his bed. I hissed at him, and he was quiet.

"How long has this been on?" I snarled.

He didn't answer me at first. He was waiting to be hissed at again. "A minute. Or two. First they showed a trio of them going through Atlanta. And then this. That one is in a suburb not far from here."

"Opposite sides of the country." Sakura sighed. I wished so much I could take the exhaustion out of her voice. "I wish I knew how many people she had helping her. The rest of Chambers must be running scared by now. Whoever is dumping those creatures on innocent people must be some gang she hired."

"Fucking god." I was the only one who turned. It was the dude with slick, pale hair Sakura had made friends with. I curled my lip at him instinctively and fuck polite behavior, I didn't bother to correct myself. He didn't even see me, he just looked at the TV, and that, I wanted to correct. "I almost came in here to congratulate you on how much you made people like you today." He stopped, looking upset, like he'd been about to say something bad. Which he already had. Rotten dumbass.

"You can go ahead and say it." Sakura said carelessly. "There are some people who will blame us for what Karin does. Can't be helped…" (There had been people in the crowd today who already had. One of them walked away and called us government spies and I've been told that we shouldn't worry about him)

"What are you gonna do?" Hidan asked. "Go kill 'em? Arrange to meet the president?" The second one made me laugh a little.

"Kill them, of course!" Kisame scoffed. He looked at Sakura as he said it to make sure that was right.

"If they're still there." Sakura agreed. "In Atlanta, the military will be on the job. It'll be bloody and we should pray that people stay inside. But we can probably take care of that suburb a bit sooner than they could get there. We'll go, you guys. We'll split into teams. And after that, find Karin, and kill her." Yes. What I've been waiting to hear. "She'll be pouring out more and more of those things, as many as she can, until someone finds her and stops her. Zetsu," Zetsu suddenly turned all attentive, hah. "your blood pressure problems are gone and your wound is sealed. Your slit vein came back together almost on its own, didn't it?" He said yes. "Right. You're doing great. But I'm going to leave for that town now, and if you're too weak right now to come, you shouldn't, okay? We can't stand to have a member at half strength, you'll only be put in the hospital again with worse wounds and a longer healing time we can't afford."

To Zetsu, this was just an invitation to try his best to follow her; after what he heard on the plane from Karin, he wouldn't separate himself from her if he could help it. But Sakura might not know that. He sat up in bed and the puffy white bandage…item on his neck showed. "Of course I can come, I'm perfectly fine now. Little women in scrubs can't keep me chained in here."

"And you," she said to me. I looked her in the eye, tried to guess what she'd say. I saw her bright eyes turn dark. She was worrying again. "I need your help to find everybody else. For once we're not all in the same place."

I missed all of us being in the same place, too. It made everything feel…funner. "Kakashi's with Kakuzu, yeah." Pretty much everyone looked surprised at that. "I saw them walking together, and they didn't look that pissed, so I guess they get along okay. I don't know what they're doing, though."

"Kakashi's a clever diplomat and alliance-maker. He's probably faking." Zetsu suggested, but even I could tell his words weren't all full and confident. He got up off the bed. "Huh? Ah, dammit, where are my new clothes? Sasori, check that bin by your tail." Sasori checked it, drew out a pair of pants, and kicked the whole box over to Zetsu. "Stop moping, everyone! When Karin is dead, everything will be better. She'll be near the place the beasts...are attacking. Won't she?" He looked questioningly at the speed demon.

There was a really long pause. I didn't like it. "…Possibly." she said real awkwardly. "But…not likely. I thought that one—or a couple—of us would have to be captured again, just to be taken to wherever she's hiding—"

"Not you." Sasori interrupted. He stood up and stared at her. "Never again."

