*slams head against desk* I wrote my super long review, hit the like button, pressed submit, and what happens? TONFA logs me out without sending in my review. *sigh*

Alright, let's try this again. TONFA, work with me for this one, please!

This chapter was beautifully written. Everything was so amazingly described and elaborated, and I loved it. There was an incredible sense of detail right from the little bird shelters to the unique landscape and its qualities. You painted such a beautiful picture, and it really helped me vision everything so clearly. You really made the setting come to life, excellent job with that.

The casual conversation between Ren and Gaara, as weird as it may sound, had me in suspense. With such simple small talk going on, I was worried that they would continue to be stuck in their cabin while they unknowingly ignored the attack on Seishin. Either that, or I thought they would suddenly be ambushed. Don't ask me why I thought that, but it really wouldn't have surprised me.

Then when Naomi came out and informed them of the attack on their country, I was both relieved and troubled. Relieved, because then they all wouldn't have been left in the dark about the attack and completely stay out of it. Troubled, because Naomi shouldn't even be talking, let alone saving her village! Seriously?! After she slit her own throat, she's going to jump into battle?!

*sigh* I know, I know, it would have been extremely pointless and OOC of Naomi to sit back and do nothing. I'm just having one of those "Don't do it!" moments.

This was a great chapter. Your hard work paid off. This started out as a nice and easygoing chapter, and then you did what you always do: you left a mean cliffhanger and have me begging for more. Great work on this chapter, I can't wait to see how far the intensity gets from here. Keep up the awesome work, BattyBigSis!

Author's Response: Oh TONFA... Why doest thou hate me and my stories...? I'm really sorry for your long review. That's got to be gutting...

I did feel very nostalgic about the scenery, which helps me write it. I always think a lot about the Alps (which I spent a good part of my early childhood living among) when I'm describing Seishin, so it really helps me picture what I'm trying to describe. I have a really deeply ingrained love of mountains anyway (being half-Austrian), so Seishin's scenery is something I tend to get lost in if I let myself... and this particular little area was something I build up as a little 'paradise' that Naomi and Ren retreat to... Although I've known much more impressive mountain paradises to be honest. This one is a little barren in places and then overcompensating in others. Speaking from experience, mountain scenery really doesn't have to try very hard to be spectacular and this one is - deliberately - not quite there.

I (almost) never include anything if I can't come up with some very good reasons why it's significant to the plot and if I'm honest I've very nearly ditched the cabin scenes and the Death-by-Genin ones half a dozen times. With Death-by-Genin I will have to plead that I was by and large indulging myself (that place has been haunting me since the start of the story and I really wanted to include it if I could), although I did feel it was important to draw out the confusion in those scenes and going all over Seishingakure gave me an excellent chance to do just that. This conversation though and Naomi's praying scene were ones that I decided were really indispensable. Noami's because it's a key character-revealing one and this conversation because if I didn't include these explanations somewhere then various parts of the plot from here on out are going to disintegrate on me... Not that I don't do far too much explaining as it is... Everything's so damn complicated in this story... (My lymph nodes are playing up again, so I apologize if I come across as grumpy this morning. It really isn't anything personal towards anybody)

And yes, welcome to yet another reason why I call Naomi 'the Mary-Sue'. She'll certainly try though. It's not in her nature to give herself any slack if the country's in trouble... but you're quite right, if she carries on as she is she's simply going to fail. She's suffering from major blood-loss and must already feel pretty damn awful... and then some. After praying and everything I doubt she can even stand without that chair - and i'm not about to ignore that, so you don't have to worry. You can rest assured though it would also be OOC for Ren to let his sister run about fighting when she's in that condition, so... Something is going to have to give, isn't it? ;0)