Ino was very worried now. Sakura had said the targets were heading west, but they didn't find them... or her.

'Forehead, where did you go?' She asked herself again.

None of the others had found her, not even with four Jounin to search. Neji's eyes were no use to locate her either, and Ino was starting to get very, very worried. They hadn't spoke to Sakura for three hours, and none of them could get her on the radio.

'I really hope it's just the radio signals are weak... or she's forgot how to use the thing and bumped onto the wrong channel...' She thought as she jumped from roof to roof.

On top of that, they had lost the targets too. Sakura wouldn't abandon her duty... She had become very serious about her career in recent months. And a slip up like not using the radio right was way out of the realm of possibility.

She shook her head, spotting Tenten on another rooftop.

'No... She's not an idiot. Naruto or Kiba would screw up like that but Forehead is too smart to do something like that.'

"Hey, any luck?" Tenten asked as Ino landed beside her.

"No. No sign of her. You?"

The older Kunochi shook her head.

"Nothing since the chimney. I guess we keep looking?"

"I hope she's not hurt. She's our main medic..." Ino sighed, as the pair seperated.

***

Kakashi didn't seem too alarmed his last remaining student was missing when the group called it a night. Neji had apparently overstretched his Byakugan and was now dozing off with early signs of Chakra exhaustion, not helped by Guy and Lee spending ten loud minutes praising his Fires of Youth as the poor Hyuga boy had just tried to get some rest.

'At least he's trying to look for Sakura... And the three targets.'

Sure, the vague "Team Kurenai is out of commission" likely wouldn't have helped keep Neji calm. After all, he'd only just wound up having an actual relationship with his cousin rather than pointless hatred and obsession with fate, so the prospect that the family he'd really only just noticed being in trouble was a driving factor, Ino figured.

Asuma too had seemed a little more driven. It was the worst kept secret in Konoha what he and Kurenai were up to, and to be honest Ino liked the Jounin Kunochi. She really hoped nothing serious had happened to her or her team, but then again, she hoped the same for Sakura.

"I'm sure she'll turn up." He shrugged upon being challenged by Anko.

"Yeah? Did you teach her to get lost on the road to life?"

"Okay, where was she when she first radioed in?" Asuma said, taking control and trying to review the search before Anko started sniping at Kakashi again.

"East of the town, a market." Neji answered sleepily.

"And we only found a damaged chimney stack. It looked fresh, but that was all we found." Tenten added.

"So, she may have been attacked, or, the chimney might have been damaged some other way. Assuming she was there, she claimed to head west. She didn't radio anything about being attacked, so either it happened fast, or..." Guy began, and then Asuma cursed.

"Her voice. There's a voice-copying jutsu, not to mention henges. Radios would mask most imperfections in the copy, and Missing-nin like these ones... Well, that jutsu would be useful for them. Pose as other people by radio. We can't see the other end, so we can't see through a disguise."

"Hm. That's bad." Kakashi understated.

Ino sighed. Could he care any less? The other rookies had long since realised that Kakashi had barely cared about his students, except for Sasuke. And that had ended well. Now, it seemed to be ending worse.

"Looking over what we did isn't going to find her. I'm going to look..."  She said, standing.

Asuma glanced up. Kakashi also looked at her.

"Ino..."

'What, sensei? Are you going to stop me?' She thought.

Sure, it was the smart thing to wait, but... Sakura was her friend. Their friend. One of them, a ninja of Konoha.

"Be careful."

'Oh'

"...Of course."

"Hmm, I think I'll look too." Kakashi noted.

"Why would you care? You obviously aren't too shook up." She said before she thought it through.

"I'm hurt, Ino. No one here is more worried about her than me. Well, except you. And possibly Lee."

"Yosh! I too will join the night search for Sakura! Our youthful..."

Everyone zoned out and waited for him and Guy to finish.

"...Anyway, as I was saying, I've been very concerned. I'm surprised you never noticed." Kakashi finished.

"You've stood there all night doing nothing. How is that concerned?" Ino was confused.

"He wasn't reading his book." Anko noted.

Ino blinked.

"Oh. Right. "

'Well, that's my observation skills taken a kick in the teeth...'

***

The night search was just as ineffective. Another hour, and no results. Guy had joined, to aid his Youthful Student.

