[OP: "Cold is the Night"--The Oh Hellos]

Hours ago now, Wally, Shoto, Momo, Karin, and Suigetsu had not had much luck looking for anything useful around the village. Karin had helped them avoid any scouts from Stone.

Wally said he was sure there was something other than scouts out here. But it might be no one they needed to worry about.

"How are you even sure?" Shoto was kind of grumpy after doing nothing for a long time and being in the sun--which was not that hot, but still enough to make them perspire.

"Just a gut feeling," Wally replied.

"Does your gut have any feelings about if we can go back for lunch?" Suigetsu asked.

"It's not lunch time," Momo said.

Suigetsu took a long swig of water. "I'm hungry now."

It was almost a relief when they got the message--until they heard that Bakugo was chasing thieves.

"I'm sure Bakugo can handle them," Shoto said. "But that's actually a bigger problem, almost."

"Shoto!" Momo cried.

"What? We're trying not to make any more waves here," he said.

"That kid is more trouble than the rest of you put together, I think sometimes." Wally rolled his eyes. "Let's go get him. Try to keep up, Icyhot."

Shoto really wished Wally hadn't adopted that nickname, but it was too pun-like not to appeal to his sense of humor.

Finding Bakugo was easy enough. Karin might not be able to read them that well, but by now she was used to Bakugo enough to track him once they got inside the village. He was too different from the shinobi of Stone.

They never saw the others, because they cut around the edge where they wouldn't hit anyone running or ice skating.

Suigetsu tried to keep up, but he ended up lagging behind before long, and no one really cared if he arrived late.

They followed Bakugo out to the far wall.

Now, Bakugo was such an intimidating person even for a 16-year old, that the thieves he'd been chasing hadn't actually tried to fight him at first. When they saw someone using explosions to catch them and screaming "DIE!!!" they just ran for it.

But once they were farther out from the pedestrian area, they probably figured they could corner him, because they slowed down.

Where they stopped was right by the water vein that was channeling in the water from the outside.

Then one of the thieves, who seemed to be a grown man, made earth come from the ground and try to catch Bakugo's feet, but Bakugo wasn't falling for that s--t; he was too used to things like that at school. He blasted over it easily and fired at the guy.

The other one (smaller, so either a child or a woman from their build) raised their hands, and mud around the area shot up into spikes.

"You two got some kind of yin and yang thing going?" Bakugo asked, also dodging those. "One of you is soft and the other is hard?"

"Don't answer that," the man said. "He's just trying to get information."

"I'd be lost without you," the other said. It was a woman.

"Heh." Bakugo landed on part of the pipe, which was metal. "You two aren't the same kind of thieves as those brats some of us caught the other day. You're older... Ain't no way you're just doing this for food. Adult thieves wouldn't be so sloppy."

"You want to talk or you want to fight?" the man said.

"Now you're speaking my language." Bakugo's hands sparked.

The woman moved her hand, and behind Bakugo mud rose up and hardened so that it shoved him forward--or would have, but he dodged.

The man made the dry ground rise, and it turned soft and pushed him in the front, catching him, then it went back to being solid and held Bakugo in place.

Bakugo just grinned. "You two have really redundant powers. Your boss must send you out together because you're basically the same person."

"Great, even he's saying it," the woman said flatly. "I want a new partner."

"Oh, don't listen to him. He's just bitter that we caught him so easily," the man said.

Bakugo exploded out of the dirt with ease and punched the guy so that he fell down.

"Yeah, as if I'd be stopped that easily," Bakugo scoffed, looking at the woman. "You want to give up now? Or do you want to keep dancing?"

"I think you're a little young for me," the woman said, kicking up dirt, which rose up like a wave and closed over his head.

This muffled his explosions for a second but not for long.

However, the woman must have felt she was outmatched if Bakugo kept this up, because she just picked up her partner, and they both ran for the wall and started to climb up it using their chakra.

Of course, Bakugo just blasted it off and then blasted after them.

"Right...he can fly," the man said.

"Did you have a plan?" the woman asked him sharply.

"I don't know, let me think about it." The man kicked the wall ,and part of the rock softened and then shot out just as Bakugo was catching up to them, and he rammed into it since it's a lot harder to dodge if you're going upwards at blasting speed.

Bakugo wasn't that hurt, somehow, but he did plummet several feet down before he broke his fall.

