[OP: "Zephyrus"--The Oh Hellos]

Gaara's squad had discussed what to do when day broke.

Gaara wanted to keep looking for more people, and Hinata confirmed that there were still more out there.

Sakura had been running tests most of the wee hours of the morning, and she'd made some progress.

"I think I know what this is," she pronounced. "It's like a more potent version of some of the anesthesia we use in surgery. It's stronger, like a mutated strain, mixed with some other things. I assume they make the mind more open to suggestions from genjutsu."

"Someone must have experimented with the plants until they got a stronger strain," Ino theorized. "I bet some medic went to the dark side."

"Great, now we know that. Is there a cure?" Karui said.

"It should have worn off on its own, but we can assume the chakra they infused into it gives the effects longer life." Sakura brushed her hair back.

"I do see strange chakra in that sample," Hinata confirmed.

Sakura had both swiped their skin and taken blood samples, all with Momo's help with the tools, to figure out how the poison had interacted with their bodies.

She thought that you both inhaled it and absorbed it into your skin, explaining the rash more, and it induced an allergic reaction because of other things mixed into it that gave people an adverse reaction.

Basically it confirms all her theories.

"We could counter the effect of the drug itself with some other herbs, maybe," she said. "And a steroid might help too...but I don't have the right things to make it right. And I'm not even sure most Villages would carry them; this is pretty advanced. I haven't even done it more than a few times with Lady Tsunade."

"I can make a cortisol steroid for allergies," Momo offered.

"Okay, seriously, why can you make that?" Karui asked.

"You never know what you might need on the field. We're all supposed to know basic first aid," Momo replied.

"That could work, but I don't know if it would clear our heads," Sakura mused. "We could try it, see if it works...but who wants to be a guinea pig?"

No one was anxious to try something that might not work.

But Gaara said, "I suppose, as leader, I should be willing to--"

"No, no, as leader you can't risk it," Ino said.

"I could try it," Naruto said. "I mean, it's not lethal, right?"

"Well, it shouldn't be," Momo said, "but I wasn't sure how this alien drug might interact with the steroid... It wouldn't cause any lethal side effects, I hope."

"It shouldn't..." Sakura rubbed her forehead again. "How fast can you make that?"

Momo took out a snack from her pack. "Might take a few minutes for something that complicated."

"Maybe we could use some plants around here to counter the other part," Ino said. "Maybe not what you have in mind, but there are a lot of things out here." She took out her book. 

"At least the rain washed most of it off our bodies," Sakura mused. "I guess maybe that was a blessing in disguise..."

She thought using that wording wasn't like her. Weird.

"But what about the enemy?" Sasuke was focused on the negative.

"We'd be in better shape to fight them if we had our memories back," Gaara pointed out.

"After hearing more about you, I don't even know if we can trust you." Karui crossed her arms at Sasuke.

He cut his eyes at her.

"Maybe just one person at a time?" Choji suggested.

Momo made the steroid shot thereafter, and Sakura looked kind of nervous about using it, but she told Naruto to hold still.

Naruto had volunteered to be first. "Wait, is this thing going to hurt?"

"No, not at all," Sakura lied. "Just look the other way."

"I'm kinda afraid of needles," Naruto said uneasily.

"I also do not like needles," Sai stated. It was hard to tell from his tone if he was sympathetic or just informing them of it.

"You really are kind of automatonic," Karui said.

Sai frowned. "I'm not sure what you mean, but I have the oddest sense I don't like you. Which is odd because I shouldn't like or dislike anyone."

"The heck is wrong with you?" Karui backed away. "Stop creeping me out."

"Leave him alone!" Ino was still defensive of Sai, despite not remembering who he was. "It's not his fault. Besides, you were being rude to him."

"What? You want to go, blondie?" Karui said.

"That's enough." Gaara's tone silenced them both. "Fighting amongst ourselves will solve nothing."

"Do you want me to hold your hand?" Hinata asked Naruto. "That's what I do with my--" She winced. "--someone...I can't remember now..."

"Does that help?" Naruto asked.

Sakura rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, that helps, just try it," she said firmly.

Naruto took Hinata's hand.

Hinata suddenly got an odd look on her face.

