Disclaimer: I do not nor will I ever own Naruto or its character. But God, do I wish I could!

Summary: The remainder of team 7 go off on a mission to find Sasuke after a rumer that he might me in the Hidden Mist Village. But while fighting a group of missing nins Sakura is captured and ends up where she least expects it.

Chapter 1

A Glimmer of Hope

"Team 7 is expected to meet with the hokage in 1 hour," the messenger jounin said, "Oh, and Kakashi-san, Lady Hokage also asked me to tell you that if you are late, you will be doing D-rank missions without pay for a month." A chill ran up Kakashi's spine at the thought of doing nothing but meaningless chores for a whole month, not to mention the fact that they would be without pay.

"Understood," was Kakashi's answer as he, Sakura, and Naruto continued eating their ramen at the Ichiraku Ramen Shop the kyuubi container so loved. Actually it was more like Naruto stuffing bowl after bowl in his mouth and Sakura daintily eating her's, while not wasting time in reminding Naruko of his disgraceful eating habits. Kakashi just watched and enjoyed the show.

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(One hour later)

"Tsunade-sama, Team Kakashi is here to see you."

"Thank you Shizune, let them in." Shizune carefully but speedily headed towards the door but stopped cold in her tracks when Tsunade asked her a rather suspicious question, "Shizune, It seems that some Sake bottles I had under my desk have dissapeared, you wouldn't happen to know where they've gone, would you?"

With a rather obviously nervous smile, Shizune quickly laughed and waived her hand saying, "N...no, I have no idea what bottle you're talking about Tsunade-sama."

Now, people didn't get named Hokage for nothing but before Tsunade had any chance to demand said bottle of sake back, the quiet ambience was distubed by the sound of one Naruto Uzumaki bursting in through the door, nearly knocking Shizune and the stack of papers she was carrying.

"Tsunade baa-chan, please tell me you have a real mission for us. I'm not gonna get stuck babysitting spoiled kids, again! I won't do it, nomatter what you say!" With that Naruto stood right infront of the Hokage desk, crossed his arms and put up the best angry-pout he could.

"Forgive me, Tsunade-shishou, but I have to agree, we could be doing way better mission if you'd allow us. I know you have a nice B-rank mission we can have." Naruto's jaw nearly reached the floor. Sakura had never once agreed with Naruto's impatience for danger. Actually she normaly reprimanded it with fist to his head or something painfully equal.

'Wow, I guess Sakura-chan didn't like the kids either,' Naruto thought.

"If you two are done complaining, I'm ready to tell you the reason why you three have been summoned here," a grunt from Kakashi, who was standing in his ever-present slouching position a few steps behing Sakura and Naruto, let Tsunade now, that they were ready to hear her next orders.

"We have recieve information on rumors running in the Hidden Mist Village, that Orochimaru was seen there a few days ago, as well as Kabuto," Naruto's head instantly popped up at the mention of the evil sannin's name. "Like I said before, these are RUMORS, Naruto, do not get all excited. Your job is to investigate on the appearance of Orochimaru and of his whereabouts, and bring that information back."

Tsunade handed Sakura a scroll, with the full detail of the rumors and a map of the location where they were spotted. Naruto scooted closer to her as she opened the scroll to view its contents. Kakashi looked from over their shoulders.

Tsunade continued, "Listen up, and listen carefully, I know that some of you (glare towards Naruto) are more than eager to fight with Orochimaru and question the condition of a certain person," Sakura's face turned down at the mention of Sasuke, it had been a little less than three years and still no sign of him, she was honestly, beginning to lose hope on ever finding him.

".. but regardless of any other information offered to you, it is of utter importance that you only go to confirm these rumors and make no other moves. You must not be discovered! Orochimaru must not find out Konoha is on its tracks or he will become even harder to track down."

All three of them nodded their heads with a steady, "Hai!"

"You are to leave tomorrow morning at dawn, no exceptions! Do not rush to get to Mist, walk patiently. If Orochimaru is there, he will, no doubt, have men scouting the forest arround the town. A shadow amongst trees practically screams ninja."

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Outside the Hokage office, Kakashi stood, giving Sakura and Naruto a few final orders before they were off to pack and rest."We'll be walking so, we must look like ninja's. Wear normal clothing, make sure there is no sign of leaf anywhere on this clothing. Naruto, do not wear orange, and Sakura, do not wear red or pink."

A confused Sakura stood in front of Kakashi with a questioning look, "Ok, I understand the no orange or red, they'd be to obvious as to who we are, but pink? What's wrong with that?"

Kakashi's eye turned into a little "u" shape as his hand reached behind his head and laughed, "You have long pink hair. If you wore anymore pink you'd be a walking signal, its too bright."

Inner Sakura rose in flames at being called a signal. 'There's nothing wrong with pink! Its not even bright, cha!'

Sakura crossed her arms and put up a pout like Naruto had previously done while mutter a "says the guy with white hair" carefully under her breath.

"I heard that," Kakashi said as he was walking away towards his appartment.

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(The next morning)

Sakura woke up by a loud, incessant, knock at her door. Grudgingly, she turned to look at what time its was. 3:30 AM. If she wasn't pissed before, she was now.

With the attitude of a mad bull, Sakura got up, and stormed towards the door, ready to give whoever it was hell for waking her up two hours earlier than scheduled. Sadly, enough, her ire calmed the moment she noticed a fully dressed Kakashi and Naruto at her door.

"Kakashi-sen...hey! Whats going on!" She didn't even had time to wonder what her team mates were doing at her door before the shoved her asside and closed the door behind them.

"Change of plans, our mission just got upgradded." Kakashi tossed the scroll at the couch where Sakura had unceremoniously plopped down on. Carefully, she picked up the scroll opening it and reading its contents.

The moment she read the first three lines, her breath stopped and her skin went pale.

The scroll read:

Official Mission Upgrade

Change and Reason: Ranking from B to A / Rumors confirmed by trustworthy source, investigation no-longer required

Objective of New Mission: Locate and Retrieve the Konoha ninja knows as Sasuke Uchiha...

She never noticed she was only wearing bra and underwear.

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Authors note: Ok in this story, Naruto never leaves with Jiraiya to train for three year. They do train but they never leave the village.

So how was that? Its my first SasuSaku fanfic and my second fanfic at all. (Don't read my first one, its ultra corny and horrible)

Tell me what you think. Please review, I welcome all kind of critisism.