And then, there was winter

As if things hadn't already been a mess, their night of binge drinking had ended in chaos,
and the morning after had been little less than humiliating, if he remembered right;
starting with Kiba thinking that Neji's body had been...well, a pillow (kinda), and ending with a very unhappy Hyuuga stealing his best pair of slacks and storming out in a huff.
You'd figure after all their afternoons fucking, a little extracurricular groping wouldn't be such a bad thing.
In actuality, Neji had been lying awake for maybe more than an hour - but the excuse to leave in such a hurry had been much appreciated; he'd have to thank the Inuzuka for it, someday.

The next couple of weeks were mostly uneventful; Stone had sent two cells to Sand, and Kiba had to take a team down for damage control.
And of course, NOTHING happened while he was there.
Not a damned thing.
By the time they had finally crossed the desert, Kiba's cell was ready to mutiny (thank fuck for Lee's negotiating abilites and giant death-defying hugs of happy), and the situation had already been taken care of by an unhappy Kazekage. You had to admire Gaara's ability to bury an entire 12 man division by himself, that was for sure.
And maybe they should have stayed for a little while, just to be on the safe side, but it was HOT,
and boring,
and if they had stayed, chances were good that Kankuro, the great and mighty over-achiever, would put their scrawny asses to work. Kiba HATED work that he could get out of.
Their biggest mistake was that they waited until dark, to avoid the heat.

Naruto still wasn't amazing with organizing teams, yet - not that he didn't know his shinobi. Just that sometimes he had a hard time putting two and two together.
When putting a team together for desert hopping, sandstorm avoidance, and long-distance travel you have to be very particular -- and if Kiba hadn't known better, he'd say that his Hokage had just decided to pull names from a hat.
There was Kiba, Shino, Rock Lee, Ten-Ten, and Ino (who had to be carried for most of their journey up). It was awful.
Worst of all, Kiba was the only long-distance surveillance the team had, unless they wanted to waste time sending Shino's bugs for miles. Even Akamaru had to stay close most of the time, with the group constantly running headlong into pocketed storms.
Now, it was certainly a LOT easier for Kiba to keep track of everything in the dark - even his hearing seemed to be better on their return trip,
but the rest of his team were completely useless once the sun had set. And by now, Akamaru's eyes and ears were so full of sand and wind that he was might as well have been sleepwalking beside his partner, poor little guy.
It was only a matter of time before Kiba fucked up. Nobody can hold guard all by themselves like that.

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"You're really gonna' tell me that there's just...nothing? NOTHING? C'mon, it's been a month, now!"
Naruto turned quickly to pace in the opposite direction.
"We've got three teams out there looking, Hokage-sama. We have to assume that they've just gotten lost - as far as the Kazekage can tell, there were no obvious signs of aggression from Stone that da -"
"Obvious. Right." Naruto was pretty sure that Gaara couldn't see the whole damned desert by himself, and that Stone probably had shinobi spread evenly throughout, if they were STILL active. So why shouldn't he be afraid that they had his team?
Torturing them, maybe - and all Genma could tell him
for sure
was that Stone never outwardly attacked Sand, that day. Awesome. Fucking awesome.
"Have we sent any of the teams West, toward the mountains?" Genma shook his head, sending a short troubled glance toward Sasuke; who had been sitting nearby writing notes on a small map.
"Naruto, as far as I know? The Mountains collapsed a few years ago, remember?"
"No they didn't." First thing Sasuke had said all morning, circling an expand of dark color on the map. "That was here, Genma - the Mountains toward the Southwest are still standing, last I heard." He hadn't taken his eyes off of the parchment, running a finger from Sand to Leaf. "Although I have to Say, Naruto, if they actually went West instead of East? They were terribly turned around - I can't see Kiba making that kind of mistake, not even in a sandstorm." He was glaring down at the map, as though hoping that the five missing shinobi would wave up at him from a cave or hand-drawn sand-dune.
"I don't figure they got lost, Sasuke - I think." He stopped pacing, turning toward the window before bringing a hand down onto his desk, startling Genma. He had dark circles under his eyes from a terrible lack of sleep, which stood out noticeably against his now fire red eyes. "I think someone took them there."
Nobody else had wanted to say it, so maybe it was good that Naruto did, first.
"I'll talk to Sai - try and get a special ops team together. If they're there, Hokage-sama, we'll find them. I promise."
Genma, who was really getting too old for this, left the room as quickly as he could - already bracing himself for his next assignment. Ever since Sai had taken over Root things had been much more smooth of course, but Sai had become colder, almost. Distant, and rarely talked about Naruto in more than a whisper; a lot of things had changed, hadn't they?

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They were kept apart from each other, in seperate caves even
maybe.
The only thing Kiba knew for sure was that Ino was alive - because sometimes, he could hear them interrogating her, from someplace far away. He couldn't be sure how big this place was,
or where it was,
or WHAT it was. Or even of who it was that had captured them, though he wanted to believe that it was Stone. Please be Stone.
Please let the hissing and the smell of venom be a lie, because GOD he hadn't been active in years,
and it was winter.
Oro wouldn't. Not while his tunnels were frozen soild....right?
Right.

.....wrong.