[OP: "This Will End"--The Oh Hellos]

Once the impromptu proposal was over and the girls had waited the respectful amount of time, Camie called, "Yo, lovebirds, I have this fantastic idea for how you can get out of here."

"Oh?" Doro said. "I'm skeptical, but let's hear it."

"You should just come with us," Camie said. "We'll explain it all to our peeps, and you can escape that way."

"That's a nice offer," Zokei said. "Except that everyone will know we helped you then."

"And what if your team doesn't win?" Doro added.

"Hey, we're gonna win," Camie said. "My boyfriend and I, we always win. Trust me."

"Your boyfriend wouldn't be that explosion kid, would he?" Zokei asked.

"Maybe," Camie smirked.

"Yikes," Zokei said. "I don't want to fight him again. He was such a pain in the neck."

"Not to mention," Camie added, "that Uchiha is on our side."

Sort of, Ino thought.

"And so is Gaara, Mr. Sand Man," Camie said. "We're tight. You really think your chances are that great if you side with some stupid bandits? You barely took us in, and we're not the most combat-heavy fighters."

Ino wondered if "barely" was the right word to describe how they'd taken them down.

But it wasn't like either of these people had seen the fight.

"So, you see what I'm saying? We're way tougher," Camie said. "I bet they'll be here to rescue us soon anyway and beat your a---s, so now's your chance to cooperate."

"You think she's playing us?" Zokei asked.

"If she is," Doro said, "we can't be sure it's still not true. If they're already here, then we could already be dead. Didn't you hear that Uchiha actually listens to their leader? And I can see why, after seeing her fight. She held him back before, and the Uchiha are known to be mad people and the most proficient kekkai genkei users."

"Well, spit at the Hyugas' faces," Camie muttered.

"So we can't risk it," Doro concluded. "What do you say?"

"I'd like to pick the winning side," Zokei said. "But it won't be as easy as all that. You kids think that we're all weak in this bandit group, don't you? But some of us are stronger than other ninja. And the boss has plenty of tricks to help him. I don't think it will be simple for you to root out the whole lot of the swarm. And we're not ones to defect if our lives are on the line."

"Can't we compromise then?" Ino asked. "If you give us useful information, then we can tell the others later that you helped us. You don't have to fight yet, just don't get in our way."

They looked at each other.

"That's reasonable," Doro said. "What do you want to know?"

* * *

Sasuke dreaded finding the others probably as much as they dreaded whatever he was going to tell them when they saw him.

They had found a new hiding spot, much higher than before, so they hoped that the Earth shinobi wouldn't be able to pop out so easily without being sensed

Most of them had dirt all over them, just as Sasuke did. But they weren't banged up.

"Oh, look who it is," Dabi said.

They straightened.

"I told you it was him," Hanabi said.

"Yes, but why is he alone?" Shoto asked, as if Sasuke was not even within earshot.

Sasuke supposed he really had no reason to be ashamed of himself--it wasn't as if he'd ditched the others deliberately...but Shine's scolding already had him on edge, and he didn't think anyone here would believe him.

But he dared even less to not pass on Shine's message at this point; she was mad enough at him already.

So he told them.

Of course, they asked at once what happened to the other 5.

Sasuke told them honestly that 4 of them had been whisked away before he could do anything, and that Sakura had been caught while he was chasing the others.

Karin frowned at him, but then she said, "He's telling the truth."

Silence.

"The whole truth?" Dabi asked.

"No way to know that," Shikamaru said.

"Just for the sake of our clarification," Gaara said, "Sasuke, if you wouldn't mind telling us if you at any point compromised the others' safety on purpose?"

"No," Sasuke said in a hard tone. But not answering would have been worse.

"Still telling the truth," Karin said. "But he's angry about it."

"Angry?" Shoto said. "Because he didn't do it or because we asked him if he did?"

"Let's not," Momo said. "All that matters is that he didn't do it. We can't assume the worst."

"I think we all just did," Shikamaru pointed out. "But we had reason to."

Him just saying it like that was a blow, even if Sasuke had never cared about his opinion.

Classically, Shikamaru never really seemed to notice it was a harsh thing to say.

"So Shine wants us to find the others and Sakura," Gaara said, "and then meet them. Or should we split up to do it? Going into the Village is dangerous without more of a plan, and where is Onoki in all this?"

"Do you think he's dead already?" Temari asked. "It's strange that we've heard nothing about him from any of the people who've encountered the bandits so far."