Sakura harpooned Naruto with the syringe before he could remember what she was doing (at least, to him it was like she harpooned it).

"OW!" he said.

"It didn't even hurt," Sakura said.

"The idea of it did," Naruto grumbled.

Ino laughed nervously at that.

"Do you feel any different?" Momo asked.

"I'm not sure," Naruto said.

"It'll take a few seconds," Sakura said. 

They waited a few seconds.

Hinata realized that she hadn't let go of his hand, and she did so abruptly, turning red.

"What are you all staring at?" Naruto asked, blinking and rubbing his eyes. "Hey...where are we? What's going on? I feel like I've been sleep walking."

"Naruto?" Momo said. "You remember us all?"

"Of course I do," Naruto said. "What are you talking about, Momo?"

"Be more specific," Sai said. "How do we know he doesn't just mean he remembers us from a few hours ago?"

"Quick, Naruto, tell us something that you'd only know if you remembered the real us," Sakura said.

"Uh...what do you mean the real you?" Naruto said. "Sakura, why are you holding a needle?" He cringed. "I hope you're not going to use that on anyone."

"Huh?" Sakura said. "I just did, you dummy. On you."

"What? What happened to me?" Naruto yelped. "Was I sick?"

"What's the last thing you remember before finding us?" Sasuke was tired of the ambiguity.

"Gee...I think we were chasing those guys, right?" Naruto said. "I don't really remember after that. I must have hit my head or something."

"You..." Sakura frowned. "I don't understand, you remember what we were doing before? But...don't you remember what just happened?"

"No..." Naruto said.

And that was when it hit them.

Well, it hit some of them faster than others.

"Oh no..." Sakura said, spooked. She dropped the syringe.

"This is not good." Momo put her hand to her chest. 

"I'm confused, what's wrong with Naruto?" Choji said.

"His memory appears to be back," Gaara said.

"I lost it?" Naruto said.

"He doesn't remember anything about what happened after we got lost in here," Sakura said. "Do you?"

"No..." Naruto said. "Should I?"

"We all do," Momo said.

"Wait, you switched his memory problem?" Karui said. "I mean, it seems like less of a problem though. So he lost 24 hours, so what?"

"Twenty-four hours in which many of us saw the enemy." Gaara had started to understand. "And learned their tactics..."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "The genjutsu is two-fold," he said darkly. "First, it takes all your memory of what you were doing, giving them a chance to get away from you, and then it takes your memory of even what happened while you were under it, so that even if you learned something about them, you'd not be able to use it...so you're left as confused as you were when you first found them."

"Who would use a jutsu like that?" Karui said. "So what if we forget what we learned today? We'll just find them again."

"If the trail is cold by now, or they had time to destroy any evidence of themselves we found previously, it does us little good," Gaara said. "If they could repeat this trap every time we find them, we could look for years and never learn enough."

They all looked at him in horror.

"It's genius, in a horrible way," Momo said. "But that is more how anesthesia works."

"Of course!" Sakura slapped her forehead. "It's not just the initial memory loss... The drug keeps your mind in a continual state of being under it even when you're conscious. The chakra must just change how it works slightly, but basically, we never left it--we're just more aware now, but our minds were still trapped in it this whole time... That makes sense. That's why we couldn't find each other, why we still couldn't remember everything, though it should have worn off...and so we won't remember what happened in this state either. It's like how when you wake up from anesthesia, you can remember what someone says to you at first, while you're still dazed, but then once you're fully awake, you forget that conversation."

"Or like when you're half asleep and you understand things, but when you wake fully you forget what you heard, usually," Momo guessed. "What oddly specific power. How did they ever do it?"

"Actually using it like that sounds easier than what we originally thought," Ino said. "So...when it wears off, we forget again. We'll basically be reset back to the day before...or two days before...so, they'll be long gone by then."

"Yeah." Sakura kicked a rock so hard it broke a tree branch off when it hit. "So even us fixing it just makes it complete... How did they get us so bad?"

"So you're saying that you guys and me have been looking for the kidnapped people?" Naruto finally had pieced it together. "But it's been 24 hours now, and I don't remember any of that."

"Yes." Choji nodded.

