"Mental link"

After walking of a few minutes, the group finally reached the clearing. Once they got there, teru started conversing silently again.

"What have you learned Fu?" asked Yagura.

"Well the boy's name is Haku, and he says he is looking for some medicinal herbs so that he can tend to his sick friend. However, he has a developed chakra network and seems to have some scars. Maybe from fighting, maybe not, I couldn't see well enough to tell," Fu answered promptly.

"Alright, we'll just go along with his story and see what happens I guess." Yagura told them.

"Alright"

Yagura led Haku to a hallowed out tree stump where the group kept their herbs while Naruto, Gaara and Fu disappeared off into the forest.

The three glanced at each other, communicating silently for a while before Fu ran deeper into the forest and Naruto led Gaara off to one side, pointing first at one tree, then at another, taller one that was slightly closer to them. Gaara nodded once then jumped up into the second tree, disappearing from sight, seemingly melted into the tree and silently settled down, waiting for something to happen. Naruto stared at the spot where Gaara had disappeared for a minute before turning back around, heading deeper into the forest once again, before heading off in the opposite direction of Fu.

Back in the clearing, Yagura left Haku to look through their stash of herbs while he turned his attention to starting a fire. Haku stared admiringly at the rather large collection of herbs that they had, picking out a few before and stashing them in his basket before turning to where Yagura was. He sighed silently to himself before taking out a long, sharp needle and throwing it at Yagura, aiming for a spot that would knock him out, but wouldn't hurt him permanently. Yagrua dodged the needle entirely though, jumping a fair distance away from Haku. Yagura frowned a bit before attacking Haku. Rushing at him quickly, catching him around the middle with the larger hook of his staff and forcefully tossing him clear to the other side of the clearing, where he didn't stop until he hit a tree. Haku, stunned was left at Yagura's mercy as he dashed to his side and quickly bound him with the cloth on his wrist. Haku, effectively hogtied, was rather frantically trying to find a way out. After struggling for a few minutes, he stopped, realizing that he couldn't get out of the tight bindings. 'Where is Zabuza?' he thought, wishing that the men would come out from wherever he was to help him.

Right then, Gaara returned to the clearing, a large mound of sand in tow. There was a head sticking up out of the mound, though the mouth was covered, and Haku was horrified to find that Gaara had captured Zabuza. Yagura glanced up from where he was still kneeling over Haku and asked "Is that the one that Naruto sensed earlier?"

"Yeah," Gaara nodded "Naruto showed me about where he was hiding and then left to get some food. As soon as I started hearing a commotion from this direction, this guy started to move towards here, so I trapped him in my sand."

As he finished explaining, Naruto and Fu returned as well, showing up on opposite sides of the clearing, Naruto carrying a few fish and Fu carrying some wild berries and edible plants. They both sort of froze as the glanced around the clearing, noticing the captured people.

"Ahh, something happened already? So unfair, how come you guys couldn't have attacked when I was actually here? Having prisoners but having no part in their capture is no fun," Fu complained pouting a bit at Haku. The rather confused hogtied boy stared at her like she was crazy.

"Yeah, what about us, aren't we worth attacking too? I wanted to fight! I need the experience!" Naruto agreed, causing the two captured ninja to stare at him incredulously.

Yagura and Gaara both huffed out an amused little breath, finding the two's complaints to be rather funny. Gaara went to Naruto while Yagura approached Fu. Gaara shook his head a little in amusement an patted Naruto on the back, trying to console him. Yagura just ruffled Fu's hair a bit and said "Don't worry about it, my fight was pretty short anyway, and Gaara caught his guy from behind, so neither of us really got to fight much either. I'm sure that in the future you will both be able to get more fighting experience on other missions."

Naruto and Fu both pouted and Naruto said rather petulantly, "But we are almost never sent on missions since we're the youngest. All of the others get to go on exciting missions all the time, but we barely ever even get to leave to compound!"

Yagura sighed and just told them that they could take that up with Jiraiya. He then turned to the Haku and Zabuza and started rathe menacingly "Now, about you two...."