First fanfic ever. Naruto and Sakura travel together one last time to try to bring their old teammate home.
End of the Snake, Ch. 1
The trees whizzed by at incredible speeds. Not a single leaf twitched as they ran through the fog covering the forest. They didn't stop to think about it when they came upon the small pond, they just jumped onto it and ran across it's surface, barely causing a ripple. They knew they were on the right track because of the information they had beaten out of a small band of enemy nins. "It couldn't happen in the base," they had said. "There's some sort of cave in the woods, at the foot of a mountain. No one but he knows where it is exactly." They had thanked their opponents with another punch in the gut to each of them, knocking them out. They knew what they had to do. While the base and the village were both protected by powerful wards and jutsus they couldn't even begin to guess at how to break, there was really nothing that could be done about the path to this mystery cave. And that was where Pakkun had picked up his scent.
Naruto and Sakura knew they were close.
They were forced to leave Kakashi behind, from a combination of his injured leg and the need to dispose of the rest of the enemy. They weren't worried about him, if worst came to worst, the copy-nin could always summon some of his dogs to help him.
Pakkun stopped on a branch near the tree line. Knowing that this must be it, Naruto and Sakura landed silently next to him.
"The scent disappears here. I'm afraid I can't help you any more from this point out." They nodded, and the ninja dog vanished in a puff of smoke. The two leaf shinobi removed the backpacks they were carrying and did a quick check on their equipment before hiding the bags with a genjutsu. Apart from their regular ninja tools, such as shuriken, kunai, explosive tags, scrolls, etc., they had each gotten a new, more personal weapon from Konoha's finest weapon shop (run by Tenten's family. It's nice to have connections.) Sakura carried the same kind of weapon Sarutobi Azuma uses: a pair of gray metal knuckles, with blades at the ends. She liked them because they worked extremely well with her taijutsu style of 'punching the shit out of things until they break.' Her newfound strength under the tutelage of Tsunade was nothing to laugh at, and her new weapon made it even scarier.
Naruto, on the other hand, carried a kitana in a fire-red sheath. Not the most common ninja weapon, as most use a straight black sword, worn on the back, like many of Konoha's ANBU, but Naruto wasn't a very common guy. The slightly heavier kitana was just easier to wield, in his mind. Plus, as he said when he bought it, it looks 'more kick ass' than a 'plain old stupid black sword.'
Ninja gear aside, they looked the same as ever, except where they both usually had joyful, happy looks on their faces (especially Naruto), they both wore expressions of concentration and total seriousness. It almost made them look out of character. Naruto and Sakura were both lost in thought. Determination, hopefulness, anger, hurt, and fear were only a few of the emotions playing across their faces as they remembered how he fought against the snake sannin in the forest of death, how he was almost always one step ahead in training, how he was the one who almost got the bell.
How he fought on the roof of the hospital, and again at the Valley of the End.
They knew what they were there for. They had come to get back Sasuke, and they weren't going to fail. No matter what.