Tenten gasped as well when she looked.

"Empty." Tenten managed to say to herself.

Empty

Empty

Empty...

The words echoed in her head, the words were so vacant, yet they held so much meaning to them at the same time.

"But why..." Tsunade looked up at Jiraya questioning her thoughts. He nodded.

Tsunade gritted her teeth.

"You didn't forget it did you?" Suigetsu asked Karin in a loud whisper, a little after they had entered the cave.

"Duh. I'm not stupid like you are." Karin whispered back, just as loud as Suigetsu.

"Being stupid as me might actually help your case." Suigetsu said to himself, smiling.

Karin felt a tingling in her fingers, which balled into a fist.

'Not now.' She told herself. 'As soon as we get out of here he's dead meat.' She smirked at the thought of Suigetsu laying face down in the mud. It always pleased her when he suffered a well-deserved punishment from none other than herself.

When they reached Orochimaru, they all got down on their knees simultaneously, and bowed their heads down a little.

"You have successfully finished your mission?" Kabuto, who was behind Orochimaru as usual asked. Apparently, he was Orochimaru's personal translator.

"Of course." Suigetsu answered. "We wouldn't have came back if we hadn't."

"Good, good." Orochimaru smiled and placed a hand on Suigetsu's shoulder. He didn't flinch, which was amazing progress. The only people who didn't flinch was Kabuto, Suigetsu, and anyone who was stronger than him that didn't find him too revolting.

"Karin?" Suigetsu turned to her, grinning with his sharp teeth gleaming in the dim light. He held out his hand, she glared at it for a second, but silently gave Suigetsu the scroll.

"Thank you." Orochimaru smiled approvingly as he took the scroll and slipped it into one of his pockets. Kabuto eyed it, but stayed silent.

"Our pleasure." Suigetsu stood up, Juugo and Karin did the same. "Now we carry on the last mission?"

"Yes, eliminate him. He is an obstacle for our plan." Orochimaru said smiling.

"But do we have to?" Karin asked, clearly annoyed, her hands on her hips with her legs apart.

"Come on Karin, you have me." Suigetsu put an arm around her, making her blush fiercely. He grinned but it didnt' take too long for her fist to meet his face.

"Suigetsu, Karin..." Juugo sighed. Everyone had forgotten that he was here until now, making Karin and Suigetsu pause for a moment.

"Juugo's right." Kabuto agreed. "Unless you plan to leave like Kin, Zaku, and Dosu." Kabuto pushed his glasses up a sinister grin on his face. "Of course, unlike them, you have no place to go."

Karin gritted her teeth. She hated admitting that. Most of her childhood life had been spent staring at the other little kids clinging to their parents, imagining trading places with them forever.

Suigetsu didn't respond. Hey, you can't miss what you didn't have.

Juugo went back to silence, while he had always dreamed of a family, he didn't feel as strongly for it as Karin did.

"Alright, they'll be leaving the school tomorrow, probably." Orochimaru directed. "Now go my sweet pupils." He turned with Kabuto behind him, disappearing into the darkness.

"Don't take it personally Karin." Suigetsu advised as soon as he was sure he was gone.

"Shut up!" Karin said, this time agony burning through her words. She pretended to adjust her glasses while she rubbed her eyes.

"Karin, Juugo, seriously." Suigetsu sighed as if he had told them the same thing a thousand times. "We don't have a biological family with us, you're right. But we three, together, we're a family. Alright?"

Karin looked at him surprised, she had never considered that before. She always felt that a family consisted of 2 parents and kids. They were just 3 kids sticking together because they were assigned to it. How could that be family?

Juugo smiled a little.

"Family." He repeated.

'Maybe.' Karin thought to herself, not quite believing it.

"If you act like that at the mention of family one more time, I'll honestly get pissed at you guys." Suigetsu said, turning toward the entrance.

"What? Suigetsu, don't act so important!" Karin said chasing after him.

"Okay." Juugo agreed easily.

"Well, family or not, we still will have control over them." Kabuto said to himself, as he watched a few yards back. His glasses shined, obscuring his eyes.

"A family of 'Puppets'."

After the pandemonium of questions with no answers, a long silence followed. No one knew quite what to say. Then, Naruto broke the silence, whispering to Hinata.

"Oh yeah, Hinata?" Naruto, who happened to recover from the shock with his memory enhanced, poked her cheek lightly.

"Yes, Naruto-kun?" Hinata said slowly, recovering from the shock by just a little bit.

"I asked Sasuke like you told me to." That caught Hinata's attention. "He almost clobbered me at first, but he told me before this all about the scrolls." Naruto said gesturing to his scroll in his hand, orange with patterns of foxes and spirals. "But this thing he told me got me thinking."

"What?"

"He knew that Tenten's scroll would be gone." Naruto admitted.

Sasuke glared at him from behind, knowing what they had wanted from him.

Chapter done! Sorry that it's a short chapter, I'm busy with school starting too.

Anyway, I fooled you all!! MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!

That was the first cliffhanger that I seriously thought I did a good job on.

I love Suika! And I just had to add that family part, although Kabuto did ruin it a little...

I finished Specials if anybody reads the trilogy. Now I'm looking for Extras... is it good?

Oh yeah, sorry about my memory for this story. I may think I mentioned things when I haven't cough Neji disappearing cough. And the gap between stories is going to increase, so please be patient!