"Okay, that was nice," the woman admitted. "But, too close."

She held up her hand again and, under Bakugo's feet, spikes shot over his head like a cage.

"That ought to hold him a while," she said.

"I give that 2 minutes tops," the man said, as they got higher. "We're outta here."

He motioned, and a hole in the wall just opened, and they ran into it, then it closed behind them.

Bakugo was still working on blasting his way out of the cage when the others found him--it had been maybe 10 seconds, but the rocks proved to be little harder than he thought, so he'd only chipped away part of it. Also, he was starting to get tired without having his gauntlets.

"Bakugo?" Shoto said, when they caught up to him. "What did you do now?"

"The frick are you doing here, Half N' Half?" Bakugo shouted at him. "I don't need your freaking help."

"I figured that's what you'd say, but even you should realize it sounds stupid when you're in a...rock...cage?" Shoto tapped it. "What is this?"

"Granite, I think." Momo peered at it. "There's probably lots of natural granite around this village."

"It's ninja rock," Bakugo said.

"I got it." Wally put his fingers on it, and vibrated really fast till it shattered.

"Okay...that was terrifying." Karin adjusted her glasses.

"What did I miss?" Suigetsu popped out of the water vein, looking out of breath.

"Ew! Were you just in the drinking water?!" Karin said.

"Relax, Karin, I went through the purification plant a while back. I'm squeaky clean," Suigetsu said.

No one was quite sure if this was a joke or not, except for Karin, but her reaction of smacking him didn't tell them anything.

"There was this b-----d and this b---h stealing. They went through the d---n wall," Bakugo said.

"Uh...I guess it is kind of a dam," Wally said. "But you'll need to be more specific about that part."

"No, you--" Bakugo stopped, not sure if Wally was being stupid on purpose or not. "The point is, I'm going after them."

"Alone?" Momo said.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Wally said.

"Isn't that your decision?" Shoto looked at him.

"Oh, well, I think we could help out maybe if Stone wants us too, but no capturing people, remember?" Wally said.

"Fine, I'll beat them till they stop running, and then Stone can capture them," Bakugo said.

"Hold on," Karin said. "Some of the Stone are coming."

They turned.

A bunch of shinobi of the village had followed Bakugo earlier, but apparently he was much faster than they were.

They didn't look too pleased with the heroes and Taka members being there. 

"Hello, gentlemen," Wally said. "We saw where those thieves went. But you want to watch it--they're pretty good with...rock?"

The Stone were not amused.

"If you want, we can help you find them," Wally said.

The Stone exchanged looks.

"We need to bring those thieves back quickly," one said. "I know what the village says, but turning down help is not smart."

"If we weren't so understaffed..." muttered a different one that only Karin heard.

"Fine," said the one in front. "But we'll take them in."

"Just fine with us." Wally gave them a thumbs up. "Karin, our girl, can you find them?"

"Easy." Karin pointed. "They're on the outside of this wall, now, but they're getting farther away. I think they're following the water."

"Huh." Wally knew that was significant. "I knew there was something about this place. Shoto, can you get us up and over?"

He didn't want to say there was a pipe that let out there--he didn't want the Stone to ask him how he knew that, and he thought they'd find it themselves later once they looked around.

Shoto obediently took them up to the end of the wall and then down the other side.

"Why don't you stick to the wall?" the Stone asked him.

"This is faster." Shoto thankfully had a good excuse--and it was. He'd been much faster than them.

Karin and Suigetsu had still climbed up, but they weren't asked for any explanation for this.

 After that, catching up to the thieves was almost too easy for Wally, and he had them running back toward the others before they even realized he'd turned them around.

It would have seemed like this victory would be too easy, if just as the others were closing in on the two, more thieves had not jumped literally out of the ground.

This was an old Stone shinobi trick, so they weren't that surprised, but Momo was, and instantly one of the people came at her right away with a long pole

But she ducked the strike, and another staff formed out of her leg. She turned in time to block the next strike.

Shoto had frozen one person who came at him and used fire to hold another off as they started to come at him from behind.

Bakugo blasted.

Suigetsu solidified and used his sword to knock a few over.

There hadn't been more than maybe 10 of them, so that took out more than half.

The Stone Village ninja held their own decently.

"Didn't expect you to have such company, Doro," one of the newcomers addressed the male thief.

[Doro= "mud", "slush", "ooze", "mush".]

