Though this story is set after the two-year hiatus, there are none but minor spoilers. I certainly don't own Naruto, because if I did, we'd see way more of a certain team...
Konoha, the Village of the Hidden Leaf, was cradled inside a deep forest, shielded from the eyes of any but the most elite of ninjas. A short distance from its walls rushed a river -- so narrow and violent a stream that it had never been used for shipping or even as a landmark. Only the shinobi, the ninjas of the Hidden Village, knew where the river ran... and where, in a series of channels undercutting a great limestone hill, it tore throats in the earth and sank out of human sight.
The day after the landslide that changed the shape of the hill forever, seven ninjas, with a snapping sound like displaced air, appeared on a wide slab of earth in a delta of the river.
The adults of the group were easy to pick out. Hatake Kakashi, the man of a thousand techniques, slouching lazily with his forehead protector drooping over one eye and a dark mask covering the lower half of his face; Maito Gai, the proud green beast of the Hidden Leaf, surveying the terrain with hands on hips, as though daring the cliffs to try anything funny. The five rookies, Gai's three and Kakashi's two, took positions on either side, staring up at the rubble littering the broken hill.
Uzumaki Naruto, the blonde fireball who was Konoha's premier troublemaker, broke the silence first.
"Whoa. That must have been some earthquake! Why didn't we hear about this when it happened?"
"Idiot!" Sakura, his pink-haired teammate, swatted him on the head. "Only you could sleep through something like this! It woke me up in the middle of the night and shook one of my perfume bottles off the table--"
"Is that why you stink this morning? Ow!"
"Everyone put your equipment on," interrupted Kakashi, rubbing his brow. He usually let his students work the rants out of their systems before leaving Konoha, but this morning he'd arrived at the meeting point almost on time.
"Yes, Sensei!" The five rookies broke up their packs, distributing the spelunking equipment about their persons: spikes, pitons, ropes, gloves and special climbing boots -- to the chagrin of Rock Lee, who had to take off his ever-present ankle weights before his boots would fit. They then checked their batteries by flashing their head- and wrist-lamps in one anothers' faces.
For once, the teachers let them play. It was so easy to forget that rookie shinobi were children too. Kakashi's students, at fifteen, were barely a year younger than Gai's.
"Come on!" shouted Lee. "I'll race you over the edge! See who slips first! It'll be great training!"
His forward momentum was halted by a hand locked into the back of his shirt. Chagrined, he looked back, meeting his teacher's stern eyes.
Gai glanced from Lee to his other two recruits, Neji and Tenten. They'd all blossomed in the four years he'd been their leader, though only Lee had taken it as far as adopting his sensei's signature bowl-cut and bright green jumpsuit; but their enthusiasm, especially Neji's, could always use a little work.
"I have a better idea," announced Gai, fixing each with a challenging stare -- and then grinning widely. "I'll race you over the edge! Last one in the cave does extra laps around Konoha when we get back!" And he was off in a cloud of dust, with Lee, whooping in delight, a close second.
Neji and Tenten glanced at one another: first resigned, then calculating, and then they were both gone. After all, there was extra training at stake.
"He does motivate them, I'll give him that," sighed Kakashi, running a hand through his spiky gray hair. This was just another instance where his teaching methods differed from Gai's. His recruits would never fall for such blatant manipulation.
Well... Naruto might. As a matter of fact...
Kakashi's hand shot out just in time to grab Naruto as he ran past.
"What?" yelled the boy, tugging furiously at his trapped arm. "Fuzzy-brows and the others are already over! If there's any trouble, they'll run into it first!"
"Naruto!" Sakura slapped him again, and Kakashi rolled his eyes as he shook a cobweb out of his helmet.
"We're doing this safely, Naruto," he said mildly. "And if you put a toe out of line, you're carrying everyone's gear."
"Awww, Sensei!"
Kakashi smiled under his mask. After all, what was wrong with a little motivation?
.o0o.
"Wow!" shouted Naruto -- and was instantly muffled by Sakura and Kakashi. For a moment, everyone cringed; but the distant echoes of Naruto's voice gradually died away, and the ceiling didn't collapse on them after all.
Looking around, though, Kakashi had to admit that the kid had a point.
The caverns were massive; the first one could easily have contained Konoha's town square. Stalactites dripped in hundreds from the crags above, some joining stalagmites to form giant pillars from roof to floor. The roof itself was split down the middle, raining sunlight down on colorful sedimentary formations. The walls were caked, here and there, by dazzling crystals.
"This is amazing!" Naruto had lowered his voice to a loud stage whisper. "How could something like this have been hidden all this time?"
"Before the landslide," said Kakashi, "the entire cliff face was solid stone. There was only one way in: the small cracks in the base, where the river rushed under the mountain. The water was so fierce that nothing going in that way could ever come out."
"So anything that the river brought in..." Sakura's hushed voice was horrified.