"That's so creepy," Naruto said. He looked at Hinata. "Why were you holding my hand, though?"

Hinata flushed. "Oh, just to help with the...injection."

"Is that really what's important now?" Sasuke said. "They've trapped us still. I hate this!" Suddenly he seemed very angry. He paced furiously. "I'm tired of people messing with my mind!"

He didn't seem like the type to usually get so vocal about his anger, at least to them, and they were stunned.

"Sasuke," Naruto said, "what's wrong? You're acting weird."

"Don't talk to me like you know me when I don't know you!" Sasuke was being irrational, but he didn't care. "Just shut up!"

"All right, calm down." Sakura stepped in front of him. "Maybe there's away around the side effects. Panicking isn't going to help anything."

"Don't tell me what to do!" Sasuke sounded exactly like Bakugo.

Sakura put a hand on her hip. "Do we need to do this right now? You're not fixing anything with your screaming about it, and you'll lead the enemy right to us. So pipe down, or we'll gag you."

Sasuke was surprised at her making this threat.

But Sakura had had people held down before for procedures, and she wasn't above it in cases like this, either.

And Gaara nodded like he was going to back her up on that.

Karui likely would just like an excuse to tie him down, since she considered him a menace.

Sasuke sullenly went quiet.

But before anyone could make another suggestion, they were interrupted by a huge, white bird.

Of course Camie and Karin were still on it.

Everyone tensed, ready to attack, but Camie yelled, "Don't shoot!"

Which confused them.

The bird landed.

"Brosefs, it's moi!" Camie said. "I mean, like Idk who any of you are right now, but we totally know each other. The giant pelican thing told us."

"It's not a pelican." Karin looked a little motion sick--or it was just the force of the bird's speed.

"Whatevs." Camie slipped off it. "Like, you do all look just like Naruto characters, I swear tho. Like, literally, Sakura Haruno and Naruto for real."

"How did she know our names without knowing us?" Naruto asked.

"I'm getting really sick of this," Sakura said wearily.

"So...who are you?" Sai asked.

"Camie," Camie said. "The boys are, like, right behind us."

They all heard explosions.

They tensed, but when Bakugo appeared, he just flopped on the ground because he was getting pretty tired.

Jugo and Suigetsu followed, more dignified.

"And who are you?" Karui asked.

"Suigetsu." Suigetsu held up a hand lazily. 

"My name is Jugo." Jugo nodded. "Our bird friend says we're on the same team."

Zoe made some more bird sounds.

"The bird does?" Ino said, confused.

Zoe then hopped like a sparrow over to Sai, who was very much surprised by it, and put her head on his chest the way animals do when they're huddling with their family group.

"Aww, she likes you," Camie said. "That's a photo op right there."

"Is she speaking like that because of the genjutsu?" Gaara asked. 

"I wish I could believe that was the reason." Karin adjusted her glasses. "I'm Karin, by the way."

"What is this bird thing doing?" Sai was afraid to move.

"She thinks you're her master," Jugo said.

"Didn't you...get chased by her earlier?" Ino asked.

Zoe made an annoyed sound.

"Ah," Jugo said. "She was a bit put out about that...I think. She's been trying to drive us all together."

"Oh..." Sai said. Understanding dawned. 

"You have a giant pet bird?" Choji was skeptical.

Zoe squawked.

"She prefers being called 'companion'," Jugo supplied. 

"Of course she's your bird," Naruto said. "I--oh, I keep forgetting none of you remember except me."

"Wait, how do you?" Suigetsu asked.

So they had to explain.

And they also explained what Jugo had learned from Zoe.

And they also saw another bright flash in this time.

"I guess we'd better head that way," Gaara said. "It's clearly some kind of signal."

"Zoe thinks it's our leaders," Jugo said. "Other than you, anyway. And it's concerning that neither of your siblings are here, Lord Gaara. Apparently they were."

"My..." Gaara winced. "Right...I have siblings... How could I forget something that important? I don't even remember their names or faces..." He looked sad. "Is this the punishment for my misdeeds?"

"I wish I could forget siblings," Sasuke muttered, so low only a few people heard him.

"We'll have to sort that out," Momo said. "What do we do if you all want to get your memories back, but we lost the lead? Does that mean someone will have to choose to stay amnesiac?" 

