The sun set over the 5 Great Shinobi Nations, cutting short the teams' movement for the time being. Standard procedures were followed to ensure complete safety for the teams while they rested.
Dawn broke over the green receding forest that lingered on the Fire and Earth nations' borders. Light dripped into Tsuchi no Kuni, revealing the distinctive canyons and badlands of the area.
The Akatsuki trio trudged over the rocky terrain as the sun rose higher in the sky.
"We're half a day away." Itachi said as he helped Sakura onto a narrow ledge as they followed Deidara. They couldn't travel by sky at this point; the Shinobi of Iwa had their own air force at the ready. Deidara was leading them through Rock via secret areas. They couldn't risk a sighting.
"The Hachibi lives by the sea on the north western most area in a cave." Deidara said as the three jumped walked into an area with clay deposits all around. Sakura noticed something strange about it, however.
"The earth's been scorched recently," Sakura commented as she knelt down and picked up a mix of blackened clay and ash from what she guessed used to be some sort of plant.
"Are fires common?"
"Only when the Hachibi's PMSing, un." Deidara replied as he pulled out a kunai and started digging to the richer clays hidden by the uppermost layers of soil.
"What does that mean?" She asked as she stood up and clapped her hands together to remove anymore excess clay from her hands.
"The Hachibi's an evil, sardonic bastard of an 8 tailed dragon who's got a true fetish for lighting shit on fire, un." Deidara said as he picked up some deep red clay and pocketed it in a separate pouch on his hip.
"He destroys stuff for the fun of it, un. And does it quite frequently when someone or something pisses him off."
"Kind of like you, then." She said with a grin as Deidara glowered at her. She laughed as she looked up at Itachi.
"We should get going," He suggested, but Sakura noticed something else and ran to it.
"ADD much?" Deidara sighed as he got up and stood next to Itachi. Sakura was kneeling in front of a large plant that seemingly escaped the flames. She pulled a kunai out of her pouch and started chopping all the leaves off.
Itachi started walking towards Sakura, and Deidara couldn't help but follow.
"What are you doing?" Deidara asked as he watched Sakura pull a needle and thread from her bag. She ignored his question and tugged her cloak off. Sakura began to then sew the leaves to her cloak at an alarming pace; a skill she picked up from years of having to stitch people back together at the hospital.
She soon ran out of leaves to sew to her coat, and quickly scanned the area for another plant. To her delight, there were dozens growing around her. Sakura got up and moved to the next plant, and repeated the process she had already started.
"What is she doing?" Deidara asked Itachi, who, replied with a simple shrug. Sakura soon had enough leaves to finish her cloak and add a hood onto of it. Sakura finally looked up at her two team mates as she put the cloak on.
"Right, are you done trying to look stylish, un?" Deidara sighed as Sakura looked at Itachi.
"Itachi-kun, hit me with your best fire jutsu." She said.
"Why?" Itachi asked as Deidara looked at Sakura like she was crazy.
"Just do it, I'll explain later." Sakura said as she pulled the hood over her head. Deidara shook his head.
"Are you insane, woman?" Deidara asked as he glanced over to Itachi, who was making the seals for his Fire Release: Ultimate Fireball Technique. His eyes widened in horror.
"Are you nuts!?" He practically squealed to Itachi. "That's an S-Ranked jutsu; you're going to burn her to a crisp!!"
"I know what I'm doing!" Sakura shouted as she moved far enough so that the fire wouldn't touch Deidara and Itachi. Itachi finished his lands hand seal and inhaled. Sakura waited for impact. Deidara watched in horror as Itachi exhaled and spat out an enormous ball of white flames at Sakura.
"Sa-SAKURA!!" Deidara looked back at Itachi. "Kami, what the fuck have you done!?" He exclaimed as he tried to run to save her, until Itachi held him back.
"Watch." Itachi said as he pointed to Sakura. The flames quickly receded as she flipped her cloak quickly over her shoulder, putting out the rest of the flames. The kunoichi was completely unharmed.
"Y-You…!!" Deidara stammered as Sakura brushed off her cloak. "How did you do that!?"
Sakura smiled as she held her cloak up. "Zetsu taught me about the flora in Iwa. The fire lily leaves are supposed to be able to withstand even Kage-level fire. I suppose we can use it against Hachibi, mm?"
Deidara stood there for a moment, dumbfounded, before he turned away with a huff muttering profanities under his breath.
"I suppose we can, Sakura." Itachi said as he started helping Sakura collect the leaves of the fire lilies. Deidara stood still for a moment before letting out a sigh and helping out.
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Izanami scanned the skies as Naruto refilled their canteens at the mouth of a waterfall Ino found. The sky was blue like always, but then her keen eyes noticed that something was out of place; there was a white hawk flying overhead.
"Shit." She cursed as she quickly dragged Naruto by his collar through the leaves to Ino and Sai where they were boiling the water. The dense cover of the forest effectively blocked any aerial view of them.
"Put the fire out, quick!" Izanami hissed quietly as he covered Naruto's mouth to keep him from yelling at her.
"There's an enemy sentry in the sky." She said as she watched and pointed to the hawk circle over the trees. Sai quickly stomped the fire out as quietly as he could.
"How can you tell?" Ino whispered as Izanami released Naruto, who, rubbed his mouth and looked up at Izanami curiously.
"It's a white bird that's way too big to be a dove." She stated. "When are you ever going to see one those in the middle of summer?"
The group was quiet as they looked up into the sky and watched the hawk circle around before flying off into a different direction.
"It's gone…" Ino said as she looked at the pot of almost clean water.
"Who's sentry was that?" Naruto asked. "Could you tell?"
