Twice the Pain
Chapter #1: Understanding
She didn't know why he left. She understood Sasuke leaving to get his revenge, but what was Naruto's angle? She had waited in the very spot she'd suspected Sasuke to show up, but he never did. In her hurry to help him, she'd ran to his house to find it empty and his picture of Team 7 flipped upside-down. Panic had flooded through her and she had gone to Naruto to report what had happened, but he'd been gone too. That night, she curled up lonely and afraid in her bedroom. That night she'd ended up crying herself to sleep and finding Kakashi's concerned, masked, face above her.
Now, here she was standing beside Yamato, staring at what Team 7 had become. She missed them both, Naruto and Sasuke, terribly and despised Orochimaru for taking them from her. Of course, Team 7 couldn't consist of simply Kakashi and herself. But Kakashi had been incapacitated when she, Granny Chiyo, Juriah, Temari, and Kankuro had set off to rescue Gaara. Therefore, he had been by replaced by Yamato, an old "friend" of his. Then, later, she had discovered that Sasuke and Naruto were to be replaced by two ANBU root members. Sai and Aoi. Both of them expressed little interest in her and rarely made conversation unless required. She remembered thinking at one point, Even Sasuke paid more attention to me than them. Although, she had caught them watching her quite a few times like they were studying her or something.*
"I don't understand…" she whispered to herself. Everything had been happy and cheerful before they had left. Tension had started around the Chuunin exams and had sky rocketed due to Itachi's surprise visit, plus Sasuke's defeat with Aoi Rokusho had subtracted his ego points to the negatives. "But why you Naruto…?" his disappearance had been the most unexpected of all. His life after joining Team 7 had been pretty much perfect, so why leave?
Her thoughts were jarred by a hand of her shoulder, "Sakura, its time to go." Yamato's light voice came from behind her.
"Alright, let's go…" she said stoically.
The new Team Seven gathered around the deep hold dug by Yamato's wood and stared down into the square abyss. "Who goes first?" Yamato asked.
Sai and Aoi smiled their creepy, fake smiles and said, "Ladies first." Everyone looked over at Sakura. She gave the root members a glare before jumping down into the hole. A soft thud was heard when she hit the ground. Aoi's bright blue eyes made their way to Sai, "I suggest you go next." He smiled.
Sai's smile faded, and he simply jumps in without any form of acknowledgement that if he had emotions he'd be displeased. Aoi followed him and Yamato came in last. The darkness envelopes the four of them, but just enough sunlight peered down into the hole for them to see down the route…a dead end.
Sakura turned to Yamato, "Captain Yamato, you didn't finish did you?"
Yamato sighed in annoyance, "None of you kids these days know about stealth." He folded his arms over his chest. "I couldn't simply dig all the way through while we were still outside! That would make it easier for Orochimaru to detect us. Instead, I dug most of the way and waited for all of us to be inside before finishing the infiltration."
"Good plan Yamato," a foreign voice said, "But you forgot one little thing." All eyes turned to the intruder. Light reflected off large, obnoxiously sized glasses as he spoke. "After all, isn't a stealth mission required to have the enemy unknown of their presence." He moved closer and out of the light to reveal none other than Kabuto Yakushi.
Shock enveloped Sakura and Yamato, while Sai and Aoi had similar looks of surprise, aka, nothing. "H-how did you get in here?" Sakura whispered, not believing her eyes.
Kabuto signed like finding them had been the easiest thing in the world, "You have no idea how noisy you are, especially when you're yelling at your teammates." He raised a hand to adjust his glasses and gave a devilish smile, "I bet the same would go if they were Naruto and Sasuke."
Taken off guard, Sakura gave noise of surprise, before narrowing her fierce green eyes and growling at the intruder. "If you're looking for a beating-!"
"Sakura!" Yamato shushed her. "There isn't enough room in here for a fight let alone your anger. Besides, we can always take him captive…" Yamato mimicked Kabuto's smile, making him flinch slightly at being used as a hostage.
"Tch.' Kabuto mocked, "Lord Orochimaru would never give you what you're looking for in exchange for me." Suddenly, he was gone, shooting back up from the hole.
"We can't let him escape! He'll alert Orochimaru of our presence!" Yamato took after him, but reached the opening too late. Kabuto was gone and was surely on his way to tattle to Orochimaru. He climbed back down and addressed his team, "We don't have time for this. We need to get in now and find those two before it's too late." The three nodded in response. "Sakura, you know what to do."
"But I thought we were going for stealth?" she questioned.
"Not anymore, there isn't time." He responded.
She nodded and charged chakra to her fist. From inside her gloves, a pale blue light began to form before Sakura gave her battle cry and completely shattered the wall before them. A large bead of sweat ran down everyone's temple as they were thinking; Remind me not to get on the other side of those punches.
Sakura turned and gave a confused look, "What's wrong?"
"N-nothing." Yamato denied. Sakura simply shrugged and made her way inside.
Kabuto walked quickly through the halls, he had to warn Orochimaru, but first, he needed to make sure Naruto and Sasuke were deep enough into the hideout that the squad on the other side would give up long before finding them. He knew the two would either be in separate rooms across the hallway, or bickering inside one. If I'm lucky maybe they'll have knocked one another out, Kabuto thought.