"Why not?" she dared to say. "She wants me dead. Not any of you. This is her last stand, Sasori, you know that. With nearly everyone on our side now, with the entire military on our side and her allies and ammunition shrinking every hour, this is absolutely her last chance. If I'm captured again, I will have to be taken to her simply because she knows she's out of time." Sasori glared. Oh, he glared. But so did she. It wasn't like a white room game, where she would run, or avoid his eyes. They were fighting for a leadership choice now. Sakura huffed at him then, saying, "Your bratty pose isn't going to save your stance here. Karin is strapped for time, I am your greatest weapon, and that's that. Drop your damned ugly frown right now. You." She stopped mid-sentence and just sort of…fell…to Sasori. It took me a sec to realize Sasori was doing his puppetry thing, manipulating gravity and that stuff to make her come over to him. And surprisingly it worked. Seeing Sasori's manipulation of gravity almost never worked on living things, just the plastic obstacles in the white room, and rocks and stuff. Hidan in his little insignificant spot looked dumbstruck and confused. Good.

When she got to him, she didn't even give him a chance to talk. "There isn't time for your little guardian spiel!" she cried. "If you can think of anything better, you can think of it on the way, can't you? I'll let you run it by me when we get to the town, and if it's an idiotic plan, you can still whine at me if you like."

Kisame raised his head, slowly in the face of her anger now, and said, "Karin's definitely insane enough to fall for whatever we try, if she's insane enough to do this." (Sakura didn't look like she agreed.)

I didn't think. I didn't need to. I started to insist, "Me too!" but Kisame barked at me like an angry dog. "Shut it! You have to stay back. Your sense of smell found us on the plane last time and it has to do the same thing again."

Like hell, you stupid, blue giant. You're not her only guardian. "We barely got there in time!" I yelled back. "You were there! We ran across the runway like fucking race cars and we almost missed it anyway! If we hadn't sprinted for our lives to catch the jet-"

"What are the odds they'll put us on a plane again?" the fishstick scoffed and got up off the couch. "We're connected with the people now! They know us, they know we want to help them, and they'll listen to us. It'll be much harder to fool whole hordes of people and lug us away on planes again. Right?" Sakura must have nodded. I didn't look. I was too busy glaring furiously at Kisame for agreeing with her ridiculous plan. "Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna go get everyone else. And you in the door there." I heard Hidan jump like a total idiot when Kisame pointed at him, and I turned to smirk at him. "You and those other guys can follow us if you want. But you might die."

"He can't understand you right now, Kisame." Sasori informed him.

"He gets that I'm not baring my teeth at him like you guys do. Sakura, would you tell him? I'm gonna go get everybody else. Gonna help, Dei?" I was frustrated and angry and I barely made myself say okay. I bared my fangs at Hidan as I went through the door.

Damn Kisame for being so nice. For pretending he's not furious at this human for bonding himself to Sakura. I should jab holes in their Jeep tires. They can't help us anyway.

January 25th. The electric sign on the Bank of America tells me it's 10:14 PM. Okay. Sakura POV…

Sherwood is what I imagined a suburb to be like when I was still trapped in the lab. One high school, sixteen-ish thousand people, and a lack of those gargantuan skyscrapers seen in New York and other such places. It's an American small town, a Small Town, actually, with capital letters because it is its own kind of entity. A small, definitely green place with big parks and lots of trees, and a lake that was probably frozen a week or two ago, and had local kids ice skating on it all hours of the day. We've seen one high school, a gorgeous downtown street, and the phrase "peace" painted in graffiti-scrawl on the side of a small bridge. This is a sweet little town and I like it already. I like it despite the boarded windows I see everywhere, and empty stores and empty streets, and tiny dots of scampering people, hurrying their supplies away. I saw an old couple sitting on a park bench, praying aloud, and I stopped to listen to them.

"We pray for the end of these demons, for Your grace to bless the soldiers who fight for our lives-"

'People putting their faith in God.' I thought. 'I've never...seen that before.'

And that was a cruel, ignorant thought. Those two were no zoo animals and I shouldn't gawk at them like they were. But prayer was something I had yet to see outside of the jokes of the scientists and the lowly workers at the laboratory. Three weeks in the outside world, I think this is my first time really seeing people turning to God for hope and strength.

That was one facet of life and humanity that I'd unintentionally ignored for quite a long time. I had completely forgotten that people did that.

What about blessing themselves along with the soldiers? What about asking for protection from the monsters, come to life out of elaborate science fiction, that were coming through their town to kill them? They were still praying, still talking, and they had yet to ask for that. I did not notice until that moment that Neji was beside me, and Kakashi behind him. One of them poked me with a claw on my wrist.