"Akatsuki." She replied. "It's one of Deidara's birds."
Naruto wrinkled his nose at the memory of the explosion crazed blonde who looked like a girl.
"Do you think they know that we're following them?" Ino asked as Sai started to rekindle the fire for disinfecting the water.
"More than likely." She said as she brushed her Naruto-drool covered hands on her pants. "Itachi-sen—"
She paused for a second, and only a second before picking up where she left off.
"Itachi is an intelligent man, he's probably figured out that we're not that far away."
Only Naruto noticed the would-have-been suffix, but he said nothing of it.
"That means we've got to be really close to them." Sai said as he poured the now hot water into the canteens.
"We can catch up to them in no time." Naruto said as he looked up at the sky. "We'll probably be in Iwa later today."
"Alright, so let's finish up here and hurry up to Iwa." Ino smiled as she got up and started repacking their supplies.
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"For someone who's lived here, shouldn't you know about the plants?" Sakura asked as she scooted further into the shadow of a large boulder as she sewed leaves into Itachi's cloak. Itachi was sitting next to Sakura, taking off the outer skin of a few edible cacti he found.
"I was an arsonist, not a gardener, un." Deidara replied as he handed her another leaf.
"You actually seemed concerned about my welfare." Sakura grinned as she tied a knot at the end of the string and freed her needle. "I didn't know that you cared."
"Fuck you, un." The insult tumbled out of his mouth without him meaning it. Sakura glared and almost stabbed him with the needle. Deidara rolled his eyes as he watched Itachi lean over and look at him.
"Don't you start with the 'Oh, good job' and 'You really rock at this' or 'You're incredible!' crap you've been babbling on and on about." Deidara growled at Itachi. The darker haired man for once looked confused.
"He was going to hand you a prickly pear, Dei..." Sakura said as she took the now skinless fruit from Itachi and put it in Deidara's hand. "Jeeze, take a chill pill..."
Deidara sighed to himself as he bit the fruit. He handed Sakura another leaf before swallowing. It was quiet for a while as Deidara finished the fruit and looked at the two.
"Alright, ok, I'm sorry." The blonde apologized, earning a shocked look from Sakura, but Itachi remained unfazed as always. The Uchiha, however, did stare at Deidara, as did Sakura.
The three were quiet for a moment before Deidara went, "What, un?"
Sakura blinked before leaning over and whispering something to Itachi. The ninja considered her words for a moment before nodding once.
"Uh, ok. We forgive you." Sakura said with a smile.
Deidara grinned a little as he handed another leaf to her and noticed that his pile of leaves had dwindled down to only one.
"How many more do you need?" Deidara asked Sakura as he got up to cut more leaves.
"Just get me two." Sakura said as Deidara went over to the nearest plant a chopped off the required amount of leaves. Within a minute or two, Sakura was done with Itachi's cloak.
"We need to store these somewhere safe, though." Sakura said as she pulled out three extra white desert cloaks out of her bag. She neatly folded Deidara's, Itachi's, and her own leaf cloak and put it in her bag. Deidara took the white cloak from her and said, "Jeeze, got a hat in there too?"
Sakura blushed as she pulled out a folded up beige sunhat from her backpack. Deidara's lip twitched before he burst into laughter. Sakura glared and put the hat away as Itachi merely shook his head and cloaked himself.
When the three were finally ready, they took off into the mountains again.
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"We're hot on his trail." Pakkun said as he sniffed the torn bark of a tree. "He was here recently."
"Let's keep going, then." Kakashi said as Lee inspected the surrounding trees.
"Dog-san, most trees in the area seem to have ripped bark." Lee stated as Hinata turned her Byakugan on.
"He's right. They lead into different directions, too." She said as she turned around to get a 360 degree view. Kakashi noticed the anomaly as well and ran his fingers over the wood of one tree.
"He's marking the trees. He's trying to lead us the wrong way." Kakashi said as he looked down at Pakkun.
"We can't afford to split up." Kakashi said as he bit his thumb again and performed several hand signs for a summoning jutsu.
Poof poof poof poof—
4 of Kakashi's ninkin appeared infront of him.
"Hey, Kakashi." The one with glasses greeted. "What's up?"
"We need you to track Sasuke." Kakashi said as he looked around. "He's trying to lead us in different directions. I need you guys to split up for us and tell us where he's going.
"One of you guys in 4 different directions, Pakkun and my team will travel down the path he was supposed to be taking. Inform me as soon as you can if you find any trace of him. Go!"
"Right!" The four dogs said as they took off into the trees. Kakashi and his team soon followed suit as Pakkun started leading them west once again.
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"We're almost there, I can feel it, un." Deidara said as the three Shinobi raced over a clearing.
"Yeah, well, the smell of smoke kind of is a dead-give away." Sakura said with a grin. They were running near the coastline of Iwa now. Seagulls soared through the air and the smell of ocean water and smoke mixed together was making Sakura a little dizzy.
"We should take the cloaks out in a bit." Itachi said as they hopped over a charred boulder. A fierce roar in the distance shook the ground as Sakura watched a jet of flame erupt out of nowhere.
"Yep. He's pissed at something, un." Deidara smirked as he looked at Sakura who was looking a bit nervous.
"Don't worry, we'll be fine, un." Deidara said, offering Sakura a reassuring smile. She smiled back a bit, but she couldn't help but feel like something terrible was going to happen.
It was probably that damned persistent pessimism in her.
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Right, next chapter's gonna be good, I promise. Or, it will be horrible. I don't know, you guys tell me when I put it up. I gotta get to writing it.
Also, there are a few chapters missing now because I combined a couple when I was editing the story. So don't worry. :D
Toodles.