"We could better answer that once we reunite with everyone," Gaara said, struggling to compose himself. "We better hurry."

So they did. Zoe led the way, carrying Sai this time.

Naruto was asked if he knew who else they were missing, and he listed off all the missing people after he gave it some thought.

When he mentioned Hanabi, Hinata paled. "My sister...so it was her... Oh no...I hope she's with the others."

"And we have an Earth ninja?" Karin said. "That's one from every major Village then. Odd."

"No, I think that was the idea." Naruto rubbed his head. "I think Miss Likstar liked having it, and Gaara too, to promote peace. It's so weird none of you remember what we're doing now. I wish I paid attention to stuff more now--I could explain better."

"You're not much of a student, are you?" Sakura said.

Naruto frowned. "It's kind of weird that even when you've forgotten me, you still think I'm dumb."

"Maybe it's just that obvious," Suigetsu suggested.

"Maybe you're obvious," Naruto grumbled.

"I'm sure your sister is with the others." Jugo tried to make Hinata feel better.

"Yes, we seem to have found each other," Momo added.

Hinata nodded. However, the bad guys had said they'd caught the other Hyuga. She hoped that they'd been found, like the ones who'd attack her, but what if they hadn't?

It wasn't that far, really. It only took them about 10 minutes to find them.

Gaara was still troubled. He and Hinata both were. Forgetting your own family was too scary, and Gaara felt also that it might be partially because he'd never really appreciated his siblings enough. Perhaps if he had, they'd be harder to erase from his memory. After all, Hinata had at least had an idea she was missing a family member, even if she couldn't put a name to it, but he hadn't.

Perhaps he was not a good brother.

He thought he might be ashamed to even look them in the eye when he did find them.

But, in fact, when they all came into the big clearing, the team members already there let out a big cheer or sigh of relief.

"There they are!" Wally cried.

"Guys!" Naruto said.

Temari and Kankuro rushed up to Gaara and grabbed him.

It wasn't exactly a hug, but Kankuro had his shoulders and was shaking him a little, and Temari was inspecting him from head to foot for injuries.

"Did they hurt you? What happened?" she demanded.

Gaara was so surprised by this that his mind went blank--and then the memory began to click into place.

"Temari, Kankuro," he said, sounding upset. "I'm sorry, we had memory loss because of this jutsu-"

"We know. We had it too," Kankuro said. "But it's coming back now, in spades."

"Aw, this is so cute," Camie said. 

"Hmm, they don't seem to all be snapping out of it," Dabi said to Shine. "Maybe your theory was wrong."

"Give it a moment," Shine said. "Hey!" she spoke loudly.

Everyone froze in the middle of asking each other what was going on.

"All of you new people, can you spread out into a kind of circle so we can all see each other at the same time?" Shine said. "I want to try something. It might jog our memories."

"But, if you do that," Gaara spoke, "we may all have a different problem."

They began to explain.

"It has a broader purpose?" Mabui said, when they had finished. "How...diabolical."

"So now we lose memories either way?" Dabi said. "What is this, permanent brain damage?"

"No, more like drug use," Shine said. "Fascinating...and horrible. So you remember us all but not what happened." She looked at Naruto.

"Yeah, Miss Likstar, that's about it," Naruto said.

"Troubling," Shine mused. "But, we need our full memories more than we need the new ones. Not to worry, Kankuro has the details of the mission with him."

"That's great," Suigetsu said. "But what if we learned something about these pricks that we need?"

"Well, we've undone the jutsu mostly on ourselves, and so far we remember everything," Shine said. "It's not fully broken yet... You say the steroid is what triggered it to be completely reversed? Perhaps our method has not completely reversed it yet, just restored our memories of each other, maybe not of the whole mission. I'm still fuzzy on certain parts...but if we combine what we know of them with what happened earlier today and last night, we could still save those people. I think we're smart enough to fill in the blanks. You're all trained professionals, right?"

"Most of us are," Sakura said, with a pointed look at some of the ones she still wasn't sure about, Sasuke included.

Sasuke was starting to get a headache again, perhaps because his eyes were able to take in more than other people's, but seeing so many of them together was already beginning to press on his memory core.

