A/N: Here's the next one! I hope you like it.

-Chapter 13-

"Now are you sure you didn't even get a picture?" Temari asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I don't even have a cell phone that takes good-quality pictures!" Tenten sighed exasperatedly, scrubbing her hands along her face. "Even if I did have one, mine was charging in my room when Gai-sensei made us come to the cafeteria!"

"But nobody else-"

"Do you honestly think Lee has a phone." Tenten deadpanned. "Like, do you think he could be trusted with a smartphone for more than a week."

"You've only known him for a few days, right?" Temari shot back.

"I've gone to school with him! Granted, we haven't had the same classes, but I still know him." She shivered a little bit. "You do not want to leave him alone with paper."

"Hey, guys, guys," Sakura interrupted, placing her hands between them as if to put up a wall. "We aren't discussing this to fight, remember? We're doing this for some leads."

"We know," Tenten gave her a split-second glare, but it fell from her face as she slumped in her seat. "Sorry. I'm just- Neji's been freaking out about this ever since early this morning."

"I'm sorry too," Temari assented with a grumble. "I haven't been in the best of moods ever since our teacher went missing, either."

"Now that you two have made up," Ino piped up, frowning, "maybe we can get some ideas going around."

"I agree." The sudden voice made them jump. Sakura looked up to see Sasuke standing behind their table with an unreadable emotion in his face.

"Sasuke, hey," she greeted. "We were just going over what we know. Do you have anything?"

Slowly, he shook his head. "I was going to see if you'd found anything."

"Well this blows," She huffed a piece of hair out of her face. "What do we do now?"

"We'll go over it again," he sat down right beside her and leaned in, "what do you have as info?"

"Well," Ino cleared her throat. "Early this morning, Neji called both his and Kiba's teachers in a panic because he couldn't get in touch with her. Kurenai-sensei looked in her room, but he found the window open and some blood on the floor."

"So whoever took her was able to at least cut her," he muttered, "interesting."

"And when we looked around, all I saw was these weird claw marks on two cabins." Tenten observed with a hum of thought. "Yours and Hinata's."

"So what you're saying is that someone deliberately tried to take one of ours too?" Sakura's eyes widened a fraction. "Not to say it's far-fetched, but..."

"It must've been the soup." Tenten suddenly gasped. "Gai-sensei was out cold after he ate both his and half of mine. He never goes to bed until well after sundown because he goes for jogs around the island!"

"And Kakashi-sensei, too..." Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "That would explain the sleepiness I felt. But who would poison our food to get us? And who were they after? Naruto?"

"He's too obvious to go after." Temari chimed in. "I mean, think about it: he's the previous mayor's son, he's kind of an airhead at the worst of times, and he has a pretty bad knack for getting himself into trouble. It's like he was born with a target painted on his forehead or something."

"That's true." Ino nodded in agreement. "But I doubt they'd be stupid enough to go after Kakashi-sensei. I've heard the rumors about him."

"Rumors?" Sakura and Sasuke chorused at the same time, with identical confused looks.

"Geez, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you two are twins." Ino shook her head. "Yeah, of course there are rumors!"

"I haven't... been paying attention to any, I guess." The pinkette muttered, sheepishly blushing. "I've been so focused on training, I haven't..."

"Me neither." Sasuke, in a surprising turn, seemed to agree. "I've been busy getting stronger."

"You two really are weird," Tenten gave them a weird stare. "Are you sure nothing happened between you that we should know about?"

Sakura's cheeks flushed darker. "I-I promise, we haven't done anything!"

"Hm." Sasuke seemed... oddly not displeased. "Kakashi has asked me to protect her."

"Disregarding all that nonsense, there are rumors around the girls that Kakashi's super strong." Ino turned the conversation back towards their lazy teacher. "Stronger than he looks. I've heard that he once fought a convicted criminal - and won!"

"A-And who would that be...?" Sakura got a deep, stirring feeling of the not-very-good variety.

"Um..." Ino wrinkled her perfect button nose. "I think... I don't remember what they called him, but apparently he's bad enough that he had to be locked away for a while."

A strange calm came about her shoulders. "So it couldn't be who I thought it was..."

-

After a grueling three hours in which no further estimates were given, the adults finally let them head back to their cabins. Sakura glanced towards Hinata's and tried to ignore the sick twisting of her stomach when she saw the side of the wall. Sure enough, the deep, slashing canyons crawled creepily up and down the wall, as if they were dark black ribbons.

A shiver went up her spine, and she huddled closer to Sasuke.

As they got to theirs, she stopped.

"Sasuke, she was right," she whispered as she pointed. "But... those marks..."

"On our side of the cabin," he confirmed with a deep, contemplating frown. "I wonder..."

"Something wrong?" Kakashi turned back and gave them a look.

"Sensei, those slash marks on your side of the cabin..." Sakura pinpointed them for him. "What are they?"

When he looked, his eye narrowed.

"... I see..." He hummed. Folding his arms across his chest, he sighed. "That'll be a lot in repairs."

"What's the deal, sensei?" Naruto yelled, finally making his presence known. "Why are you so calm about this?"

Their teacher turned his deadpan gaze towards the blond.

"Naruto, there will come a time when everything's going to chaos." He began, his voice deeply serious. "And when that happens, if you don't control your emotions, nobody will."

All three children were silent as he climbed the steps to their cabin. He unlocked the door and opened it, gesturing inside.

"Well?" He asked. When nobody moved, his eye crinkled in that familiar smile behind his mask. "C'mon, let's sit down and have a talk."

Not one of them noticed the way his eyes shifted towards the forest, nor the hand that came up to reveal his scarred eye.

-End Chapter 13-

A/N: It's a little short, but I promise, the next one will be coming soon!

Please tell me what you thought, feel free to speculate on what will happen next, and I'll see you guys later!