'What was I hoping for? She'd glow in the dark?'

Suddenly, she saw movement. Three people leaving a building, whispering to themselves. She could tell by the way they move there weren't civilians...

'It's them! The three Missing-nin!'

"Kakashi, Guy, Lee, I found the targets! They're in the north of the town, they're trying to leave!" She hissed into her radio.

"Understood. Asuma, Anko, you two hear that?" Kakashi said.

"Yeah. We're coming with everyone but Neji. He really overdid it, he's out like a light."

'Great... no night vision...' Ino groaned to herself, tracking the three.

"Ino, slow them down if you can." Asuma ordered.

"Sure thing..."

The Woman was behind them, so if she took control of her.... Ino reached out with her Mind Body Switch technique...

And was unexpectedly not in the shape of the Woman. It was dark, warm, cramped, and felt utterly bizarre. And it hadn't lasted long. She found herself back in her own body very quickly...

"What just happened?" She asked herself. It was like the exams, trying to possess...

...Sakura.

The three of them stopped suddenly as Ino stood to try again, and turned around. Ino paused.

"Well, well. I thought someone tried to steal my head... A Yamanaka, right? Damn. No excuses for your clan... Oh! You bastards made my little brother jump off a cliff by possessing him!"

"What did you do with my friend?" Ino demanded, keeping her eye on the other three.

"Oh, nothing. Something a little like this..." The Woman said, forming signs.

Ino prepared to dodge, and leapt to the side, but there was no attack to dodge... But there was a strange sensation.

And then Ino felt strange. Like she was shrinking a little... And itchy.

"Oink oink..." The Woman said, jumping over. Ino dodged the Woman's attempt to attack, swinging out with her own foot... and kicking her sandal away as the other slipped under her. She landed, heavily... And then she saw her skin in the moonlight.

It was turning pink?

"What the heck jutsu did you use?" Ino asked, scrabbling away as the Woman made a lazy kick.

"You'll see, you little porker..."

'All these pig taunts... Of all the things to give up under interrogation, Sakura!' Ino found herself thinking.

But then she realised. Her limbs felt bloated. She took a quick glance...

And almost screamed. Her whole body was swelling slightly. And then she felt it. Her hands and feet began to change. They began to melt their digits together, and Ino stared in horror as they melted into trotters.

"You're... You turned me into a pig?!" Ino screeched. And then she felt the spikes of hairs begin to sprout across her body.

"Yup..." The Woman grinned.

Ino tried to scrabble away, but her legs had began to shift angle. She wound up trying to flee on all fours, trailing now-baggy clothes she had shrunk out of behind her. She felt her head get colder, her ears longer, and then her jaw tingled... And stretched, along with her nose. At the same time her eyes watered, and she was blinded for a moment. She still tried to flee, trotters scrabbling on the ground.

"Oooh, piggy is running..." The Woman cackled, and then Ino squealed to feel herself be kicked hard in the stomach.

It distracted her from the feeling of the curly tail that shot out from her backside, and she opened her eyes, now just little black dots above her snout. She tried to stand, escape... But the Woman grabbed her.

"Sleep tight, little piggy..." She said, casting some jutsu.

And everything went dark.

***

Ino awoke, and then thought for one happy moment it was just a dream as she saw the black night sky above her.

Then she tried to move, and found that not only was she tied up,  she was still a pig.

"Ha, piggy's awake. Just in time to hear..." One of the men grinned.

"Yeah. It's market day tomorrow in the town we're headed for. Your Konoha idiot friends missed us entirely." The other male taunted.

"Now, guys, leave piggy alone. She's going to be bacon tomorrow... So I guess we should make her comfortable."

'Bacon? You're going to have me butchered?! What the hell did you guys do to Kurenai's team and Sakura...'

"She wanted to know where her friend was. Want to tell her?" One of the men smirked.

The Woman grinned.

"Oh, yes... Little Piggy, your pink friend, well..."

The Woman pulled her waistband down. There was a flash of pink.

"Let's say she's not worn out her welcome yet. She's very comfortable."

Ino was very puzzled. It showed even on a pig's face.

"I turned her into these panties. Just like I turned the Hyuga bitch into a cockroach a few days back.

Ino took this information in, and had one response a few moments later. She oinked and squealed, trying to swear. The three Missing-nin laughed.