Hinata had symptoms also already. She was rubbing her temples.

"It seems risky," Gaara said.

"It's risky not to," Temari said. 

"I think it only works if we all do it," Shine said. "We could at least try. It may not even work..."

"I did think of one solution to this," Momo said. "We could just write down what we need to know. Then if we forget, it won't matter so much."

"Take this from someone who makes notes about everything," Mabui said, "it's never the same as seeing it yourself. We'll still lose something."

"Do you want your memory back?" Wally asked her.

"I...do," she said.

"We ought to get it back," Karui said to her. "We're the only two Cloud here, and I'm not sure I buy their story of why we're with them."

Mabui sighed. "All right."

Everyone wrote down what they'd seen as fast as they could.

It took only about 10 minutes to do this also.

Hinata noticed that she hadn't seen any other Hyugas so far, and Naruto noticed that they didn't have Eichi with them.

When they pointed this out, Shine paled.

"I think I remember who you mean...two younger kids, right?" she said.

"Old enough to be Genin, but, yeah, younger than us," Naruto said.

"Oh no..." Shine said.

"Did you all forget that we captured one?" Sasuke said.

In fact, everyone had mostly forgotten this because the guy had been gagged and hadn't been trying to get away for a while and so had had no part in their conversations. No one trusted him to tell the truth if they asked him for details.

But, Karin was here now, so...

"Let's try to undo the jutsu and then ask," Shine said. "We don't want any of his influence in our minds before we ply him."

"And then I'll 'ply' him with my explosions," Bakugo said. "Sick b-----d."

"I want a crack at him first!" Temari said.

A lot of them were angry, for good reason.

But they didn't have enough energy to waste it getting too worked up, so their anger was more the dull, simmering kind. They just wanted to fix the problem for now.

Even Sasuke wasn't that invested in revenge for once. And more concerned about two missing kids than he'd have expected himself to be.

Sai also felt more concerned. He expressed that he was puzzled by why he had emotions. 

But no one took time to explain it to him.

They all got in a circle as Shine had suggested.

"We'll take this slow," she said, sounding a little less sure of herself than they'd hoped. "Try to look at everyone, and then just let your instincts take over. Don't try too hard to think of what you're missing, just let the impression of them hit you, and we'll see if it works. We have other things we can try if it doesn't, so don't stress. This is an experiment."

"Great, I just love being experimented on," Suigetsu said.

"That's dark, bro," Camie muttered.

Everyone looked at each other.

Tentatively, Naruto took Hinata's hand again.

Choji put a hand on Shikamaru's shoulder and nodded. By now they'd had it confirmed they were on the same team, and Shikamaru had some hazy memories of it already, but, not enough.

Ino glanced at them, and then she put one hand on Shikamaru's shoulder, and, with the other, she took Sai's arm.

Sai had his picture book out, as if he needed reassurance, and Zoe was putting her beak on his shoulder.

Momo and Shoto linked hands. They at least knew they were from the same class and had some idea they knew each other.

Karin surprisingly grabbed both Jugo's and Suigetsu's hands, but she'd been told they were her friends, and she felt she needed reassurance right now.

Tenten looked nervous.

"It'll be fine." Kankuro put a hand on her shoulder, to her surprise. "This will probably work."

She pursed her lips and nodded.

"Well, here goes nothing." Wally took Shine's hand. "Do we need to say anything?"

"I was going to pray and then try not to think too hard," Shine said.

"Is there a song for this?" Naruto joked, because no one else would remember to ask.

Shine laughed, then she said, "Of course there is."

"Don't sing, 'memory, all alone in the moonlight,'" Wally said. "I'm begging you, that song is too annoying."

"I wasn't going to pick that," Shine said.

Instead, she started to swing a melancholy kind of tune, but it was also soothing.

"Here's to the twilight
Here's to the memories
These are my souvenirs
My mental pictures of everything
Here's to the late nights
Here's to the firelight
These are my souvenirs

"I close my eyes and go back in time
I can see you're smiling, you're so alive
We were so young, we had no fear
We were so young, we had no idea
That life was just happening
Life was just happening

"Here's to your bright eyes

"Shining like fireflies
These are my souvenirs
The memory of a lifetime
We were wide-eyed with everything
Everything around us
We were enlightened by everything. I close my eyes and go back in time
You were just a child then, and so was I
We were so young, we had no fear
We were so young, we had no idea
That nothing lasts forever

"You and me together
Were always now or never. Can you hear me?

