[A/N: The beginning portions of this are a bit clumsy, for which I apologize. This is a massive AU, but I'm not telling in what way just yet. There are some really glaring clues, however.]
See What I Have Found (1):
The mission started out normally enough. Team 7 was delivering a scroll to a purchaser in the far north of Fire Country. It should have been perfectly easy, as it was just a basic technique scroll (the buyer was just a collector of ninja artifacts, so of course Konoha wouldn't let him have anything dangerous). The weather was fine, and they were travelling through country with good roads as well.
Thus, they were taken near-completely by surprise at the sudden ambush on the morning of their second day of travel. Their assailants wore no headbands and seemed to be merely common brigands, hoping to steal whatever they could. While they didn't pose much of a threat, there were enough of them to cause a problem, and Kakashi was cut by a flung kunai before he could dispatch the last one.
"Kakashi-sensei, are you all right?" Sakura asked, after checking to make sure that the scroll she had been carrying had gotten through the fight without being damaged.
Kakashi shrugged casually. "Your Sensei has been through a lot more than that, I assure you. Sasuke, Naruto, let's keep going; if we're lucky we'll only have one more day of this."
Naruto cheered before running back to the road, Sasuke following more discreetly. Sakura wasn't entirely convinced that everything was all right, but figured that she shouldn't say anything.
Still, she remained alert, and was therefore the first to react when Kakashi suddenly collapsed to his knees in the middle of the road, gasping for breath and clutching his bandaged arm. "Poison..." he managed to say. "Be careful...they might come back."
Sakura half-caught him as he passed out. It had all happened so quickly that Sasuke and Naruto, who had been arguing and therefore a little farther behind, only just reached her by then. "What happened?" Sasuke asked quickly.
"He must have been poisoned earlier, from that kunai," Sakura said. "What do we do?"
"We'll have to find shelter somewhere," Sasuke said. "We can't keep going until Kakashi's better."
"Hey, hey, I think there's a cave or something over there!" Naruto announced, pointing vaguely west. "One of my clones found it when it was scouting around."
Sasuke frowned skeptically. "Those bandits from before might be hiding out there."
"My clone didn't see anybody," Naruto said.
Sasuke shrugged. "If you say so. It should be better than nothing; let's go."
With two of Naruto's clones carrying the still-unconscious and worryingly feverish Kakashi, the three genin headed off into the woods lining the road.
The woods were sparse along this stretch of roads, but what trees there were were dark and spreading, and Sakura had to untangle herself several times from twigs that had snagged her hair. She had a vague feeling that there was something seriously wrong around here, but knew that Sasuke would brush her off and didn't say anything.
"Here we are," Naruto said a few minutes later as they emerged into a wide clearing in front of a low, grassy rise. "See? Cave."
Sasuke walked over to examine the entrance more closely, his Sharingan activated to scan for traps. "Naruto, I don't think this is a cave," he said after a little while.
"Huh? Of course it is, it goes underground and everything," Naruto retorted.
"Well, I don't think it's natural," Sasuke clarified.
"Whatever. Let's get inside, my clones don't last forever."
Sasuke led the way through the raggedly square entrance. It was very quickly obvious that whatever this was had been constructed, not eroded; no cave had tunnels with perfect corners or painted walls, however peeling they might be. It had obviously been buried for some time, and the entrance had probably been uncovered by recent rains.
"I don't like this place," Sakura remarked as she followed them through the gloomy hallway. "Something's wrong with it."
Sasuke snorted but didn't laugh as she had been afraid he would. "There's nothing that can attack us here," he said, although he sounded a little unsure of himself. "Come on, let's see if there's somewhere we can lay Kakashi so Naruto can rest."
"Hey!" Naruto protested as Sasuke pushed open a door. "I resent that."
Sasuke took a second to examine the room, then waved them in behind him. Naruto went first, followed by his two clones carrying Kakashi. Sakura followed, shivering a little and rubbing her bare arms nervously. It was cold in the buried building, and far too still. There wasn't even any residual chakra as would be expected in a place where humans had been recently.
The room was large and clearly of some importance. A map had once been on one wall, although it was so tattered and mildewed that it was impossible to recognize any of the shapes on it. A large, round table occupied most of the center of the room, and Sakura walked over to examine it. It was covered with a lot of strangely swirling concentric lines and what looked like boardgame playing pieces. There were no chairs around the table—it was too tall for them, anyway—but chairs bordered the rest of the room except for one wall, which was lined with cabinets.