He came up the familiar hallway that had one torch less than rest on its left side. He moved quickly, picking up speed and checked the room Sasuke usually spent his time in. The room was sparse of any signs of life, other than the wrinkled sheets, but that was it. He could hear the faint sound of running water in the distance of the room. Good, he's in the shower; he'll be there for awhile due to his sore muscles.*
Kabuto checked for any disturbance in the far halls, but saw nothing and made his way across the hall to the room Naruto preferred. The room was total pig sty, to put it simply. The sheets on the bed were ruffled and sticking every which way, the nightstand drawers were open in various lengths, different things spilling from them –things such as underwear, weapons, writing paper, and instant ramen- and worst of all the millions of containers that littered the floor of empty instant ramen. That pig. Kabuto muttered to himself. Sometimes he questioned Orochimaru's decision to take in the kid. After all, he wouldn't be as easy to manipulate as Sasuke, since the one thing Sasuke wanted most was almost unattainable, it was almost too easy to threaten him with it.
The idiot known as Naruto was fast asleep in his bed, snoring louder than hell and sleeping in the strangest of positions. Although, thankfully, he bothered to wear his pajamas this time and not sleep in his training clothes.* One the bright side, Kabuto thought leaving, when he's out, he's out. He shut the door behind him quietly, not wanting to risk the sleeping idiot.
He hurried and made his way to Orochimaru's chamber, not wanting to waste a second in the halls. The door was closed tight as always, but that didn't stop him from feeling there was something wrong. He hurriedly pushed open the door and quickly shut it behind him, "Lord Orochimaru-!"
"I already know Kabuto. They're inside already, make sure they stay away from Sasuke and Naruto, we don't want them getting too excited now do we?" Orochimaru said with hidden blades between his last words.
"Y-yes my Lord." Kabuto replied before running hurrying out the door into the corridor. He had to stop them! Orochimaru's trust as dwindling on it. Ever since he was unable to complete his task at taking out Yamato on Tenshi Bridge (earlier that day) Orochimaru seemed to lacking in giving him responsibility. He hurried quickly back to way he'd come, he had to diverge them, but how?
"From here, we should break up into to two teams. Aoi and Sai as one, Sakura and I the other. As soon as any of you find either Naruto or Sasuke, activate your chakra so I can find you. The seeds I had you swallow earlier will help me. Does everyone have the plan?" Yamato studied Sakura's steely expression and then turned to Sai and Aoi who simply gave their creepy smiles. "Alright," he began, "dispatch!" the two teams broke up and took off towards the two ends of the hall.
Aoi and Sai checked each door, dropping their "happy" façade before doing so. Each door they opening in the hall were empty, but also fully furnished, like Orochimaru was expecting thousands of people to randomly come by and ask for a room. Unfortunately for him, it appeared none did.
The duo continued on the hall, opening every door and ignoring the contents, from the way they just opened the door for literally a second and closed it, they could have past the ninja they were looking for!* But after all, they didn't really care for Naruto and Sasuke; they just came to kill them.
Foot steps rebounded off the empty halls as the duo ran fast, only slowing down to open and close doors. So far their efforts were fruitless. Each room proved to be empty, but also fully furnished, like a hotel room for criminals that worked with Orochimaru.
"Captain Yamato, I think it's safe to say this hallway is empty." Sakura declared after closing the eighth door down a twelve door halls.
He nodded in agreement, "I think you're right, let's move onto the next, we're obviously not going to find anything here." She followed him through the empty halls that had nothing but the strange, hypnotic design that confused a pursuer. If you stared at them long enough it seemed the walls were moving like the waves of the ocean, and Sakura couldn't help but wonder then if a Naruto and Sasuke ever watched these walls to lull them to sleep.
Suddenly, an explosion of smoke came from their right, knocking the duo to the side. Both gave a gasp of surprise before skidding across the uneven stone. "It seems you recovered from my visit faster than I had intended." Kabuto stepped from the smoke, kuni in hand, attached to a paper bomb. "I guess I'll have to take you out here and now." He raised his arm to fling the weapon at them when Yamato shouted to Sakura
"Hurry! Go find Naruto and Sasuke!"
"Right!" she responded jumping up and making a break for the end of the hall. Yamato got up as well, just in time to deflect the weapon being flung at him.
"Not so fast!" Kabuto shouted, making a break for the girl.
"Where are you going?" Yamato intervened, blocking Kabuto from getting away. "I'm right here!" he brought his own weapon down to attack.
Immediately, Kabuto maneuvered back, narrowly missing the kuni's blade. Shreds of his gray hair flew into the air.
End Chapter #1: Understanding
AN/: * They are watching her due to suspicion, they feel nothing for her.
*Orochimaru practically drills Sasuke to the bone with training, so it's a given he's gonna be sore. Also, the comment about switching rooms simply means that he likes to wander from room to room along that particular hallway.
* Because we all know Naruto is a lazy bum, he sometimes falls asleep in his training clothes rather than bother with his pajamas, or other times he'll just fall down on the floor half-naked.
* For some people This is incredibly unnecessary, but some might not get it. By that phrase I used there I meant that they were moving so fast down that halls, that at their speed it seemed it was impossible to even see in them.
Hey there, this is IMPORTANT if you want to continue reading the story! I just wanted to point out without a random flashback about Aoi's special ability. His ability is to be able to combine with his own shadow, allowing his to sneak around anywhere he pleases as long as he can see his shadow. I may sound very similar to the Nara clan's Shower Possession, but I can vow it isn't. Also, Aoi has the ability to trap other people in their shadows too, with of course the option of releasing them and dragging their shadow where ever he pleases.