Thanks for the reviews from my two loyal reviewers :) both of you have made this so much more fun to write!
Day break didn't come fast enough for Itachi; he wanted to get his brother back from that cruel Sannin and his medical minion. Kakashi was the first to wake up of the group, considering Itachi had never fallen into slumber.
"You're up early," the jonin said, "but judging from the looks of this, you didn't get any sleep."
"That's right." Itachi muttered back. "How could I let myself rest when I know that Sasuke can't?"
"This will hopefully be the last sleepless night; we'll find him today." Kakashi assured the elder brother. He turned towards the sleeping teens and proceeded to wake them.
"We better get started! We're going to find Sasuke for sure today!" Naruto said enthusiastically, providing positive emotions for both Sakura and Kakashi.
"How can you stay so positive when the chances are so slim?" Sai asked.
"You really piss me off..." Naruto grumbled.
"I simply don't understand." Sai responded.
"I didn't ask you, and you don't understand anything!" Naruto hollered.
"Okay, Naruto, fighting won't help." Sakura calmed the blond. Sai was probably right since the odds were heavily against them, but there was no way negative thoughts would deter them.
After summoning his most loyal hound, Pakkun, Kakashi set instructions for the search. "Okay, so we do have the whereabouts of Kabuto's previous location, but I highly doubt that he is still there. Neither Orochimaru nor Kabuto is naive enough to trust Danzo, especially since both worked under him at one time, so I'm betting that they relocated to avoid him as well as us.
"We should have Pakkun pick up on his scent; he should be able to follow it no matter where the three of them went. That will save time from randomly wandering around." Kakashi decided.
"It's not that simple," the dog said in his gruff voice, "it's been almost two days since the kid's been gone; I won't be able to sniff him out that fast."
"It looks like we will have to do some more random wandering until Pakkun can sense him." Sai said.
"If we go to Kabuto's old hideout, Pakkun could follow his scent to their new location; that would allow us to make sure Sasuke's not at that place, too." Itachi strategized.
"Sounds like a good plan to me." Naruto agreed, his example was followed by the rest of team seven as they also obliged.
As soon as the strategy was finalized, the five shinobi dashed away in the direction of Kabuto's last known location.
It took slightly over two hours to arrive at the destination; immediately, Pakkun caught traces of two people.
"Sasuke was never here," he informed everyone, "but Orochimaru and Kabuto were at some point in he last few days."
"So this is where Kabuto brought Orochimaru back..." Itachi mused.
"Seems that way," Kakashi said, "Pakkun, can you follow the traces?"
"They are faint, but I think I can manage to track them down." He responded as he sniffed the air. "We better hurry, though. I can barely smell it, and it will only fade more."
Once again, the five ninjas lead by Pakkun rushed off. With a solid lead, Sasuke was only at arms length, waiting to be pulled closer.
Sorry about the shorter chapter, but there wasn't much I could write about their search without repeating what I already wrote.