"We're kind of in the middle of a mission." Kakashi told me.

"I know. I didn't mean to hold everyone up. Should I take those two people to a safer place? I can shove them inside someone's house."

Neji told me not to look at them, and that I should come back with the others and return to hunting Karin's mutated creatures. We moved on without the couple seemingly ever having noticed our staring at them. I am not proud at how easily I was coerced to leave them there, murmuring to nothing.

Kakashi was still playing the wise, sacrificial Obi-Wan (I'm in no mood for jokes at the moment, but I am a little grateful I do know what that means). He was the first to accept the fact that he couldn't stay with us, break off from the group and scout in a housing subdivision filled with ranch-style houses. I smiled at him for doing it, and I think he saw. Neji went to a newer, more modern street, hissing a challenge to any ugly mutants that might be nearby.

The mission to clear Sherwood of its monstrous invaders was clear, and so was Deidara's assholish insistence on clinging to me like a koala bear. I couldn't get more than ten feet away from the freak and if I flew, he ran underneath me as perfectly as a shadow. As you may have guessed, his overt degree of "protection" pissed me off and I had already decided he was not staying in my group. Whenever he finds a section of town to stick to, good fricking riddance. We would stick with my plan, by the way: our clearing Sherwood would, for one thing, be a solo affair: no army, no marines armed to the teeth to help us. They were in Portland now, and Gresham and Beaverton, fighting rat experiments and acid-spitting fish. We nine are here alone and soon it will be eight while I once again get handcuffs clapped on me by Karin, and I rip her up once and for all.

It occurred to me just now that I'm very, very willing for this to happen and yet, look at what it is: I'm jumping into an opportunity for Karin to imprison me. To cage me. How...my go...I don't believe it, now that I'm thinking of it: me, running to Karin holding a collar, so the men behind me don't have to. I never thought I'd see the day. Then again, I'm only eight years old, I haven't seen very many days outdoors.

The other experiments did promise to get me out again, to follow the plane to Alaska or overseas if needed. Itachi and Kakashi grudgingly conceded to this. They swore they'd die to get me out again, and I did thank them.

"Deidara, come with me." Deidara kept running alongside Kisame, below the airborne me, ignoring Sasori's command. Sasori had to use his puppetry force to make Deidara stop, which took eight to nine tries, and when he did grab the guy, and run down a curving street, that stupid, loud parrot still called out, "Kisame, protect her!"

Kisame scoffed when we were out of Deidara's range (and once Zetsu left us) and looked up and me. "Can you do me a favor and stay where I could lend you a hand if things get tough?"

"Certainly. We're a more attractive target together than moving around alone." My toes curled from how stupidly, obviously, dumb that sounded.

Sharkzilla didn't seem to care. "If we find one, leave me a live body, if you can. I think what we need to attract some of its friends to us is a big, ugly screech. I can make it give us that, no problem."

I bet you fucking can, and that's not news. I'll be standing away from your spatter of gore when that happens. For now, I'm gloriously happy to have a distraction from Kisame's request and the images it brought: a sudden crash as a store display is hit by an animal swaying drunkenly into it as it runs. It's a blueish blur of color far up the street, and a trio of men were fleeing it and screaming to high heaven.

I drew up possible first-strike movements in my head as I took the first flap towards it: a head-first dive, aiming both fists at the thing's upper torso, electricity prepared but perhaps not necessary, and legs lightly curved in and prepared to twist completely around and deliver a donkey kick. Wings are prepared to whip open hard and buffet an enemy's face. I gained speed and heard Kisame growling as he realized what I was aiming for. Only one of the men paid us any notice, and he looked at us like we were saviors bearing monster-repelling shields and hand grenades. One of them even shouted just so, sorta: "Oh god, gracious blessed god, heeelp!"

Don't worry, sir. Don't worry. I'm coming and I'll save you. I was on the path towards the beast faster than Kisame, of course, and I saw the thing's shape as I got closer: it was two-legged, taller than a man, and scaly all over but for its feet and half the tail. I could have mistaken it for some balding dinosaur if not for the eyes on its tongue. From my distance I could see the eye was large, taking up most of the space on the tongue's surface, and fat enough to extend the pink covering on the bottomside too, making it look like the tongue itself tried to swallow the eye and it got stuck. That, and the huge, beating veins leading off from it, may or may not lead me to believe that this creature's eye is a hugely sensitive, important organ. This will be my first target. And my first one made in the express intention of protecting American citizens.

