Things were hard after Sasuke left. It took Naruto longer to recover than anyone had expected. He was physically fine, they all thought, but the mental barriers were up. And when he finally opened his eyes again, he wasn't the Naruto he used to be. His life, his essence, boiled down to one thing, and one thing only: Find Sasuke.

The smiling and joking came back after a while, but his determination continued to boil beneath the surface. As much as he tried to act like things were normal, the ghost of what once was hung over everyone's shoulders. The past weighed Naruto down like an anvil. He trained relentlessly with Kakashi, and then Jiraiya, and then Kakashi again (his old team felt more like a new team, with their new addition of Sai). He went on any mission that could be connected to Orochimaru, even if it seemed like a stretch.

For a while, there was nothing.

He went about eight months without a single lead. He did mission after mission. It wasn't all bad. He met a lot of people. He did a lot of good for his village and the surrounding villages. He had a lot of good stories he'd be able to tell one day. But he never forgot why he was really doing what he was doing. And as time went on, his frustration built up as well.

His first real lead came as a surprise. Team 7 was on what appeared to be a simple search and rescue mission. Mint, a small village only about half the size of Konaha, had been ambushed by thieves. Their leader's daughter had been taken; kidnapped in the hopes of learning where the village's prized amulet was hidden. When the team found the girl, Kakashi asked about the amulet.

"Oh," the girl, Saku, had said. "That was stolen weeks ago."

When they asked for more information, she explained how she was awoken in the night by a hand over her mouth. She went unconscious and woke up again tied up in the woods with her father next to her. He was beaten up, and he'd given them the location of the amulet.

"Do you remember anything about them?" Sai had asked her.

"Yes. The man he had this...this tongue. And he was with a boy. Dark haired. About the same age as you."

Naruto's heart dropped into his stomach, and he lurched forward, grabbing the girl by her shoulders. She looked startled, her eyes darting over to Kakashi, Sakura, and Sai, but they looked at her with the same intensity.

"Tell me everything they said and did." Naruto's voice had remained steady and focused.

"W-Well, I didn't really-"

"Everything."

She didn't remember much, having been unconscious most of the time, so they spoke to her father instead. He said that they made sure not to let him hear anything, but when they left, they headed toward the mountains south of the village. He'd seemed surprised that they left him alive.

"Bigger fish to fry, I guess." He let loose a jovial laugh into the sky, seemingly unperturbed by the situation.

Naruto had been relieved upon learning the villagers had encountered Orochimaru and Sasuke and lived to tell the tale. Maybe the Sasuke he knew was still there. Maybe, just maybe, he could appeal to his logical and human side. If only he could just find him.

"What does the amulet do?" Kakashi had asked. "Why would so many people be interested in stealing it?"

"This village is small, now. We don't have a lot to offer, but in days past, people came from all over to learn from our elders. A man came, once upon a time, long before I was born. Hell, long before my grandparents were born. He forged an amulet that would contain the knowledge of the elders."

"Does it contain valuable information?"

"Oh, I'm quite sure it goes." The man stroked his gray beard and looked into the distance. "But it's been dormant for almost a century. Nobody knows how to harness its powers."

They'd left the village after that and made their way toward the southern mountains. They spent days looking for a trail or another lead. Naruto barely slept. He spent all his time searching for something, anything, that would lead them in the right direction. Sai didn't understand his dedication. Sakura became concerned when he seemed to mute any conversation that didn't have to do with Sasuke. Kakashi decided that after the third day of nothing, it was time to leave.

Pulling Naruto away from his search was no easy feat, but eventually he relented.

"It's pointless," Naruto said under his breath as they sat around the fire at their camp. "All this time, and we have nothing."

"That's not true," Kakashi responded, not looking up from his book. "We know what they want."

Naruto looked up, chewing on the side of his cheek. He took a second to ponder Kakashi's words before a smile broke out on his face. It started slow, but by the time it reached its full potential, he almost looked like the old Naruto again.

"Knowledge," he said, looking into the fire. "They're searching for information."

Their next lead came three months later in the form of an enemy they were fighting. He was a necromancer, using the reanimated corpses of the people he killed to build an army. He called himself Seizen. He was easy to take down. They used shadow clones to fight the corpses, and he surrendered when he saw that it was a group of them against him. He fell to his knees at Sakura's feet.

"I've failed." He slammed his fist into the ground. "They'll kill me. I've failed!"

"Who?" Sakura leaned down and placed a hand on the man's cheek. He was really more of a boy, Naruto noticed. He was much less intimidating without an army of dead bodies around him.

"The snake man...and the raven haired one," he gasped out through his tears. "They'll kill me, and my family. I won't let them!"

Before anyone could process his words, he'd pulled a poison capsule from his pocket and swallowed it. Team 7 jumped into action, trying to get him to regurgitate it so they could ask him something, anything. There was no doubt in their mind that he was talking about Sasuke and Orochimaru.

However, it was too late. His body lurched, and he began to foam at the mouth. Within minutes, he was gone.

Sai and Kakashi buried him while Naruto retreated into the surrounding forest. Sakura followed him.

"We'll find him, Naruto," she said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"You don't know that."

"I know you, though. And I know you won't stop."

He looked down at the ground and sighed. "We'll work backwards and find out everywhere Seizen has been until we get a lead."

Sakura nodded and made her way back to Kakashi and Sai. Naruto stayed there, looking at the trees until well into the night.

They tracked Seizen's journey for almost a week until they came upon a ravaged village. Homes were burned, goods were stolen, bodies laid scattered through the streets. Survivors were so in shock they could barely speak, but one person managed to squeak out a single word, and it was all they needed.

"Dahlia," the girl choked out. The northernmost village in the region. Naruto left her there and took off, not even alerting his team as to what he knew or where he was going.

If he found Sasuke, he wanted to face him alone. It was his fight, and nobody else's.