"I didn't ask about it," Hanabi said. "And what about Eichi and his mom? We have to help them."

"We'll worry about that once we've stopped the bandits," Shoto insisted. 

"I want to get Camie," Bakugo said. "She gets nervous when she's kidnapped by herself."

They gave him a weird look.

"Well, there's a statement," Temari said. "But I admit, it's sweet to see you worried about her. Your relationship is so strange."

"Shut up, Fan Girl," Bakugo snapped.

"I also think we should get Ino," Sai said. "And Jugo. He can't possibly fight these people. Lee might be all right."

"He's too outnumbered." Tenten crossed her arms. "This sucks... And Sakura? She went down that easy?"

"I don't believe it was easy." Sasuke said what he wouldn't have said if Sakura was there to hear it. "I saw signs of a scuffle."

"That makes me think," Momo said, "that it's strange that she went down at all and you didn't hear it."

Sasuke frowned, as he thought that she was accusing him of something.

But then Momo went on in her patient and logical manner. "It must have happened very fast. Surely you weren't gone longer than a few minutes. How long?"

Her way of speaking of it made it much less awkward, so Sasuke answered her. "No longer than 4 or 5 minutes."

"Any fight could be over that fast," Shoto said. "Unless it was one of endurance, but Sakura has endurance if nothing else."

"Geez, tell us how you really feel," Dabi said.

"Sakura is strong," Naruto said.

"I just think, against the bandits--they didn't seem very high level." Momo tapped her chin. "Something doesn't feel right about it. She might have had trouble with so many, but surely you would have seen her fighting them. She's not quiet or small in her attacks. What I mean is, isn't it likely they used some kind of foul play?"

"From bandits? Oh, no, really?" Kankuro said.

"Don't talk to her like that," Shoto said. "She's onto something."

"But what kind of foul play?" Hinata asked. "Genjutsu?"

"Sakura is resistant to genjutsu," Momo shook her head. "I was just thinking--we now know the bandits for sure started the plague with some kind of poison that Shine and Wally are trying to identify. And if it could slow Tsunade down, isn't likely that Sakura, who's a lot like her, power-wise, would also be affected?"

"You think they poisoned her?" Naruto finally got it.

"Wait," Tenten said, "didn't Suigetsu tell us in that note it took 3 days or so to work?"

"To work fully," Momo said. "It took minutes for him...but something doesn't add up. People who regenerate fast are affected quickly, right? But those with low chakra are not as quickly... I still don't understand that..."

"There has to be some connection that we're missing," Gaara said.

"I know it's staring us right in the face," Momo agreed. "Something so simple it would be obvious once we thought of it."

They all looked at each other or at the ground.

"Well, I do know there's poison that would cause paralysis affecting your nervous system directly," Dabi said. "But that doesn't usually last forever, so, if it's spreading, that makes no sense unless it's doing something else, and Tsunade could fight it if it was eating away at their nerves."

"That might make them lose mobility, but it wouldn't paralyze them in a stiff way, and that's what it sounds like." Momo shook her head. "This is going to drive me mad if I don't figure it out."

Momo so rarely had any trouble figuring things out that it was almost cutely funny to see her confused, only now they all wanted her to be able to think fast.

"Remember that one person we fought the bandits with got cut?" Shoto said. "What do you think happened to her?"

"She has to have died," Temari said, "if no one is surviving this. Sorry..."

"But if we knew how it happened to her, would it tell us anything?" Shoto asked.

"You want to do an autopsy. That's disgusting," Dabi said. "I'm impressed that you'd even suggest it."

"I don't want to do it, but if you could see her medical records," Shoto said. "She must have gone to the center after the fight. We didn't stick around to see what happened to her. I wasn't affected, which is strange enough, because--"

"Ah ha!" Momo said triumphantly, so suddenly that they shushed her. Someone could have heard her.

"What is it?" Hinata asked her in a quiet voice.

"It's so simple I should have seen it at once!" Momo hit herself in the head. "It was spelled out for us. What is wrong with me?"

"Just tell us what it is," Temari said impatiently.

Momo steadied herself. "It's the chakra!" she said. "I mean...clearly it has to be. The plague isn't infecting people's bodies--it would probably have infected Shoto if that was it. It's their chakra. That's why...don't you see? That means that the faster you produce chakra, the faster you'd push it through your system. Just like those poor souls on Mist Island who had that mind-controlling mist in their chakra network."

"Ugh," Hinata shuddered at the memory of that.