Behind me, Kisame was jumping over two of the fleeing men and making their screams hitch as he startled them. I chose to move with my later idea and twist around mid-flight till my legs were now heading straight for the monster's face; as the two-legged thing noticed me and bared its fangs, crying like a loosed hawk, its opened mouth was pathetically open for striking. The feel of its saliva was nothing compared to feeling the eye squish to mush under my heel. With its afterward screaming, I couldn't have had any spare attention for feeling gross or queasy, anyhow. My shark-faced companion appeared again with a raised fist, and as I whipped upward to avoid it, it crashed into the monster's chest, and it fell swiftly backwards into the same glass store display it had smashed through a minute earlier. It didn't stand up again.

"It's dead already?" Kisame sounded surprisingly gruff and happy to be punching things. Not a behavior that felt like him. "Aw, bitch! How are we gonna make ourselves get captured? We can't if they're all little cockroaches like that!" And now he's using bitch in place of 'damn'. Unless he's Hidan in disguise, I have to wonder about this guy. Maybe his mood changes in real battle. I guess I will soon learn.

"If there's a big enough group we can dive in and get smothered," I said, looking down the street. "But the ones we saw right after the plane weren't like this. The others—" I didn't finish. Something was making my skin crawl.

The feeling was familiar, uncomfortably so. I think even Naruto would have been able to recognize this. To my left were two more creatures poised on a low roofstop, their bodies tucked low and their limbs bent: they were like felines perfectly poised to pounce on us. Wisely, Kisame followed my gaze and saw them, too. And he bared his enormous fangs at them. He spoke something threatening in a growling animal language that all predators must know. The crouching cat-things didn't move.

"Look at their eyes," he whispered to me as he unbuttoned his coat, and I looked. I mean, I tried to. There were no eyes to look at. Just holes (as Kisame added in that moment, "They're not there, they're just holes!") And too smooth to be natural. They weren't creatures born eyeless, but ones whose eyes had been neatly, smoothly scooped out. These two feline experiments were made sightless, and could prepare themselves for an ambush attack, and recognize enemies. I wonder what the big flaw on these two really could be, then.

They leaped before I could guess. We were ready.

At least, I was. One of the cat-things jumped on Kisame and he writhed and kicked like he hadn't expected the movement at all! My cat-beast was a little faster. But I'm faster still. I dodged the slice of its front legs by diving under them. Far behind me, there was a cry of pain—I think human—and then one that was definitely not human—which, I hope, was one of my guys taking down the beast that had been going for the human. The cat's back legs were moving towards me in absurd slow-motion, and so I lost hope in a sudden attack or shock to its belly. My side hit the pavement hard, and I shot my left leg up in the air, effectively kicking the cat on the underside of the chin. Its tongue, crushed between the jaws, fell onto the pavement and bled. But the creature wasn't done.

Instead of acting hurt or something realistic like that, it whipped its head and front legs towards me. One of the paws just barely scraped me, slipping under the hem of the lovely white shirt Shizune had given me. The claw slashed my right side from hip to breast and the pain that flowered there was pathetically unexpected. It made me furious, just for a second, the complete ruin of something that had been gifted to me. And it hurt. Oh, it hurt. The beast's claws were not acidic or tipped in any noticeable poison, but merely sharpened to hell. It felt wrenched. And I grabbed the feline's face in my left hand and heaved electricity down it. The head bobbed in my grasp for four seconds, where everything convulsed together, and then it was dead. I crunched my fingers in further for a proper grip, and threw it ahead of me. Kisame came over to me, shaking, a few moments later. His eyes hovered around my new wound and remained there. I hadn't even really looked at it myself, so...I did.

The wound had made an eerie blood pattern on my shirt, and...a thin, black ring around my vision that could very well thicken until I pass out here in the street with Kisame as my only hope. The very idea made me shove my eyes back onto him. He looked nonthreatening and worried and cowed and...truly, genuinely frightened for me.

