Chapter 23 - Dinner and a Threat (pt2)

Gaara returned downstairs, and sat at the table. They both ate in silence, neither speaking.

As Akara cleared the plates, a kunai suddenly crashed through the window, a note attached to the handle.

~~~~~~~~~~

A shadowed figure dropped nearby, and the red-eyed teen smirked.

“Kabuto,” he whispered, “Did you deliver the message?”

“Yes,” the gray-eyed man replied, “and they will be reading it as we speak.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“What the hell was that?!”

Akara looked at the kunai curiously, while Gaara laid a hand on his chest, trying to recover from the shock of nearly getting decapitated. Akara then calmly yanked the kunai from the wall, and detached the note in time for it to flutter to the table and burst into flame.

Both shinobi cried out, but instead of exploding and killing them like an explosive tag would, it simply scorched the table, each charred spot forming into a character.

“Scorch marks,” questioned Gaara, “that’s rare…they usually only use that technique in Rice and Water country…”

Akara looked at them, and Gaara watched as her brow furrowed in concentration. “Can you read it,” he asked her. She merely nodded.

“It says,” she began, “’The girl we seek, the possessor of the Demon Eye, would do well to join in battle. If she does not, then we shall kill all who stand in our way.’ Well,” she said briskly, dusting off her hands, “That can’t be good for the table, can it?”

“No it cannot,” answered Gaara, using a napkin to scrub off the message. The two sat there for a moment.

“Gaara-sama,” Akara said quietly,” Do you think they’ll actually do it?”

“Do what?”

“Y’know…kidnap me?”

He sighed. “They coerced Sasuke into joining them and killed the Sandaime Hokage…I doubt they’d stop at kidnapping.”

“Then…maybe I shouldn’t fight.”

He stared at her.

“If you don’t fight, then everyone will think of you as a coward. If you do, then you will be kidnapped. Which scares you the most: loss of honor or loss of pride?”

“Neither,” she replied, “Because what I fear is losing all that I love and live for.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The disk of red that was the full moon reached its zenith, and the red-eyed youth gave a rare grin. Kabuto looked sideways at the youth, and after a few minutes of observation decided that grinning made the teen look demented. Kabuto reminded himself to never make the boy grin ever again.

“Suigetsu,” said the red-eyed teen in a commanding tone, “rally the troops. We attack tonight.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Kikiro had guard duty at the north gate that night, and as he gazed out at the desert (obviously bored), he saw feathery white float across his vision and his eyes slid closed.

Kabuto smirked in triumph. The guard had a weak and easily accessible mind…initiating the genjutsu was like cutting through butter with an executioner’s sword. Nothing too difficult about it.

He was disappointed.

~~~~~~~~~~

Akara could feel that something was wrong. As she and Gaara sat in the kitchen, each trying to interpret the motives behind the note, one thing pounded a deadly drumline in her head:

There will be blood.

Her head snapped up. “They’re here.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Suigetsu and Kabuto then waved three of the ten-man squads through. All around Suna, squads breached the gates and swarmed in.

Unfortunately for them, the one squad that the red-eyed teen was leading was the one squad that passed the police headquarters.

Of course that one squad would be the one to trip the alarm that alerted Suna to the invasion.

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