Coming over next to her, Naruto swept a swath of the table clear so that his clones could lay Kakashi on it. Their teacher was still unconscious, and his skin was clammy when Sakura felt his forehead.
"Naruto, see if there's a blanket or anything anywhere," Sakura said, remembering her first-aid classes. "We need to keep him warm."
Naruto nodded and started pulling lockers open, snapping some of the rusted padlocks with a kunai.
"I'm going to look around this place some more," Sasuke said. "With Kakashi like this we won't be leaving very soon. Maybe there's some tinned food or something."
"I don't think we should split up..." Sakura said.
"Don't worry, Sakura-chan, I'll protect you!" Naruto proclaimed confidently. His sudden shout hung momentarily in the too-still atmosphere before vanishing as if snuffed out. "It'll be fine!"
"But—"
"Don't be childish," Sasuke scoffed. "I'll be back in a little while."
In the stillness, Sakura could hear his departing footsteps in the corridor for almost a minute.
"Sakura-chan."
Sakura jumped what felt like a foot, whirling around with a drawn kunai. "Naruto! It's just you. Sorry," she said, putting the weapon away.
Naruto shrugged. "I don't blame you. This place is all kinds of creepy."
In the dim light, even Naruto somehow looked more powerful and dangerous, and Sakura thought she felt some sort of different chakra emanating from him. It's just your imagination, she told herself firmly. It's making you paranoid. You learned about this, remember?
"I didn't find a blanket," Naruto continued, "but I did find this."
He handed Sakura a bundle of cloth which she unfolded. "A flag—?"
The piece of material was much to large to cover Kakashi with the way it was, so Sakura folded it in half—the added layering would trap air between, as well, to make it warmer. Although the edges were becoming frayed, the flag was still a brilliant red. One quarter of it was bright blue with a white sun in the center. It didn't look like the emblem of any country that Sakura had ever heard of before.
"Is that enough?" Naruto asked. "There was another stripey sort of one if you want it."
"No, this should be plenty," Sakura said. The fabric the flag was made out of was slippery, and keeping it folded had been hard, so trying to stack two wouldn't work out very well. Once Kakashi was as comfortable as Sakura could make him, she had the sudden urge to move around. The building they were in was so painfully still that she couldn't stand the thought of staying still herself.
"What're you doing, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, perching on the table and swinging his legs as he watched Sakura pacing back and forth.
"Nothing really," Sakura said, dropping down in one of the chairs underneath the map. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of something underneath another chair across the room. Hurrying over there, she knelt down and carefully reached underneath; she did not much relish the thought of sticking her hand into a spiderweb or a rat's nest.
Neither was there, strangely enough—surely there would be spiders all over the place if the building had been abandoned this long? Grabbing what she had spotted and yanking it out, Sakura examined her find.
It was a strange little box with some kind of dial display on the front. As Sakura held it, the needle started to go up and the box emitted a strange little clicking sound. It was obviously mechanical, but not like any of the huge, clumsy machines she was used to.
"What's that, Sakura-chan?" Naruto said, crawling across the table and dropping down beside her.
"I don't know," Sakura replied, handing Naruto the box so he could look at it.
As soon as Naruto took it, the needle flipped as far as it could go and the clicking got louder and louder before changing into a high-pitched squeal.
"Naruto, what are you doing?" Sakura shouted over the noise, holding her hands over her ears to shut out a little of the shrill sound. "Stop it!"
"I'm not doing anything!" Naruto protested. "All I did was hold the thing!"
"Well then put it down!" Sakura yelled back.
Realizing the soundness of this advice, Naruto tossed the box across the room, where it bounced off the deteriorated map before landing on one of the chairs.
Now that there was quiet once more, Sakura could hear the footsteps running towards the room. She pulled out a kunai and crouched behind the table for defense, then relaxed as Sasuke entered.
"What was that noise?" Sasuke demanded, a handful of shuriken held in readiness. "Did you set off an alarm?"
Sakura shook her head. "No, I just found that box thing," she explained, pointing across the room at the offending object. "It was kind of clicking, and then it went crazy when Naruto picked it up."
Frowning, Sasuke walked over and picked up the box. Sakura could hear the clicking from where she was standing, but it didn't make the awful noise that it had when Naruto was holding it.
Apparently deciding that the box wasn't dangerous, Sasuke set it back down on the chair and returned to the other two. "I think I know what this place is," he said.
[A/N: And I'll leave it there for now! Part 2 should be shorter but hopefully still interesting. I'm very interested in knowing what you think, as this lays groundwork for another larger fic.]