"It's all right," I said. The smoothness of that phrase was, rrm, difficult. I didn't expect that. Perhaps the feline's claws were tipped with poison after all. What sort? How fast would it spread in the bloodstream, and how in the world would I identify a cure? How sad would it be for me to start categorizing poisons and potential antidotes by my past reactions and pain levels I'd had to various kinds. Because shit, that's the only way out I can see now. Here I realized Kisame had just started to laugh at how I said this was all right. He looked in my eyes and I had the unwanted suspicion that he could see right through me...and I was suddenly disturbed. This was Kisame—not braniac Sasori or emotional Zetsu—how could he see through me?

"We should check the next street." I said a few seconds later.

"Nothin' to do but wait to get tranquilized," he (maybe-) quipped, and we set off down the corner. The next two streets were surprisingly quiet and only once did I see a face peeking out of a building. It was a woman, and she didn't look that surprised to see a six-foot-six blue man and a winged girl running around in the streets. That woman's face was the only one I saw in awhile. I didn't even see any of the other guys. If they were fighting, I'd hear it, wouldn't I? I would hear screaming people, wouldn't I? This silence was wrong. If the failed experiments had pulled out of here already, then they were heading to a new place. More people would be killed before we could get there.

We checked the next street and the one that intersected it. (Silverwing Lane. Ha.) There wasn't so much as a rat. "You think something's wrong?" Kisame took a few steps back and turned in a circle, looking quite confused indeed. "It shouldn't be this quiet. Right?"

God, I hated being looked at as the fountain of amazing answers!

"It shouldn't," I told him, seeing as it was most likely true. "This makes me think another ambush is in store. Or the experiments have bailed from Sherwood, which would be far worse. There could be a scent that tells us something. But I have the nose of a hawk…which is practically nothing," I added foolishly at the end.

"Mine's not much better than yours," he said, scanning the roofs. "There was a worker in the lab called Broekhart, and I heard him say a couple times that my sense of smell was one of my failed features. The only scent I can pick out easily is blood, like a real shark would, and that's about all. I can smell blood here, but it's only the blood of those three monsters. And one splatter from you."

I was only listening with half an ear, though that was more than enough. My peripheral vision had caught a darkly-clad figure and a suspiciously gun-like object on the roof of an apartment building. My eyes were never wrong; his gun pointed at us. I didn't dare look at it. I didn't dare.

"Kisame." I hissed. He lowered his voice instead of halting mouth movement altogether, an oddly wise move for Kisame. "Get ready and don't—"

The concentration of that Charge 350 must have been off the charts. I don't remember dropping to the pavement at all.

I do remember seeing and Sasori hiding around a corner, though. Over-dramatic as usual, standing there looking like they'd been shot in the heart, and hating the world for what was happening to them. Those two were my last sight before the drug kicked me out of the world of the living.

January something. It doesn't matter. Today—tonight—now—this could all end. Kisame POV.

I didn't wake up with an aching, pounding head like I usually did, like I usually had, I mean, when I had lived in the lab. I just woke up, like from a nap. But of course life has to throw a tedious downside to waking up from a nap: I could barely move at all. My eyes were mobile, though, and I think my head was mostly okay, too, so I looked around. The ceiling above me was really low…and not wide, either. There was also a funny trumpet-ish…roaring…sound…I don't think I'd ever heard it before—"

"It's a plane." I turned my head quickly, which was stupid, and I should have expected the flood of pain up my neck and shoulder. But it was still an infinite, sweet relief to see Sakura lying next to me, looking unharmed except for that terrible blood-stripe snaking up her shirt.

"It is?" I couldn't think of anything better to say.

"Yeah. Again. It's how I expected them to take us, but I'm concerned with how they went about doing it."

"What's that mean?"

"Hey, can you look forward? I mean, towards our feet?" And I tried, a lot slower this time, and saw a door practically an inch from my toes. The room we were in was very small. I could see a circular window at the top of the door, and beyond it, what looked like nothing, but it had to be another window, looking into the sky.