"I didn't invite them!" Doro (apparently) replied testily.

"I see what they are," one of the other Stone Ninja said. "There are bandits."

"You just got that?" Wally wasn't impressed. He grabbed one and flung them into a pillar of rock.

Doro suddenly softened the earth under Wally, and Wally sank into it knee-deep.

Then the female stiffened a harder part of it over him.

Wally wasn't happy that they'd found his weakness so soon, but he could break out--just not in one second.

"Uh, can I get some cover over here?" he called.

Bakugo was too busy holding off the others, who were recovering faster than he thought, to rush over there, and Shoto was trying to stay over their heads so they could catch him with dirt.

Momo glanced over, as she was still staff fighting the other person.

"You're not so bad at this for a girl your age," they said, sounding impressed. "I didn't think Stone Village was much for finesse."

Momo nodded. "Well, I'm not from Stone Village.".

She then reached behind her and pulled something out her shoulder--a stun gun, the kind that shoots out at the person.

"What is that--!" they began.

Momo ducked their strike and then shot out the stun gun into their arm.

They jolted and fell to the ground, moaning. 

Wally was trying to take the female fighter out by throwing small rocks at her, but she was blocking them with more earth spikes.

"Geez, lady, you are hard to hit," Wally said.

"I like to think so," she said, forming another spike. "Any last words?"

"You'll probably regret doing this?" Wally said.

"I'll take my chances," the woman began.

Momo sprinted up to her and zapped her also.

"Ah!" The woman dropped the pole and fell to her knees.

"Sorry." Momo kicked her in her stomach. 

"Great timing," Wally said. The rock under him finally shattered. "It's a little harder to do that when you're knee-deep. Careful, she's not out yet."

The woman was reaching for Momo's foot.

Momo jumped back and used her pole to hit her back down.

"Zokei!" Doro called.

[Zokei--"modeling" (like clay).]

A different one of the attackers leapt onto Shoto's ice. He had a long sword that had an odd color to it; it looked like it was made of Stone also somehow--a lighter purple stone, so light it was nearly grey.

Shoto raised his hand to block the sword, but instead of aiming for this chest or neck, the man aimed for his arm itself, which he wasn't ready for.

Also purposely, the man didn't cut his arm clean off, as Shoto might have been able to deflect that. He just sliced real fast and cut a long cut down the side of it, at least 6 inches long.

Shoto was surprised.

The man jumped onto the ice and just kicked him as he went, making Shoto slip and fall to the ground hard.

The sword-wielding man didn't waste any time. He sliced one of the Stone Shinobi also, cutting him in the side, but he didn't kill him either.

Wally frowned. The only time he knew of a guy not trying to hit lethally was when they had another reason for engaging someone.

"Kay." He grabbed Karin from where she was hiding behind a rock. "Go check Shoto right now. Make sure that wasn't poisoned."

Karin nodded wordlessly. She slipped around the others, who didn't even notice her with her chakra masking.

The man turned towards Momo, who held up her staff.

The man ran at her.

Momo blocked his strike easier than she expected to, but he was a lot stronger than she was and pushed her back with sheer force.

Momo had practiced being able to fight with someone outside her weight class before, and adjusted her stance to try to get around him instead of taking his hits full force. But he seemed to expect her to do that. He pressed further. He wasn't even aiming for her torso, she noticed. It seemed he wanted to cut her hand itself.

"Don't let him cut you!" Wally called, running at the guy.

The guy reached out to trip Wally, and he sprawled toward the water bed.

Momo knew he'd be up again in a second, but she didn't have time to wait. The swordsman nearly caught her in the side of the shoulder, but she just barely dodged him and swung her pole at his leg.

He dodged now.

Momo used her pole to vault a little way from him and popped something out of her side that she could make so fast it was practically instantaneous.

The swordsman lunged right after, but she whirled towards him and popped the nesting doll open.

Lightning flashed out and blinded nearly everyone who wasn't blocked by rocks.

This would have given her friends more of an advantage if they weren't also blinded.

Shoto was more behind the rocks, and so was Karin. Shoto took the chance to freeze nearly everyone he could see.

"Retreat!" some of the shinobi began to yell. "Too much!"

"You little witch," the swordsmen spoke for the first time, cursing Momo out. "More of your magic tricks."