"Wait, so...you're saying that the chakra itself is what's paralyzing them?" Gaara said.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't your chakra rather like my lipids?" Momo asked. "You can't move without it."

"True," Kankuro admitted. "So...what, it's freezing their chakra?"

"I think it's...pretrifying it," Momo said in a more ghostly voice as the horror of the idea sunk in. "Oh...how horrible."

Tenten looked ill. "That's revolting... There's something really wrong with that." She rubbed her arms like she could imagine the feeling.

"If your chakra petrified," Karin said, "it would kill you as soon as it reached your heart and lungs, just like with blood, because our chakra powers our bodies...but you people are different. You don't have chakra networks, you just have your souls inside your bodies, and they have some kind of energy, but it's not wired to your genetic structure the way ours is...so Shoto wouldn't have been affected."

"I think our kind of soul energy is probably just immune to your attacks," Shoto said. "It must be you need to be native to the world to connect to it... I'm so glad we're not like you."

"Shoto." Momo realized how rude that was.

"Huh? Oh...sorry," Shoto said.

"I can't say I blame you for that," Gaara admitted. "But this means that all of us could easily be infected. It won't matter how strong we are."

"What does that mean for Sakura?" Naruto said.

"Luckily for her," Momo said, "she doesn't regenerate chakra very quickly, does she?"

"No," Shikamaru confirmed. "Nor does she have a lot of it, but she does have the invincibility jutsu."

"She'll use it, probably," Momo reasoned. "If our theory is correct...Tsunade said that hers was keeping her alive. How is that possible if regeneration is the problem?"

"Tsunade isn't just regenerating," Karin explained. "It's regenerating in order to heal fast. So she's going to heal her damaged body as soon as she starts to feel weak from the lack of chakra... It can focus on a part of her body, I think. It doesn't need the chark network the same way our regular jutsu does, or it couldn't work so fast. It's more likely it will permeate her...but I do see a problem with that."

"And what is that?" Shoto was afraid to ask, but he thought they should know the worst.

Karin pushed her glasses up. "If we're right, mind you, but if we are, it's that Tsunade will probably be able to ward off the poison's effects for a while, but unless she can override it, which I'm not sure she can, once she's out of energy it could just...permeate her entire body. I assume she's pushing the infected chakra out so quickly that it's not killing her, but once she runs out of juice, she might go faster than the others, even. That kind of jutsu takes a toll. That's why Orochimaru never used it. It takes years off your life force, they say."

"How could you measure that?" Shoto asked. "You can't be sure how long you would live without it."

"So it's theoretical," Karin said. "But it is bad for your body. There's a rhythm to how we regenerate our chakra amounts naturally, and if you bypass that, it's going to put a strain on you. As soon as she stops using that power she'll collapse for sure. And Sakura will too, if she wards off the poison the same way. Still, it might be her only choice... She's younger than Tsunade, so maybe it won't be as bad for her, but...uh, I'd say if we don't find an antidote to that poison soon, they're both as good as dead. Tsunade should never have lasted this long, actually. She must have done very little before she got it."

"Or she only got it in the last couple days," Momo said. "Perhaps that's it. She must have touched someone's chakra who had it and gotten it that way. She seems like she would have thought of not drinking the water...though how water would infect your chakra, I don't know."

"That's easy enough," Shikamaru said. "What we eat and drink becomes fuel for our chakra centers."

"Oh...sorry, I forgot about that," Momo said. "Your physicality is so different from us...fascinating, but...I wouldn't like to be fueled on chakra. It's just one more way you could get killed."

"And one more way you can kill others," Temari said. "You can see why ninja have chosen to use it. But, there was talk about Madara's philosophy in the war of thinking that it was a mistake to do that...but we can't stop it now. Our world runs on chakra. It's too late."

"That's what people say about us and cellphones and the internet," Momo said. "Our reliance on it might have been a mistake, by many people, but we adapted our world to it before we could verify that, and now we can't go back. I hate to say it, but some changes are irreversible."

"Oh, it's reversible," Dabi said. "We'd just mostly die out in a matter of weeks if it happened. At least all us big city people would. A lot of people still live without internet, hard as that is for you to picture, Rich Girl."

"I'm aware of it," Momo said, though she knew very little about it, despite her words.

"Momo, we've been living without it for weeks," Shoto said, "and I've felt fine."

"But don't you miss cellphones?" Momo asked. "I sound like Camie. I guess I didn't know how much I relied on it."