"Our flying is very rickety and loud...I think it's just this room and the cockpit making up this whole plane. And it's probably no Class-A flyer, either." she added, looking away from me. "I don't think they can hear us, but I can hear them. I heard them talking about how they landed in the street—just landed a plane in the street—loaded us in, and took off. I don't think it was that long ago. But they must have pumped us full of that drug. For god's sake, it's gross, it's...ahh...Kisame," she said my name softly, seriously, like I'd never heard it before, "I really can't move. Karin and more than one mercenary are behind that door and they'll be coming back soon."

"Don't worry." I said instantly. "I'll deal with it. You don't worry." I was talking nonsense, but I had to soothe her. I couldn't have stopped myself if I'd wanted to.

"You don't worry, either," She gave me one of those little, sweet smiles that could make a bullet wound bearable. "Itachi's heart would break if you died. I'm not going to be helpless and let that happen to him."

My reciprocating smile was so big I was probably showing fangs, but who the fuck cared?

Me smiling triggered a frown in her, like old days. "H-Hey, you don't have to…" And I felt that blurry wetness in my eye that she must have been upset over. She looked away, looking awkward and adorable and worthy of a nuzzle or a billion (as Naruto would say). "Well, I hope I don't break your heart, too."

"Nah," I said in a voice that was cracked only partially with vicious animal tranquilizer. "You'll just…make it…implode."

Whatever bond we had started forging then was broken off. The door in front of us flew open, smacked my leg, made the numb thing ache with movement. And the devil's bitch came through it.

"What, now you're awake? God, it only took you two nine fucking goddamn hours! Hey, Chloe, George, they're up now!" My eyes went of their own accord to the speed demon, and found her staring with a familiar intensity at Karin. I followed suit, since there was probably something special worth noticing if Sakura was staring in such a way. I think she just dropped a few notches on the spectrum of neatness. Her hair was scruffy and uncombed (and not just the half of it she kept that way on purpose), she was wearing one of those fancy, button-up shirts but the buttons weren't lined up right, and her left arm had blood smeared all over it.

"Well, well, well, what are we gonna do now that you two are awake and alive to feel pain?" She lifted her foot and nudged mine. I curled my lip and tried to move my foot away, but it barely twitched. "Still hate me, huh, fishdick? Like that matters. Hey, if I do this, will you hate me more?" She stalked over to Sakura and stepped on her stomach.

I hissed, bared my fangs, maybe even roared. I was so angry—I still can't remember.

"K-K-Karin! Is the blue one still—"

"They've both got enough tranquilizer in them to kill five elephants, Chloe! Keep circling!" She pressed harder. Sakura's eyes narrowed but she showed no pain. My speed demon. Being stepped on. I roared again.

"Karin!"

"KEEP GOING!"

The plane shuddered and shook. Karin stared down lustily at our speed demon. "I saw you on TV, bitch. I saw the lab burning on Fox News. And then later you were on nineteen different channels. Six in France, I hear. Maybe two in Belgium. I can't believe you're so accepted." Her other foot moved up. She was standing on Sakura. "No riots, no Christians howling at this act against God, no stoning! Why—" She bounced, jumped, slammed onto Sakura's ribcage. "—the hell—are you guys—so—accepted! Dammit, bitch, say something!"

"I don't have anything to say to someone who can't even dress herself," Sakura spat venomously. "I'll consider you a threat when you can button your own shirt." A boot-clad foot slammed across Sakura's cheek, leaving dirt and blood.

"You wretched little failure!" Another kick. My blood was boiling. "You've ruined my life! Your freedom has ruined my life, do you hear me? I spent years giving you and your boyfriends bodies that wouldn't eat themselves alive! Do you know how hard it is to control the growth of all the cells in a human body? Or a bird body? Do you know how many cells that is? Do you know? Do—you—know?!"

My body throbbed with such pain my ears rang; they rang so loud I couldn't hear Karin scream when I reached over and bit into her boot.

"AAAaaaaaghh!"

I knew how deep I'd bitten. I had felt bone. Now I felt a satisfaction so deep that I smiled even as I watched Sakura panting and hissing in pain at her damaged ribs. "Aaaggh! You—you! I'll cut you up into sushi!" She drew a knife from her pants (which I didn't question at all) and fell towards me on her remaining foot. She fell onto her knees between us, the knife poised to stab into my muscled arm.