"(chorus)
We were so young, we had no fear
We were so young, we had just begun
A song we knew, but we never sang
It burned like fire inside our lungs."

https://youtu.be/lWsd343_OgA

["Souvenirs"--Switchfoot. This song has made me cry before.]

Everyone tried to listen to it instead of focus on the problem--though some of them thought this idea was dumb, privately.

The words seemed to wash over them like warm bath water, relaxing the knotted tension in their minds.

Or maybe it was just that they were all together again.

The one caught bad guy was watching this like he thought they were crazy.

Then everyone's heads began to throb, but it wasn't as bad as before, more like a dull ache that was building up like bubbling water builds up under the lid of a pot.

Just when it began to feel more unbearable, there was something like a snap or a pop in their thoughts.

The feeling of genjutsu breaking was pretty unmistakable to the ninjas, who'd expected it before anyway, but the heroes found it pretty bizarre.

They reached for their heads, or hearts, in some case.

Memory started to flood back. 

Still, it was almost as if they were seeing each other for the first time, for the first few seconds...and yet also like they were seeing old friends.

The effect was to make some of the girls start crying...and some of the guys probably would have if they hadn't been too embarrassed to, but they might have glistened a bit.

Momo was the first one to cry, of course.

"Oh, Shoto," she sniffled. "I remember now..."

Shoto pulled her into a hug. He wasn't usually demonstrative in front of people, but he was past caring.

Everyone was past caring, really. Choji pulled both Ino and Shikamaru into a friendly huddle. "Team 10 is back together again!" he announced.

"Oh, gosh," Ino sniffled. "It's like a whole book of information just opened itself in my head again..."

"I have friends!" Sai said enthusiastically.

Though not everyone heard him, since it was pretty loud right now, Shine did, and she thought it was a bid heartbreaking.

"Oh, now I remember," Sakura said, patting her face as if to wake herself up. "Wow..." She turned to give Sasuke a strange look, and then she frowned.

Sasuke had remembered enough to understand it, and he frowned back at her sullenly.

Though perhaps a part of him felt a bit ashamed that the first thing she did was get angry again.

But Sakura said nothing about it. She just turned and smacked Naruto--lightly though, so he only lurched a few steps instead of falling down.

"I forgot how dumb you are," she said. "Don't get lost again like that."

"Ow." Naruto rubbed his head.

Hinata helped steady him a bit. "I almost think she missed you," she said, with more sass than you'd expect.

Sakura shot her a weird look. 

But then Hinata reflected that Hanabi was not there and became distressed. "I remember what happened now! My poor sister! She's lost!"

"Oh, frick!" Dabi suddenly cried, remembering the same thing. "The kids! Now I know... Oh, this is so freaking messed up." He swore a lot more after that.

"Eichi," Gaara said. "His mother is going to kill us...and I wouldn't stop her. How could we have lost track of them both in a situation like this? I think we should have left them in the Cloud Village after all."

"Cloud!" Mabui said, suddenly alarmed. "Oh no...did you tell them what happened?" She looked at Kankuro.

"Yeah, I tried, anyway," he said.

"This is a disaster!" Mabui covered her mouth with her hand. "We lost the targets..."

"We got one." Suigetsu pointed at the one guy. "And now that I remember what happened, I really hate this guy. Can we rough him up please?"

"No," Shine said. "Not for revenge."

"How do you feel about torturing him for information?" Karui asked.

"Unless it's strictly necessary, I'm against torture," Shine said.

"So what's necessary?" Karui made a fist.

"Do you always want to hurt people, angry girl?" Kankuro said.

She frowned at him.

Shine's eyes lit up suddenly. "There, it's working again! Thank the Lord! I can see Hanabi and Eichi now."

"You can?" Hinata sounded relieved.

"Yeah," Shine said. "Just a minute."