"Can we focus?" Tenten asked. "So Sakura is likely in trouble... What if they do the same to the other 4 too?"

"Well, Camie won't be affected," Bakugo said with a sense of relief.

"Yes, but the others will," Sai said soberly.

"I hope we're wrong," Momo said. "I hope they just knocked her out or something, because unless we have a way to cure this poison, I can't see...and how would we cure that?"

"You can heal anything," Karin said.

"But I can't do a whole village, Karin. There's no way," Momo said. "That kind of gift is too much for one person."

"How about we worry about that once we've taken the Village back," Dabi suggested, sensibly enough for once. "All of us know one thing: Don't let them cut or touch us with anything like chakra, except for us out-of-this-world people. That makes us the biggest asset you have now."

"Yet again it's our friends from outside that seem to be the best protection we have," Gaara noted. "And what would have happened if you hadn't been here, I wonder?"

A split second passed while the ninja all wondered that.

But then Gaara went on. "We must get our teammates back and make sure they're all right. I also don't like the bandits to have any kind of leverage over us."

"Too late," someone said.

They all whirled around.

Somehow, the bandit had not been detected by them. Maybe they had popped out of the rock.

Sasuke's eyes turned red. He didn't recognize him, but he already didn't like any of these scoundrels.

"Sorry to interrupt," the bandit said, when they all stared at him. "But the boss has a message for you: We know you're here, obviously, and he says that if any single one of you steps foot in the Village, he will kill all of your people we already have. It won't take us long."

"Where is Sakura, you b-----d?!" Naruto stepped forward, fists up.

"Naturo, be careful." Gaara used sand to yank him back.

The bandit laughed. Whereas the others had been mostly just doing their jobs in a bored way, Hanabi thought, this one seemed like the mean type.

"If you mean the one with the pink hair, she's safe--for now," the bandit said. "And so is her mentor, whatever her name is."

He knew, no doubt. He was just being disrespectful.

"And the others too," the bandit said. "And they'll stay that way, if you don't come any farther into our village."

"But that's an impasse," Temari said. "You can't leave if we camp out here, and we can't go in. We'll all starve to death, and you'll have to keep our team indefinitely?"

"Oh, no, not indefinitely," the bandit said. "All we're waiting for is the new Kage to be instated into the Village. And then all if you will be guilty of trespassing, and we'll kill you, if you don't run, anyway. It's very simple from here. Diplomacy is not our strong point in the Okikaeru Bandit Union." [Okikaeru means "displaced".]

It was odd to hear him be so open about their plans. Yet they all saw that it was because there was no point hiding it. The Okikaeru Bandits would get what they wanted faster if they just threw a wrench at them outright than if they waited for them to make a counterattack.

It was so simple, it was kind of infuriating. Temari thought so especially.

"Did you say the new Kage?" Gaara asked in a tight voice. "What did you do to Lord Onoki?"

"Didn't think he was any friend of yours," the bandit said, shrugging derisively. "The old doddering fool is on his last leg, if he's not dead. And his weak-willed granddaughter is not going to hold out, trust me. We're taking over Stone Village. So if you want to ally with us, you had better not interfere."

"And you think the other nations will let you do that?" Temari said. "No one would accept some mangy thieves as the new heads of Stone Village."

"They will if they have no choice," the bandits said, snarky. "We have the most deadly plague in the world at our disposal now. And if you don't want it sent to your Village, Kazekage, you will do exactly as we say and turn a blind eye also."

It was just as Wally had predicted, and the overtness stunned them.

Shinobi were not used to blatant threats. Everyone usually implied it or attacked on the sly. It was such a given in their world that it was almost etiquette at this point to attack people secretly before you ever came to the point of a skirmish.

It was the sheer disregard for that that made it scary to them.

Shoto had seen this with Killer Stain, in a way. People who didn't care if they were subtle or not had a strange terror for his society as much as they did for the ninja.

Shine and Wally had even been jarring at first because of that, but he was used to them. Only, he wasn't used to someone who had no morals, no compassion, just standing there and telling them what he intended to do without any shame.

It was like how Shigaraki used to be...but even Shigaraki had at least been a bit more creative about it; this guy was using the oldest trick in the book: just threaten people into submission out of greed, nothing new, nothing idealistic.

Gaara's face got very hard as he took in that he'd just been, very blatantly, threatened.

Temari gripped her fan.

Kankuro's fingers twitched like he'd take out his puppets at any moment.

"So are we clear?" the bandit messenger asked in a very condescending tone now.