Momo, being as smart as she was, had time to realize that him saying that indicated that he'd heard of them before now--which was quite surprising to learn.

Since he was blinded, she was able to shove him back without him cutting her.

But suddenly he caught the pole and yanked it out of her hands, making her trip.

However, by then Wally was up. He pulled Momo out of the way before the man could stab at where he thought she was.

"Just stay away from him. I got this," Wally said.

A sword appeared in Wally's hands.

Momo stared.

"Yeah, I can do this too," Wally said. "I'm not really a weapons guy, so I only use it when it would be bad for my health to fight with my bare hands--like right now, so just stay out of his sight."

Momo nodded.

The man was starting to recover his sight a little, though no doubt he saw big, green blotches.

Wally had no trouble knocking him into the water.

"Now then," he said, "just drop the sword and we're good."

The man glared at him. "Backup!" he called.

Not many of his people were available, actually. The few who were friends were disappearing into the ground.

Wally figured this guy would do that any second, so he swung and brought down his new sword on the poisoned one.

He wasn't expecting the sword to break into pieces, but that's what happened.

The man stared at him in horror. "You...you devil! You broke my--how did you even do that? It was made of rock!"

"This thing is way stronger than it looks." Wally looked at the sword in amazement. "No wonder Shine loves using hers so much. I mean, I've seen it break metal, but rock? That's even cooler."

"I'll kill you for this!" the man said. "You'll see!"

But despite his words, he was spooked, because the ground beneath the water bed surged up, and he disappeared into it.

Wally had not much hope of fighting him if he had a whole plan of escape underground, though he could have tried to dig it up--but, unlike Superman, that would not have been as easy as drilling a hole for him.

The Stone Ninja who were still in good condition quickly restrained the bandits they had caught and took them away.

Then Wally and the teens headed back to the village to meet up with the others and find out what happened to Naruto. Also to get Shoto checked out more.

* * *

What they heard when they joined the others, who now had Tsunade with them, as she'd come to see if they were leaving or not (and also she'd heard there was some kind of commotion from the medics in the center), shocked them.

Tsunade had been hearing the whole terrible story from Sakura, though Sakura did not dwell on the part where Sasuke jumped in--in fact she didn't even mention it, but other people did.

Sai had been so upset by the event that he'd had a breakdown as soon as they got away and the adrenaline had worn off.

Shine was not quite up to helping him this time, but thankfully Hinata and Hanabi stepped in to make him some tea and get him a cool compress and other tricks to help him get control. It took them longer than Shine, but finally it did pass.

Shine, in a rare show of weakness, had not done much besides sit or lie on one of the pieces of furniture and drink tea herself, while discussing what happened in less coherent terms than usual. 

Gaara was utterly humiliated, but even worse (to him) was that he was livid. And he wasn't too used to being livid anymore. It frightened him when he was angry, but it didn't stop him from being angry.

Temari didn't do much to calm him down--she was steamed also--but Kankuro attempted to tell both of them that the situation was too complicated for them to have been sure what to do. They didn't seem very reassured.

At this moment, the team was so rattled that it was the few people who didn't really get easily excited over stuff that were the most help. Tenten, Shikamaru, and Jugo were the ones most able to discuss the situation in detail to Tsunade.

She listened to the whole thing very gravely. Since she had not been defamed, she took it that she was being spared from the censure of the village because she was a medical genius...and to her credit, she did not find that very flattering.

"Again, I have my problems with you, but this is disgusting," she said. "I would never resort to these methods. A hard no is better than this."

"I just cannot believe Onoki saw it and walked away as if nothing was happening," Gaara spoke, in an impassioned tone that was so unusual for him that it was scaring his friends.

"He'll claim for sure he never saw it," Dabi guessed. "This makes me sick. I hate it when people do things like this. Why do they have to be such sniveling cowards?"

Wally, Shoto, Momo, Karin, and Suigetsu were all horrified--and angry.

"I cannot believe they did this!" Shoto said. "We have to go now--though I really want to give them a piece of my mind."

"No, you can't do that!" Momo grabbed his arm as if she thought he'd go right now. "Shoto, they could kill you if you do that. Please, don't do anything foolish like that again."

She meant like when he'd gone after Sasuke, probably, and realizing that made Shoto feel guilty.

Sasuke, who had been dead silent in all this time, also figured out what she meant and scowled.

