Chapter 11
Kankuro held a flashlight in one hand, brushing up the dust from the rock wall with the other. Some paper was taped there before but has been ripped in a hurry, leaving only a small corner. He moved sideways, between boulders and debris. Looking deeper into the cave they just entered.
Kurotsuchi stuck her head through the small entrance where he came from, blocking the little light he had.
"Did you find anything?"
"No, not really. There was definitely somebody here, but everything has been destroyed," he said as he came out, holding the little piece of paper he found on the wall.
He lifted the paper to the light to take a better look. The main area of the cave was much larger than the one he was in earlier, and much brighter too, although the dust was thick and still floating around, still not settled from the destruction.
"Ugh, there's nothing on that thing," he said as he discarded the paper back on the ground.
"It looks like they wanted to hide something," Kurotsuchi said while looking around.
"Whatever it was," Lord Onōki said, "it must have been big!"
"What makes you say that, gramps?"
"Why else blow up this place?" he replied to his granddaughter. Sasuke joined them inside.
"If they blew up the place to hide something, it must have been something they couldn't move."
"But If it was big, it would have been something difficult to get in the first place, therefore something that had great value! Why would they blow that off?" asked Kurotsuchi.
"Unless it was absolutely necessary," said the old man.
"So, something of great importance, or great value, but worth destroying if found out …"
They all went outside, climbing over the rocks that previously blocked the entrance; Sakura had destroyed it with a single punch.
"Sakura! Where are you?"
"Up here!"
Sasuke and the others followed the sound of her voice above the cave; she was kneeling down, brushing dirt with her fingers, she looked onward, facing the forest.
"What have you found?"
"The footsteps are still fresh." She stood up and faced the others. "Maybe they must have seen us coming from afar and decided to destroy all evidence?"
"Evidence of what?!" Kurotsuchi asked, raising her hands in frustration.
"That's the question," said Sasuke, "whatever they wanted to hide, they did a good job!"
"Guys?" Kankuro called from within the trees that gave a view down in the valley.
They joined him and all gasped at the sight.
The damage was spread randomly; Trees were broken, some uprooted. Debris and fish somehow lay all over the ground; the only source of water nearby was a lake about 1.5 Km away to the west, visible from where they were standing. Onōki looked on, eyes wide open.
"By the great mother of ..."
"I think we just found the gate that this guy was speaking of," announced Kankuro, blankly.
"Guys, we can still catch up if we hurry!" Sakura said, her fist ready for the fight.
Sasuke was the first to move. They all ran, following the trails the escapees left behind. Sakura and Kankuro moved in the trees, jumping from one to another.
The pursuers moved fast, and as trained Shinobis, they knew they were closing in the distance, unless of course, the escapees were also trained Shinobis; which in this case, they would either be faster than anticipated, or they would ambush them.
It didn't take long to know the answer; A flight of a hundred kunais suddenly appeared out of thin air.
Sakura used a substitution jutsu and a big crooked log took the hit in her place; Kankuro shielded himself with his puppet; Kurotsuchi and the old Tsuchikage used an earth style jutsu to create a wall of wood, then jumped over it to keep in pursuit. Still ahead of everyone, Sasuke simply kept running, dodging the kunais and countering them with his sword, making it spin at an incredible speed and making the tiny weapons bounce back.
He was also, consequently, the first one to reach the enemy. The three men attacked without waiting turns. Sasuke jumped, twisted, countered, attacked, countered some more; Slid on the ground to avoid a hit and threw a few shurikens, seemingly juggling between his sword and other smaller weapons.
"Arrrg, come on guys! The guy only has one freaking arm!"
He jumped and threw a side and back kick simultaneously; throwing one man on the ground. Another one had to catch his breath … too late. Sasuke might have had only one arm, but it was all he needed. He somehow threw the guy up and caught up with him in the air; he gave him an elbow hit in the stomach and sent him crashing back to the ground. The third one kept some distance and observed as the rest of the group caught up to Sasuke; he stood tall with a steady breath, ready for more action.
"Sasuke?" inquired Sakura, holding up a kunai in each hand.
"I'm fine. They're nothing we can't handle," he said without leaving them out of his sight.
Two men laughed as they faced them, while the third one got up, a bulky short man, full of piercings, rubbing his stomach, looking unimpressed.
"You should let us go … poison ivy, over here, is itching to infect you!" said the first man to their right; A tall, built, blond man, wearing nothing but loose black pants and sleeveless torn vest.
The deep green haired man beside him had a crazy look on his face, his green eyes were outlined with fine light blue eyeliner. He took a long knife which the handle bore a noticeably beautiful engraving of two dragons, with blue and pink colored mane and tail. He brought the blade to his mouth and slowly licked it, his saliva dangling between the abnormally long tongue and the blade. Sakura flinched at the disgusting sight.
Kankuro scoffed and shook the chakra filled strings of his puppet. The puppet stretched his arms and neck, as he was; the blue chakra could be seen flowing through the strings.
"Ha ha, okay guys, we've seen worse than that … how about you save us some time and tell us what's this all about?" he said.
"This does not concern you! Last chance, turn around and get lost!"