"I guess that's pig for... Every rude word there is!"

"Hmm, maybe should have made her a dog. It fits better..." The Woman smirked.

'Oh. So you didn't know my name or anything. Sorry, Sakura...'

"Still, do we have to sell her for bacon? She was a Yamanaka... They're not a big clan, but think of the ransom. Throw in the panties and we'll see how much Konoha will pay..."

"Heh... I have this little image now. We have a meet, leave our little Kunochi-pig wearing her friend... and the Leaf morons think it's all some joke. I hear the Hokage has a pet pig... Wonder if she might wind up a girlfriend for it?" One of the men laughed.

'Tonton is a girl you idiot!' Ino hissed in her mind.

"Well, time we hit the hay. You're on watch." The Woman pointed at the other male. He nodded, and soon enough, was the only one awake.

Except for Ino.

'Let's see... Can I do this...'

She concentrated, and tried her best, and then, she did it. She opened her eyes, looked down at a human body, and grinned.

'It's a start... I can free my own body... And disarm these idiots.' She thought. Though they used jutsus, they also had a lot of kunai and Shuriken.

Not for long, though. In the possessed body, Ino gathered them up, picked her sleeping real... pig... body up, and walked away silently.  She could hear a river somewhere, and headed for it, holding all the weapons in a bag.

Moments later, there was a splash. The weapons were very much underwater, and very much going to be difficult to recover. Especially if they feared the Leaf-nin team was descending upon them. They had seemed confident they'd fled, but Ino had a plan for that too.

A few moments later, the man walked into the camp, and jumped in the air. Ino returned to her own body, just as the man landed in the embers of the fire.

His scream was music to her ears.

***

Ino had ran.

The plan had worked, yes, but it also awoke the others. The Woman seemed to have some good tracking skills, though Ino was certain no tracking jutsu had been used. She had almost lost the Woman a few times, but then had the misfortune to have to go a way she'd be seen.

And Ino was now tired. Her head hurt, her strange transformed body hurt, and she just wanted to be able to hide.

And then she saw it. The rising sun was making hiding harder for her, but it let her see the house out beyond the forest. The fences... The barns...

'Farm... If they have pigs...'

How do you hide a leaf? Put it in a forest.

She dashed for it, and was for the first time in her life delighted to see pigs... Well, live ones at least... Though her diet had kind of ruined Bacon for her, and this experience was making her rethink pork in general...

She managed to leap over the wall, into the pig pen, and past a few other pigs that gave her no notice. And then the Woman arrived.

"Damn it! Come out here, piggy!" She hissed. The two men then arrived, one still in some pain from his burns.

"There are Konoha-nin behind us for sure. I saw something... Green." Unburnt said.

"...We can't pick her out. She'll escape, she'll let them know what happened somehow... And we don't have weapons. No kunai, no Shuriken..."

Burnt gasped with pain before he spoke.

"Take the farmer hostage?"

The Woman smirked once again.

"Nope. Better. We have lots of pigs, one is ours... We take them all..."

The Woman then made signs, and Ino felt that strange sensation again, but this time, it was a rapid shrinking. She couldn't move, and felt herself getting very cold. Her limbs swiftly melted, her snout lengthened and became pointed, and she felt her whole body shift into a pointed, arrowhead-like shape.

Yet she somehow still saw and heard. And felt, she realised, as she noticed the mud she lay in.

And then she saw the other pigs. Each of them shrank, with a few quick and strangled squeals, turning grey and metallic. They shrank, their snouts became pointed..

And they turned into Kunai.

'I'm a kunai now?! What the hell!? This is a nightmare, isn't it. God this is worse than that time I read about the Kyuubi in the acadamey and ate all that cheese at supper... I want to wake up now... She told herself.

"So. One pig in a few dozen... One kunai in a few dozen. Maybe you'll be with your other friends soon, little piggy. Lodged right between their eyes..." The Woman cackled, as she climbed over the wall and picked up Kunai-pigs one by one. The two men joined, Burnt careful as he climbed.

'This... isn't a dream, is it?' Ino realised, as a hand grasped her hilt, tested her weight, and slid her into a holder.

She really was just a disposable throwing knife...

And so, without a voice now, Ino screamed.