Wally tactfully said nothing about his part in this, and the heroes didn't dare to.

"So why did you step in?" Suigetsu was the only one with the gall.

Sasuke gave him a hard glare.

"Shh," Karin hissed at Suigetsu. "Don't push him... It doesn't matter, right?"

Suigetsu thought it did, but perhaps Karin had a point for once. Sasuke didn't seem in the mood for questions.

 "I can't believe I missed this." Wally took Shine's hand. "I'm so sorry, Honey... I feel so bad. If I'd known this was going on, we could have just let Stone handle those bandits. I never thought it would be something this bad."

"Me neither," Shine said quietly. "Well, I'm all right, really. The only thing is my nerves are all keyed up, and I feel tired. Mentally, I'm fine."

She seemed okay, from the sound of it, but no one was sure if she was bluffing.

"You know--" Dabi glanced at Naruto. "--this is kind of your fault for getting up there to begin with. If you'd run like a sensible person, this wouldn't have happened. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Hey, I was just trying to defend Gaara," Naruto said.

"Naruto, for the sake of all our health, please do not defend me like that in the future," Gaara said.

Naruto looked a little defeated now. "I didn't think it would go like that..."

"I suppose you thought they'd all be reasonable and listen to you and stop throwing stones?" Bakugo snapped.

"Guys," Shine spoke, "let's scold Naruto later. I think we should probably be leaving right about now."

"I don't know about that," Tsunade said. "I can't detect any poison--" She was examining Shoto. "--but I'd give it at least 6 hours more to be sure. If it's slow-acting we may not notice it till then. Your chemistry is not the same as ours somehow. Normally, I can detect chakra levels, but yours is unclear."

No one told her the reason for this.

"If we stay here," Wally said, "inside, I think it would be okay to wait. I feel like Shoto's probably fine, but wouldn't want to find out later on the road that he wasn't."

"I feel fine," Shoto said.

"No, no, we should wait," Gaara said, in a tired voice now. "No reason to let anything else terrible happen on account of our carelessness."

"Gaara..." Temari began to forget her anger in her concern for him. "This is not your fault."

"Unfortunately, I think it is," Gaara said. "I never dreamed they would stoop so low. It makes no sense. We served them and offered peace, and they did this... I can't repay evil for evil, but what do I do with this? I feel as if my wish for peace was exploited. It was used as a weapon to keep me from interfering because they knew it would work. And how much longer would that have gone on if they did not fear--?" He stopped short of saying Sasuke's name. Even he seemed to think it was unwise to push Sasuke further.

"First time?" Dabi said.

"Dabi!" Momo cried.

"I'm only saying that this is what the world does to good people--they exploit them because they can. Ungrateful b-----ds, they don't seem to have any sense of guilt about it." Dabi was disgusted.

"Don't act so righteous," Shoto said. "You exploited the kindness of heroes, in that you knew they would not kill you, so you could fight them with less risk than they could fighting you."

"Shoto!" Momo said.

"No, he's right," Dabi admitted, not even upset. "We do that. So we all suck. But we know we're bad, that's all."

"Whether you're bad and honest about it, or you're bad and a liar, you're still bad," Temari said. "I wouldn't boast of it."

"I'm not boasting. I'm saying that it's hard to root for heroes if the people they save are like this," Dabi said.

"Yeah, but you're not the judge of the public," Wally said. "Someone better than both of you would have to judge between you. That's not us, like you say. We just need to do what's right and let the rest of it come from God. Really, I think no human is ever not ungrateful and hypocritical sometimes. I deal with this all the time, but, you know, a lot of people do thank me for saving them. And if some of them won't, I realize they're just having a tough time. Maybe they just lost someone they care about in that disaster. I would have a hard time feeling grateful too if that happened to me. Maybe they're just scared and not sure how to handle it. You see, when you're in that position, it's harder to judge. Those people in the mob were wrong, and I'm mad about it too...but they did just go through a war. Their village is shattered. Any little threat to them is something they're gonna overreact to. Maybe they were lied to also. I know they were wrong, but they're also scared and alone. We shouldn't be so quick to say they're evil."

Some people in the team thought he was right, but others thought it didn't matter.

"Even if they're bothered," Tenten said, "throwing rocks at people? Calling them witches and trying to kill them to get at the Kazekage isn't something you can just ignore."

"Well, if you say so," Wally said. "But what will you do about it?"