"That's all you're going to do?" Sakura gasped. I could hear her pain, and it tore at me more than any knife of Karin's ever could. "Kisame's a rather large guy, Karin, a couple stabs from a wounded woman won't do anything. Especially a wounded woman who can't crush a little girl's ribcage." That stopped her. She rose till she was on her knees, crazed and bloody-armed and looking as formidable as she could ever hope.

"You see my arm?" she whispered. "When we landed the plane I saw one of the failed experiments had wounded you, and left a pretty bloodstain on your shirt. I rubbed my hand all over it." She touched her red arm with the clean one, caressing it with disturbing softness. "This is your blood, my little freedom fighter. And I'm gonna come back with a knife and see some more of it." And she left, thank god.

Sakura's head fell back against the metal floor with a thud. "My god…" she gasped. Her face is so tired, so relieved. My little one. "I didn't think she'd stop."

"I tried to move sooner," I said softly. "I tried to make myself move faster…but this is what a pint of Charge will do. Really, I tried—"

"Stop, stop," she was, I think, laughing? "Not me! You! When she almost stabbed you in the arm, she was close to your brachial artery. And for all I know, she's stronger when she's mad. A cut there would make you bleed to death, and I barely had time to think of something to stop her. I didn't think she'd fall for a taunt that stupid."

The concern she seemed to have over me would be heartwarming if it weren't so amusing. "I think mine is a little more protected than the average human whatever-artery. I'd probably just get dizzy from losing the blood."

"You wanna get stabbed in the arm and find out?" Somehow it sounded like a joke. I laughed and she, well, she didn't frown I suppose, but I didn't want it to get silent after that. Not after she was starting to care.

"I was wondering, about when you were in the first plane and you stuck yourself in the neck, with the needle?" I don't know why I offered so many specifics. How many planes with needle-stabbing incidents had she been on?

"Yes?"

"Zetsu and Neji said you just stood up and jammed it in. You didn't act scared or hesitate or anything. How'd you do it?"

I was keeping my eyes on the ceiling for once, but with peripheral vision I could see her looking curiously at me. "How did I stab myself…" she muttered, and then added, "I just did what I had to do. If it really had made me mute in the end, it's not like I'd be losing a lot. I've only been talking for a few weeks. I'd be going back to normal. I know how to read, and writing can't be that hard. I could learn to communicate with writing, like Itachi and Sasori do now."

I couldn't understand how she could make light of losing her voice so easily. But there was plenty I didn't understand about her, that I hoped that I would later on. I didn't dwell on it. "Sasori found writing very easy when he learned it. Itachi had to watch him real carefully and his first tries were—" I spluttered at the memory, of those stick figures Itachi pretended were letters. "Awful. Godawful. It was so funny!"

Her quiet remark of, "…Did you save any?" struck me by surprise. "Six pages of it, I saved." I supplied her immediately. "They're on top of the refrigerator in the human boys' house. No one saw me put them there."

She was shaking beside me. Her lips were in a wiggly line because she was trying not to laugh. I think even her feathers trembled. This made me smile as well. I searched frantically for something else to please her, and found the best possible example.

"Hey, when everyone was going up north to meet you at that cliff," I couldn't remember the name of it, maybe "Jump" something, "we had to cross this frozen lake. Neji dared Naruto to go out first and he did, and he was okay, so Itachi went out after him and he slipped." Sakura raised a brow, but "slipped" didn't cover it all, so I had to go on. "One of his feet just started moving across the ice, and the other one went a different way. He moved so fast to try and steady himself he was dancing, I swear."

That laugh, that perfect and joyful laugh, I'll remember forever.

After a good long session of it, the chuckling died down. "Itachi dancing! I'll never need anything else to make me happy on a sad day!"

There was another period of silence after that. I didn't mind this one. My speed demon had shown me that she was beginning to care, even if she didn't show it in front of another person. It was certainly forgivable this time. She wouldn't dare show anything in front of Karin. I could never blame her for that. What bastard would?

"Kisame?" I stared at the ceiling, feeling a divine peace. I didn't ruin it, or ruin her courage, by staring at her. I just grunted to show I was listening. "Thank you for not being…like the others. It's nice to be with a person who isn't falling all over me with worry. I do appreciate your thoughtfulness."

