Getting Lost In the Nothingness
The sky was a clear blue with bits of clouds shaping an artist's golden view of the perfect painting. The mountains of the five carved in stone hokage's watched over the hidden leaf village, Konoha. They gave courage to every shinobi of the land, but Sakura. She had been helping Ino with the flower shop. The two were re-decorating inside the shop while talking over the idea of boys and love, though Ino made sure she clearly didn't mention the important boys to Sakura's heart. "So, Chouji the other day made me dinner the other night. Can you believe it? He cooked for me!" Ino grinned. "That sounds romantic," Sakura chuckled.
Someone had come running up the road to reach the flower shop doors, "Sakura, Tsunade requests you immediately." then the man vanished. Sakura left without a word, but waved goodbye to Ino, to run to the office of the hokage. When she got there, Tenten and Shino had already arrived as well. "Godaime, I'm here" Sakura announced. She was out of breath from the running, and waited for the fifth hokage, Tsunade, to address her. "Shino and Tenten, I've sent a search party to track down Sasuke. Sakura is well aware of this, but the party hasn't gotten back yet, so I'm sending you two along with Sakura, to get help from the Sand Village. Shino and Tenten will be under your lead. Understood? Go!" All three of them were gone in seconds from jumping.
The three charged through the entrance of the city as an exit point and continued running through the opening woods that covered the village. "Sakura, the sand village are our allies when they signed the peace treaty right?" Tenten questioned. She seemed to always be left out of everything. "Yes, Tenten." was all Sakura could muster up. She would have to face Gaara in a matter of three days. This would be the hardest thing to do, since she hadn't seen him weeks.
Without realizing it, Tenten started running faster then the rest, "Tenten wait," but Tenten was already running further than she was. "Tenten slow down! I want to get to them too, but will you slow down!" Tenten whipped back her head in the most furious look on her face, "YOU SPEED UP! DO you know what I went through this past month! HE DIDNT EVEN SAY BYE! I HAD MY BIRTHDAY AND WATCHED EVERYONE THERE GET HOOKED UP AND MAKE-OUT WHILE I WAS LEFT TO TO STARE AT A BUCKET OF SAND FROM SUNA! What kind of guy gets a girl a bucket of SAND! SO MY PLAN as soon as we get there is to kick his ass!"
Sakura looked back at Shino for a response to calm her down. But all she got was an empty glare through his sunglasses. "Women" was all he cared to say. Sakura rolled her eyes, and looked back at Tenten. "Who are you talking about from the Sand Village?" Sakura questioned. Tenten glared back at her, and snarled, "KANKURO!" Sakura was shocked, she had no idea Tenten fell in love too. So would that mean she's struggling like I am? "Tenten, look I feel what you're feeling, but you gotta slow down. When we get there, I promise you I'll give you all the chocolate I have!" Tenten's eyes twitched, then complied, "Alright fine."
The three of them reached a base camp on the outskirts of the desert. "It's going to be really hot during the afternoon sun. So to get there faster, we need to pull all nighters the whole way there." Sakura instructed. Tenten shook her head in agreement, as she gathered wood to set up a fire. Shino remained mute, he scouted the area making sure the area was safe.
They re-grouped in an hour or so, hardly anyone was saying anything to each other when nightfall entered the sky. "Let's go" Sakura ordered. She disregarded, the three of them hadn't slept, so they charged into the deserts dunes and continued pace through the entire night. By dawn, Tenten hadn't lost stamina to keep going. "We're almost at our goal base camp. Come on you two!" she called out.
Shino was running from behind the girls, and muttered, "The way boys drive these two to keep charging like this, my legs are killing me, and neither of them have changed their pace. What did these boys do to piss these kunoichi off?" After his words the sun started to rise at an 11:00 position in the sky. "All right let's set up base camp." Sakura ordered. Tenten stopped and turned back to Sakura, "it's not even hot yet, can we keep going till it's hot?" Tenten questioned. Sakura shrugged and looked back at Shino or an answer as well, "I'm with Tenten, how about you?" she interrogated. Shino, put his hands in the air like he was being persecuted, "Yes, yes..I'm in agreement."
Again, they pushed hard in their pursuit to get to Suna. The group was still running when the heat wave took over Shino's jacket and gloves. His body temperature had heightened from average, and was sweating like mad, "STOP! You're working me over like Nazi's. We set up base camp now!" Shino shouted. He stopped running, and tore off his jacket and gloves. Then began digging into the sand itself. "What are you doing?" Tenten asked, she wasn't even out of breath, she stopped running and walked over to Shino to watch him dig. "Alright, we'll set up base camp. But Shino could you stop digging into the sand. I know it's hot, I'm sweating too. Just calm down." Sakura went towards Shino to try and calm him down. But Shino was persistent on digging. "Sakura just leave him be, he's lost his mind already."
Sakura let him go, and shrugged off the bag she was carrying. She had carried a set of blankets and towels to set upon the sand dunes. "Alright, let's go for some sun-tanning!" Sakura joked. Shino was half way through digging a whole. And Tenten prepared everyone mini-sushi for everyone to snack on. "We need to eat it fast. I brought these because of the desert heat, and it's still cold so when swallowed it will cool us down a little." Tenten reassured. Sakura looked over at Shino, he was now in a hole rolled into a fetal position and saying over and over to himself, "Getting lost in the nothingness."