Tenten had no idea.

Shine smiled at Wally. "Well, I think you're quite right, Babe."

"You do?" Sakura said, in surprise. "But...didn't you just..nearly...?"

"Yes, but, it's not fair to act as if these people had full access to information about us," Shine said. "They didn't know any better. They were scared--couldn't you see that? And with some reason. We could have killed them all. Or done other horrible things."

Sasuke clenched a fist.

"Even so, no way am I staying here," Shine said.

"Thank goodness you're not completely crazy," Tsunade sighed. "All of you should get out of here first thing in the morning. Before they have time to wake up and come find you."

"I suppose this is kind of like the stoning of Stephen," Momo mused, quietly. 

"Didn't he...die?" Camie said. "I really have a terrible time keeping all those people straight."

"No, it was Paul who died, wasn't it?" Shoto said.

"Both," Dabi said. "But Paul came back to life."

"Well, he doesn't say for sure, but most scholars think so," Shine said.

"Who died?" Shikamaru was confused. 

"Maybe we can go over it later. I'm not sure I'm in the mood right now," Momo sighed.

"She's not in the mood to tutor someone?" Bakugo muttered. "We are fricked."

Shoto was still angry, but he just left in a huff.

"Nobody leaves the grounds. Don't even go outside if you can help it," Shine said.

"I think you need to rest now," Wally said. "I can tell you more about the bandits later if you want. We need to make sure we leave town the opposite way. They won't be too happy to see us again, I think."

"Yeah, probably," Shine agreed with a weak smile.

She and Wally walked out of the room.

"Well, she's resilient, I'll give her that," Tsunade admitted. "If this happened to me, I would have broken a building down. But to each their own."

"Makes you kind of wish you were nicer to us, huh?" Dabi said.

"Excuse me?" Tsunade said.

"You're acting all innocent, but you kicked us out too," Dabi said. "You think I don't remember? It wasn't like this, but you didn't like strangers in your village either. We do you a favor in the war, and suddenly we're fine. Only I have an idea that Onoki got plenty of his ideas from what you told him, whether you admit it or not. This isn't really that far off from what you thought of us. You just did less about it. And wasn't that mainly because you couldn't find us?"

Tsunade blinked at him.

"Hey, that's not fair," Sakura said.

"Shut up, Gorilla Girl," Dabi said. "You've done enough to mess this up."

"There's no need to talk to Sakura that way," Tsunade said. "Things are different now. And even if I didn't trust you, that's not the same thing as public humiliation."

"Dabi, must you always try to make things worse?" Momo sighed, sinking into a chair. "Every crisis we have, you start up trouble with someone just so you can feel better. But what about us? Does it make us feel better?"

Actually, her tired way of saying it might have worked better than anger would have.

Maybe Dabi was reminded of his mom a little. He recoiled, but he shut up.

"Did anyone say where we were going to go now?" Suigetsu wondered. "This village was a bust... Do we go back to our respective homes? Mission over?"

"You can't think Cloud Village would receive us after this debacle," Kankuro said. "If they hear of it, but if they don't hear about our success here, it won't even matter if they know it failed. Cloud is hard to impress. Only a glowing review would have convinced them."

"I know the Raikage," Tsunade said. "And I think Kankuro is probably correct. He won't risk his Village security on any half successes."

"Then we're done?" Ino said. "That's not fair. We barely even started, it feels like... It's not even been two months."

"Isn't that about as long as we planned?" Tenten asked.

"But it's not enough," Ino said, suddenly getting very upset. "I don't want everyone to separate yet. I'm not ready!" She burst into tears and then ran out of the room.

"Gosh, I don't want to go home yet either," Camie said, choking up. "This has been the coolest thing I've ever done, and at home I'm just the ditzy girl who had to retake the Licensing Exam because I got poned by some rando chick with a weird quirk. And my new peeps here are majorly cool, and who knows, like, how much time will go by before we can come back? That's just not fair!" She started crying too.

"Camie?" Bakugo had almost never seen her cry.

"I can't even with this!" Camie cried and also ran out of the room.

Momo sniffled.

"Are you going to cry too?" Temari asked her.

"I can cry if I want to!" Momo almost snapped at her.

Temari was on the point of saying something sharp back, and then suddenly she softened and resolutely handed Momo a handkerchief.

That act made Momo more emotional, and she started to cry for real.