Kakashi nodded. "Was trapped here forever."
"You mean," said Naruto, his eyes huge, "we might find... bodies?"
"I don't want to find bodies!" wailed Sakura. Kakashi shook his head in despair, relieved that the chamber was solid enough to endure the presence of his rookies.
"We're only here to map the caverns," he said. "Such a well-hidden hideaway, so near our village, would be a perfect place for invaders to camp."
"So we set up traps!" said Naruto brightly. "I've got lots of traps! I've got a trap I made myself--"
"If it's the hot-sauce one, I don't want to hear about it," Sakura grumbled. "Bad enough there might be anything in these dark holes--"
Tenten, the pretty dark-headed weapons specialist, dropped suddenly from a ledge into their midst, startling Sakura so badly that she shrieked.
"Oh, sorry!" exclaimed Tenten, though she didn't look sorry at all. "Everyone's up ahead, Kakashi-sensei. We found someone living in here!"
.o0o.
"Behind this wall," said Gai, slapping a hand against a solid flow of stone. "It's very thin here -- a few good blows would break it -- but Neji sees somebody there."
Neji nodded curtly; the activation of Byakugan, his bloodline-limit talent, had set a network of veins pulsing around his white eyes. He raised his head and looked straight through the wall. "It's a small chamber connected to the main caves on the other side of the river. The man in there looks sick, but he's alive."
A thin, timid tapping sounded from beyond the wall. The sound, barely audible over the rushing river, sent shivers up their spines.
"I can break it, Sensei!" said Lee excitedly, bouncing in place.
"Not a wise idea." Kakashi stared up at the ceiling, his stance seeming entirely unconcerned; but his visible eye shifted shrewdly from one key area to another. "One wrong strike could bring the whole cavern down. Hold on..." He moved carefully to the left, running his hands over the cracks left by the earthquake.
"The wall is actually thicker there," Neji remarked.
"No." Kakashi slid his hands up the wall, framing a two-foot space, just shoulder-high. "This is the only good option."
"But Sensei!" protested Naruto. "Neji says the wall is thinner over here! Why do you have to go over there where the wall is thick? Come on, you never tell me anything. Sensei, I said--"
Ignoring the predictable outburst, Kakashi clasped his hands together, forming the meditative seals that were the inevitable preliminary to a ninjutsu technique. Energy flowed through his arms, and he pressed his fingers against the stone, forcing microscopic cracks to lengthen and expand until a section of the wall shivered and collapsed into sand.
He should have expected Naruto's awed "Wow!" in the background.
The split ceiling extended into this cavern as well; dim sunlight filtered in through a tangle of rubble and roots. The falling sand had kicked up other particles, drawing a brief curtain of haze across the new opening. Ducking his head, his sensitive fingers feeling for traps, Kakashi slipped through the roiling cloud. He sensed the others crowding in behind him -- and froze, one arm extended in warning, as a croaking voice sounded nearby.
"Not so bright!"
Kakashi flicked his light up, then quickly lowered it. The image, though, remained in his head: an old, hunched man, cringing away from the unexpected glare.
"Lights down," Kakashi said softly. "We've come to get you out, sir. How long have you been here?"
A moment of silence. The stranger's weak voice was barely audible. "Fifteen years. Why have you come here? So many people have never come here at once. The few that have are mostly dead... or dreams, just dreams..."
The dust was falling swiftly, and Kakashi realized that the cave's entire right wall was missing, opening to a vast hollow space beyond the ever-present river. A fine mist was laced through the cool, damp air. The stranger, visibly shivering, stepped hesitantly toward them, searching their faces with a kind of anguished appeal.
"Ninjas... you are ninjas. From Konoha?"
Kakashi motioned the rookies forward. There was no telling what condition the man's mind might be in, after fifteen years alone in a cave. "Let us help you. We have a medic--"
"You." The man stopped abruptly, gaping in astonishment, looking straight past Kakashi, past Naruto and Neji, past Sakura and Tenten and Gai--
"I know you," he rasped. "Lee? That cannot be you--"
Rock Lee stepped back, his mouth dropping open. "What?"
The stranger tottered toward them, his hands stretched out, as if searching his way through heavy fog. "You look the same as... My Lee, all grown up, it can't be--"
Gai, lightning-fast, barred his path. "Hold it! You can't just -- what do you want with my student?"
"Let me go!" The man struggled feebly, striking out at random. His technique, or lack thereof, settled another question: it was clear that he had never learned to fight.
Finally he subsided, falling once more into a series of hacking coughs. He came up with one finger stabbing straight ahead, and asked of the room at large, "Is that boy called Rock Lee?"
"Who are you?" demanded Gai.
The man looked helplessly from one rookie to the next, clutching Gai's restraining arm as though it were the only thing holding him up. His lips moved silently, processing the question. Then he turned back to Lee, and words failed him.
Finally he whispered:
"My name... my name is Rock Long."
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