* * *

Hanabi and Eichi had not been taken out of the bags they were in till they were loaded onto some kind of small ship. And they hadn't regained consciousness until then either.

Hanabi was groggy at first, but then she came to and realized what had happened. Her memory was intact. She felt sick from the drug and the antidote combined.

She and Eichi were locked in some kind of small hold, the kind that's a square-shaped hole in the deck, and not connected to any cabins or bows under it.

They weren't alone in there--a handful of people who must have been smuggled there before the big attack.

Eichi was freaked out (this was exactly like the bandits all over again), but he tried not to show it.

Hanabi, being more nimble than the others, got her gag off pretty easily.

Then she used her chakra to stick to the wall of the hold enough to pull her arms over her head and then used her teeth to pull at the rope binding them in place.

It wasn't a very good rope. The kidnappers, not having enough information on their prey to know better, assumed that two kids wouldn't be that good at fighting or escaping, and had used regular rope like you might find for a clothesline or tying packages onto a wagon. They'd been in a hurry.

Most of the other prisoners weren't tied up any more than that also, but they all stared straight ahead.

"Genjutsu," Hanabi hissed at Eichi.

He nodded.

She tore his bonds off also. 

"Do you think we can get them to wake up?" Eichi waved his hand in front of one of the others' faces.

The girl might have been younger than Hanabi was, based on her size.

The smell down here was awful. Hanabi was almost glad it was too dark for her to see a lot with her natural eyesight, and she didn't like to turn on her Byakugan.

"We could try," she mused. 

She remembered that Hinata and Neji had once told her you break genjutsu by cutting off the chakra flow to the brain for a few seconds, which was dangerous to try.

But she'd gotten a lot better at control... Maybe just a light tap.

It seemed as if it was better than their chances were if she left them alone.

She infused chakra into her hand and lightly hit their head.

Touching it made her shudder--the creepy, crawling feeling of genjutsu seemed to tingle up her arms like a recoil from a weapon.

The girl flinched and then blinked at them.

Her eyes watered, but she wasn't crying. It was more as if they were irritated...small wonder after all that time staring into space.

"Whe...where am I?" she said in a small voice. "Who are you?"

Then she looked like she was going to scream. "Where's my mom--?!"

Hanabi covered her mouth in a hurry. "Shh!" she hissed.

"It's okay," Eichi said. "We're friends. We're on your side. But if you scream, the bad guys are going to hear us."

The girl choked down her fear and nodded at them.

Hanabi lowered her hand. "What's your name?"

"Rina," the girl answered. ["White jasmine" or "sharp", "witty", "clever".]

"I'm Hanabi," Hanabi said. "This is Eichi."

Eichi nodded.

"Why are you...awake?" Rina asked, noticing the others were all still staring.

"Let me see if I can wake them up." Hanabi rubbed her hand. "The more of us the better, right?"

"We might have more chance of escaping if it was just two of us," Eichi muttered. "But, we can't leave them like this either."

Hanabi was able to wake up 3 more people. They introduced themselves--after they stopped them from screaming or fighting them--as Yagi (one of only two boys in the group), Kaito (the other boy), and, oddly, Priscilla. [Names: Yagi--"8 tree", "arrow tree"; "or willows"; Kaito-- "ocean", "soar"; Priscilla--"ancient", "venerable" (Latin).]

Hanabi was confused by that one. "That's a weird name."

Priscilla, who had the dark skin and oddly light hair of the Land of Lightning shinobi (so it was obvious where she was from), shrugged. "My family has names like that a lot."

(Come to think of it, though, Hanabi remembered that the DJs had mentioned that some of the names of the Cloud were just like words from their language, only in the kanji form. Priscilla sure sounded more like a Shine and Wally name, with more "l"s and "s" sound than a ninja name.)

Yagi was about 12. Kaito was maybe 9. Priscilla was 15, the oldest out of them.

To her dismay, Hanabi couldn't wake anyone else up. It was possible the genjutsu affected some of them worse than others, or they'd been under it longer, or maybe their minds had begun to give into it too much.

Or she was running out of energy herself, but that seemed like the least likely reason.

Eichi couldn't figure it out either.

"Can you guys tell us what happened?" Hanabi asked the three about their captors.

The three prisoners looked at each other.