Gaara looked at him stonily.

"Good." The bandit took that as a yes, perhaps foolishly. "I'll be on my way then."

They could have tried to stop him, but the ground opened so fast under him that they barely had time to register what he'd just said before he was gone.

* * *

"Now what?" Temari asked, once they were alone.

"Even speaking of a plan would be risky if they could be listening," Gaara said, in a flat tone. "Coming back here may have been a mistake. We've only made it worse..."

"Don't start with that," Dabi said. "Those weasels are just messing with our heads. They're scared of you, that's all. That's why they wanted hostages, I bet."

"It doesn't matter. I refuse to sacrifice their lives just to take back Stone Village," Gaara said. "I am sorry for it, but I don't see how it's earned that kind of benevolence from us. It's not even our Village, and even for our Village I would hesitate to do something that cold-hearted and calculated, though I know my advisors would tell me too--my older ones."

"It's certainly not your style," Kankuro agreed, "but neither is just letting these rapscallions take over Stone Village."

They were surprised he, the more mild one, was the one who said it out of the three Sand Siblings.

But he went on. "Gaara, our Village is not safe just because we back off."

"I'm aware of that," Gaara said. "But what can we do? They're watching us, that much is clear...and they took the only person who might have snuck past them."

"Wait...not the only one." Sasuke suddenly had an idea--it might be a stupid one, but he disliked being told to back off, and that made him want to at least try something.

"What?" They looked at him weirdly.

"Karin," Sasuke said. "You can."

"What?!" Karin squeaked.

"Right, right, she can mask her chakra!" Dabi snapped his fingers. "Well, Hot Pocket, now's your time to shine."

"Are you crazy? 'I'm not any good at rescues," Karin said.

"Lower your voices," Temari hissed.

They did.

"All we need is for you to find Tsunade and Sakura and the others," Momo said quietly. "And you can do that better than anyone other than Shine. And she's busy."

"But where is she? Maybe they'll come back," Karin said.

"Well, then they'd just get told the same thing we did," Kankuro said. "Could you disguise yourself somehow and sneak in there unnoticed by them? At least if they can't sense your chakra they won't think you're dangerous."

"You're a medic," Temari said. "You could offer to help. There's a good chance they won't kill you."

"They can take me hostage."

Pause.

The truth was, no one, not even Sasuke who'd suggested it, was very sure of Karin's reliability under pressure. She seemed so...unsteady.

She'd been a little better lately but not enough to convince them she was shinobi material.

Karin, who could see clearly enough how they felt, not only with her sensing ability but by what she'd heard them say in the past, hated herself at the moment for being such a wimp.

"We can't force her," Gaara spoke finally. "We'll have to come up with a different plan."

Funny, but him being nice about it was worse for Karin than a scolding would have been. Now she really felt pathetic.

Sasuke, who was sure that no other plans would work anyway, if the Stone knew they were in the Village, just looked angry and then sullen.

Karin actually really had no compulsion to please Sasuke anymore. She'd lost that some time ago and wasn't even sure he didn't still scare her.

However, she did think his concern was strange. Since when did he care if anyone was captured or in trouble? 

In fact, why wasn't he just telling them to leave Stone to its fate? And their friends...surely Shine could portal them out. They weren't really in any danger, after all, once Shine came back...so why did he care about doing as Shine had asked them? It was just a change in plans.

Then again, Sasuke never had been one to abandon a course of action just because the likelihood of it succeeding had changed, so maybe that tracked.

Karin leaned on a rock and thought to herself rather dejectedly that it didn't matter. If she was at all brave, she'd still have offered to go in... After all, Suigetsu and Jugo were in there too. And suppose the bandits did something to them before Shine or Wally could get there...? They weren't invincible, they'd shown that.

Funny, once, she hadn't really cared if either of the two boys survived, but that was long past.

In a way they were all she'd had for a while, and even if she had Naruto now, still...that had to count for something, right?

And, uncomfortably, she felt sure they both would have gone after her if they could, even Jugo, who had no real power anymore.

Yes, she was just a wimp compared to them.

But she'd been braver before, right? Was it just that she'd have to go in alone that was making her so hesitant? No one to back her up this time...

But Hanabi had done it... At least, she'd gone off alone once she was inside. The 14-year old was braver than Karin was.

Berating herself wasn't making her feel any braver.

But then she thought of something else.

The DJs always prayed and asked for help when they did something, and they were never afraid--at least, if they were, she couldn't sense it, so it wasn't like how ninja felt fear.

