Harmony (Konoha School of Arts)

29. The search

Killer.B was taking too long to come out to the back stage. Gaara anxiously held his rap CD in his hand as he paced around almost impatiently. He had no choice but to be patient though. Killer.B was one of the judges for the dance competition and they (the judges) seem to be in a heated discussion about something. A decision on who to give awards perhaps. There must've been many promising dancers this year for them to take this much time to decide. Somehow he wished Kankuro and Temari were there with him but he understood that they couldn't, being members of the student council meant that they each had their responsibilities they had to fulfill after the competition.

Gaara looked at the time again on his wristwatch again. He suspected that the school bus must've left him behind because of how late it was out already. He soon came to realize that that wasn't the case though when Neji suddenly came running up to him breathing heavily. Temari was right behind him. "G-Gaara!"

The redhead frowned in confusion. "What's up with you two?" He asked.

Neji's hands shot out to grip him by the shoulder. He was stronger than what his delicate outlook suggested because his grip had Gaara wincing. "Have you seen Hinata anywhere?!" He panicked.

"Hinata?" Gaara voiced his confusion.

"Not only Hinata. Several other students have been reported missing from the theater grounds. They're nowhere to be found." Temari clarified from behind them.

At the background Gaara could see other student council members and some teachers scampering up and about in search of said students. But Hinata wasn't the kind to wander about, she was the perfect definition of a sheep, always sticking to the flock. Where could she have gone? His hands reached tor his phone in his pocket immediately. "Let me..."

"Her phone is off!" Neji panic yelled. "This is so unlike her!"

"Neji you have to remain calm-" Temari was cut off by the boy.

"-I am!"

The sandy blonde supposed she couldn't technically tell Neji to calm when his sister was involved so she let him be. She looked at her brother who was staring down at his phone instead. Gaara had a deep scowl on his face. Something was wrong. "Gaara?"

Gaara's head snapped up. "This is worse than we thought."

"Huh?!" Both council members voiced simultaneously.

Gaara responded by turning his phone over to let them see the texts he had left unread during his wait for Killer.B. Neji almost had an heart attack on the spot. "Let me guess. The other missing students are Naruto, Sasuke, Kiba, Shino and Tenten?"

Temari's eyes widened. "Yes... although Tenten isn't missing. She was the one that alerted us of the situation. We just thought that they wandered off, we didn't realize that it was this bad!"

"Where are they? Do you know where they are?!" Neji was trying to pry the phone out of the redhead's hands to see the text for himself.

"I don't fucking know. There's no location in the message." Gaara replied half annoyed, half frustrated. The sound five wanted a battle? At first glance it looked like all they wanted was a dance battle but Gaara knew better. They don't want a dance battle, not when their approach was like this. The realization prompted Gaara to move.

"Wh-where are you going?" Neji asked.

"As bad as you think this is, it's worse." Was all Gaara said before he disappeared out of the theater, leaving Neji and Temari to process the information by themselves.

Meanwhile Kakashi was barely, keyword being barely, holding back his anger towards Tenten for letting the boys handle the situation on their own and for not informing anybody of the situation until it was on the brink of getting out of hand. Annoyingly enough Tenten would have not said anything if Kakashi hadn't gotten suspicious of her insistence on 'learning some dance tips from him'. The teacher blamed himself for taking this long to realize that Naruto and the others weren't on the table. Asuma was the one to notice them missing and everything clicked when Tenten was trying to make up excuses for them.

"You planned on telling us this when Tenten?!"

Tenten flinched, just a little, at Kakashi's raised voice but she wasn't intending on backing down. "I had to let them get to Hinata before she further gets hurt! They were going to hurt her if we told anybody!"

Kakashi understood where she was coming from, he really did, but he was too angry with the mess of a situation to reason with her at the moment. He and the other teachers would be penalized for their carelessness, they deserved it but that didn't mean he liked it. What worried Kakashi more than a sanction though was Naruto. The blond wasn't supposed to be out of his sight, not if he was still being hunted by his parents' murderer. "We have to look for them! Call the police!"

"Surely this is just a joke between the students?" Kurenai wanted to hold on to the possibility of kidnapping and taking Hinata hostage being an extreme prank but both Asuma and Kakashi's deadpan stares perished that thought. They all knew the reputation Sound High had after all.

"You're sure this was done by the students of Oto High?" Asuma questioned Tenten.

"I'm positive. They have been on our case for months." Tenten affirmed.

"Months?!" Kakashi asked suspiciously and that was when Tenten realized her grave mistake. No teacher was supposed to know about their EsDee shenanigans. She slipped up by accident. Kakashi sighed. "This is not over Tenten." He said before rallying up the other dancers to go back to school.

Xxx xxX

W

hile some teachers took other students that weren't missing back to school, some stayed behind to join in the search for the missing ones. Temari, Kankuro and Neji joined Gaara in his search for them. Neji went one way with Temari, having to team up with her because he hardly knew anywhere in his own town due to his closeted upbringing, Kankuro went another way while Gaara took the last opposite direction in search of his friends. It was without question that Gaara knew the most intimate parts of Konoha because of his misadventures as a rebellious teenager.

He tried to think hard as he dashed through the city. Where was the best spot to gang up and beat somebody up without getting caught in Konoha? Gaara searched and searched but the places he went to came up either empty or occupied by middle school delinquent wannabes. One of them gave him the answer he needed though. He heard them talking about a crazy fight going down at a particular place. Then it clicked. Gaara ran like he never did before. He didn't care that he was going to be tired by the time he got there, he just ran and ran and ran. As he did he dialed Kankuro.

"I know where- they are!" He panted. "Pass it on to Temari- and the- teachers!" With that he told Kankuro his suspicions and hung up. He had to focus on getting there as soon as possible before his friends got terribly hurt.

Gaara was too late. The scene he met when he arrived at the spot was bloody. His guys looked like they fought back with all they had but they were greatly outnumbered. Akamaru was barking fire from where he was being held down and kicked mercilessly by Sound High boys. Kiba was down already. Something was wrong with him. His breathing was laboured, different from how it should be if he was just exerted from the fight. Maybe that was why Akamaru was barking and trying his best to get to his master. Sasuke was bloodied and bruised, unconscious on the floor. Shino was no better off than him. Hinata was still tied up but she was also unconscious. Naruto? Naruto wasn't here.

Gaara's heart raced as memories he thought he'd gotten over came back to him. Memories of a knife, a broken bottle and a bloody body slumped over him. His scar throbbed as his brain fought hard to process the situation before him. His friends, his first and only friends were hurt. His best friend was missing. It was because of the people laughing and having sport of kicking Akamaru in turns. They were ridiculing his beaten up friends.

"Oi if it ain't the short ginger!" One of the Sound lackeys, the twin with the black lipstick, sneered when he noticed Gaara standing there in shock. His voice grated on the redhead's nerves. As if to make a point, he stepped on the nearest fallen person's chest who so happened to be Kiba. Kiba that was already struggling to breathe.

Gaara saw red, and a broken baseball club

***
Now you done it Sound High. You've gone and awoken the red devil. This is surely not going to end good.

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