"Like the others" encompassed a lot of things, but we both knew Naruto or Zetsu would be in tears were they in my position. I was above idiocy like that. "Naruto complains about that. He says I don't have enough energy."

"Naruto and his energy can go jump in front of a train," she murmured. There was no amusement or playfulness in that.

I guess it was appropriate that Karin returned then. Her buttons were lined up correctly now.

"I had a good long talk with George. Him and me agree a knife won't get through your animal brains. So I'll just crack 'em open instead." I had no idea what she meant by that. She couldn't crack open my head if she had a boulder to do it with, and if she went for Sakura again, I would gladly bite her again. But I understood when she stepped over me and lifted a latch on the wall. The wall became a door, and the door retracted back. There was nothing there but open sky.

The devil woman's smile was disgusting and her voice terribly calm. "You better hold on to your baby, Number 7. A lot of people have been watching the plane this morning. We're even being followed by an armed F-16. People will see you and they're gonna remember what happens today. January the twenty-sixth: shark man and hawk girl shatter to pieces in Portland, Oregon! World-changing science experiments spattered to jelly on pavement! An American tragedy!"

She started pushing Sakura towards me. I tried to lift an arm to accept her. I felt the familiar jump, the movement away from me that I've known for years, as we touched. However thankful she was for my lack of obsessive nuzzling and protectiveness, she wasn't willing to get so close to me yet. That was too damn bad for now. Karin went on pushing us towards the fierce wind. Her movements were pathetic and awkward with just one good leg to work with, and I bared my teeth every time her foot nudged too hard against me or my companion. Soon enough I felt a little strip of my back slip away from the metal. The floor wasn't going to last much longer.

My arms found strength of their own and tightened around Sakura. "Don't worry," I told her, like it made sense not to worry when we were about to fall out of the sky. She stared over my shoulder at the clouds beyond and didn't say anything to me. I had a second or two to realize my heart was beating so quickly it was painful, and sickening.

"I'll see you in hell, Number 9. Don't wait for me." Another kick. We were falling.

Oh Christ. Oh Christ. Oh shit, what was happening?

I'd never done anything like this. There was nothing below us, nothing! But then I realized my eyes had screwed themselves shut with fear, and I saw all the buildings below us. The skyscrapers and busy streets of downtown weren't far off. We would not land in the bustling downtown, but not a suburb either. And that meant there was less chance of grass, less chance of something almost-soft to land on. I knew this wouldn't kill us. We had been electrified together, I knew this wouldn't kill us. But it could cripple us forever. If we landed anywhere near a spire or tower, Sakura's wings could be ripped off. We could lose any amount of limbs, shatter any amount of bones. In seconds, we would be in so much pain we wouldn't be able to scream.

How did she stand this? Did Sakura fly with this same feeling of hurtling towards death? It wouldn't surprise me. Her bravery never did. She could learn to live with this feeling of dying. She could.

Now I could see the people clustered among the buildings. Karin hadn't lied. People had been watching her plane, while it circled the city. Thousands, all over every street. Some of them have protesting signs and on one street, there's even a tank. Somehow my friends must have made it known that we'd been taken, what the plane looked like, how much danger we were in, everything! Itachi and Sasori had probably been invaluable help. Itachi, Sasori and their flawless cursive.

I could hear myself panting. That and an oddly faint rustle of wind seemed to be the only sounds in the world. My eyes were too wide, my limbs too shaky, and Sakura too still. She felt dead in my arms. If she died there, I'd never be forgiven. The ground was coming up. My heart added a third sound to my fearful world. And I had an impulse while listening to those three sounds. On the chance, the tiny chance that Sakura died falling like this—I just had to do something to help prevent it. So I did.

People were screaming and pointing as we came down. I reached a hand towards the ground, below Sakura's shoulder, ready to absorb some of the impact and ready to deal with a crushed hand.

This was at the same time her left wing shot out sideways against my hand. We hit the ground, and everything went black. There wasn't a scream from either of us.

EDIT, JANUARY 1ST, 12:58. AN HOUR INTO THE NEW YEAR.

The Airborne edit is complete. It's taken me months and months.

Wow.