And she had that friendship thing now, didn't she?

It seemed a stupidly naive idea, but, having nothing better, she thought outwards, for some help or some sense of what to do.

The change that followed was so slight she didn't know it was happening at first.

But her nerves settled somehow, and her stomach untwisted.

And her senses, already keen, seemed to separate more, like the throng of people in the Village whom she could sense suddenly became organized the way a chess board was organized.

And as if she could sense what lay under their feet, now, more than she would have sensed on her own.

Karin straightened, suddenly forgetting that she was afraid at all. It was so clear...as clear as if she'd seen it with her eyes instead of sensed it.

"I think Shine-san was right," she said aloud, and the others jumped.

They'd been trying to form a different idea and had nothing so far that wouldn't immediately fail. Even Shikamaru was getting stumped.

"She's usually right," Dabi said. "But about what?"

"There's a network under the city itself," Karin said, eyes huge, though she didn't know it. "The bandits, they made tunnels... They must have. Going around the pipes, probably... It could have taken weeks for them to do it. To plan. They didn't just make them randomly like moles do..."

"How would she know that?" Shikamaru asked. "I thought she said that the dirt made it hard for her to sense chakra."

"Not impossible." Sasuke knew that Karin's senses could work if she had enough empty space--but this didn't seem like her usual prowess anyway.

"It's so clear now." Karin wasn't listening to them.

She walked about 5 paces away from the place they were all gathered and then right over a stone that would have looked completely normal to the rest of them, and had been so faint in its chakra emission that she'd never have felt it when there were so many people around to drown it out, but now it was sticking out to her.

She picked it up.

Nothing happened, as it wouldn't, but she nodded. "This is the place...though the tunnel must be 10 yards below us at least for us not to sense it."

"Ten yards?" Gaara said. "That's a lot of earth to move."

"For them that's nothing," Temari said. "But you mean it's still there? They didn't collapse it once they went through?"

That was what Earth shinobi usually did, so no one could follow them.

"It's there, all right." Karin was almost positive of it now. "They mark the path with special rocks so they can get around the Village quickly, don't you see? That must be how no one noticed them here for weeks. They were here when we were, that's why we and Bakugo fought them. They didn't use the tunnels to escape that time because Bakugo stayed on their  tails and they didn't want to show their hand. They must have stolen for ages before. They must have spied on the Village to know it was weak."

"That's a lot of assumptions." Gaara wasn't convinced yet. 

"And that seems like it would be something the Stone shinobi would have noticed," Kankuro objected. "That's their jutsu, after all. You're telling me they wouldn't have noticed people making tunnels under their Village?"

"On the other hand," Momo said, "sometimes it's the thing closest to us we're the most blind to."

They glanced at her questioningly.

"Considering," she said, "that the Stone would never expect anyone else to the use their own methods, and not under their very feet, I can see why they might have written off any tunnels they found as just their own people's, not the bandits. Clearly the bandits, some of them, used to be Stone. Maybe they never noticed they had stopped work for them and started doing other things."

"Yeah, some of them are ex-ninja, aren't they?" Dabi said. "That makes sense. No one would think twice about it. I think Karin's onto it... I don't know how she is. She looks high, almost."

"Shut up." Karin was not so out of it that she didn't notice his rudeness.

"Oh, good, she's okay," Dabi said, with a wry chuckle.

"But none of us use Earth Jutsu," Temari said. "So that's nothing to help us."

"At best," Gaara said, "even if we could get through a tunnel, they could bury us alive if they knew we did it."

"Sakura uses Earth Style," Naruto said. 

"She hits rocks." Shikamaru was skeptical. "She couldn't keep a tunnel open by doing that if she found one. But that has to be how she disappeared so quickly. Shine's theory was right then. The tunnels start from the other wall, that what she said?"

"She thought," Sasuke shrugged, carelessly. "Based on something they found out there, I guess."

"But could you tunnel into it?" Karin asked Gaara, ignoring them.

"Yes, I could," Gaara said. "But my sand is not the same as dirt. It's looser, and it won't work the same way. It takes too much charge to control it to make tunnels out of it, unless you're in the desert already, perhaps. But then I'd have to break the earth down into--"

"Just do it," Karin cut him off--and that showed she was too focused on the problem to be afraid to be rude to the Kage.

Gaara was surprised enough by her saying it to just do as she said. [Gaara might be a good leader, but he's still the youngest child. That's all I can say.]