"Argh," said the Tsuchikage, annoyed. "Young people these days are so rude! Watch out everyone!" he said.
He jumped high, making his staff spin one way and the other and landed on his feet. A "crack" noise was heard as the staff touched the ground. The old man shrieked.
"Ohhhhh—My back!"
A strong vibration came from the ground where the staff hit the ground and the three men lost balance for a few seconds; long enough to catch them off guard with a series of attacks, led by Sasuke and Kurotsuchi. Kankuro's puppet unleashed itself with a series of "cliquety-cliquetack", spitting out sharp needles from its mouth. Sakura's strength usually inspired respect, but in this case, the men showed no fear at all towards it. She kept fighting, nonetheless. She glanced towards Sasuke from time to time. He was fighting with the dragon dagger man. He was pretty quick, but so was Sasuke. She went further back to help out the others.
Sasuke made good use of his sharingan. But his opponent also seemed to have an endless source of stamina. The green eyed man kept trying to cut him with his dagger.
There must be something about the dagger. He thought.
He jumped and twisted like a snake, avoiding every single attack and following with one of his own; the last attack had him spitting fire at the man.
"FIRE STYLE, FIREBALL JUTSU!"
Sasuke drove him mad, dizzy and confused. The man was waiting for an opening; an opportunity to cut him...and it came! The pink haired girl screamed in pain but overpowered his brother instantly. The event was brief, but that was enough.
Sasuke got startled by Sakura's shout. As he looked, a searing pain came on his right shoulder. He jumped back in surprise and looked at the damage.
"Dammit!"
He thought for a second that the blade was poisoned … but he felt fine. It was the only arm he had, but the pain was not so much to disable him from fighting.
In the end, they were five against three and the three men were overpowered, or so it seemed. They were tied up and left alone with Kankuro for a few minutes, as the group gathered to discuss the situation.
Sasuke noticed Sakura was walking funny and massaging her lower neck.
He approached his team mate, a few minutes later while she was tending to the Tsuchikage.
"Are you OK? I heard you scream earlier …"
She watched him, surprised; that would not have been the first time she would have screamed during a fight.
"Oh! I'm OK, I think I twisted my ankle. I'll deal with it after I fix Lord Onōki's back," she smiled while he was screaming in pain; she was cracking his bones back in place. His granddaughter watched horrified.
"S-Sakura San! Please be careful! You are dealing with an old geezer here! Gentle!"
"I am being gentle!"
"Kurotsuchi girl! How OWWWW dare you call me an old gee—OWOWOW!"
"What's all this commotion?" asked Kankuro, joining the group for a moment.
"So? What did they say?" Sasuke inquired.
"Nothing. They won't say a thing. I thought maybe Sakura could break a few bones to make them talk?"
"Yes, yes; she is quite capa—OOOOOWWWWWW!"
"There, That should do it …"
She proceeded to where the three men were tied up.
"You should fix your ankle first," suggested Sasuke.
"No rush," she said, "it's not that bad, rea—uh … Kankuro? Where are they?"
They all joined Sakura and found the binding wire, still tied up, but empty.
"What the hell? They were there a second ago! How did they ... ?!" Kankuro furiously looked around, confused.
"We were right there next to them! How did they get out so fast and unnoticed? Did you guys hear anything?"
"How did they loose the wires?" asked Kurotsuchi.
"They did not."
Sakura grabbed the wires still intact. The ropes that tied their hands were also intact, still tied up. She looked around; there were no footprints.
"It's like they vanished into thin air!"
They looked at each other, perplexed.
"If they could disappear just like that, why didn't they do that from the very beginning?!" Korutsuchi said, confused.
Sasuke gasped in response and started to run toward where they came from.
"DAMMIT!"
"RIGHT BEHIND YOU PAL!" shouted Kankuro, running after him.
The rest of the group, startled, followed them as well.
"Wait! Sasuke? What is going on?!" asked Sakura, catching up to him.
"Isn't it obvious?" Kankuro answered in his place; "Whatever they did, they just vanished! Like Kurotsuchi said, they could have done that from the beginning! Why do you think they didn't?"
"Maybe they just did not think about it?"
"Of course they did!" furiously said Sasuke.
"Well, maybe they couldn't at the time? Maybe they just …"
Sakura thought for a moment, still running. If their vanishing required an enormous amount of chakra, they would not have risked fighting five Shinobis, against three … which means, it was … planned? She gasped.
"A diversion!"
They reached the cave where they started, but saw nothing out of place. They searched the inside again, but … how do you look for something you didn't see before?
"I don't know … everything seems the same as before! Arrh ..." Kankuro sighed in frustration.
"Mmmm" the old Tsuchikage took an old pipe from his pocket, and some dried leaves from another. He pushed down the leaves in the pipe and lit it up with a fire style jutsu.
"There must have been something here that we could not see and they wanted to distract us before we found it …"
He let out a puff of smoke.
"Something, or someone …"
Sasuke, Sakura and Kankuro parted ways with Lord Onōki and his granddaughter to head back to Suna. Sasuke sent a hawk to Kakashi to share their findings and their intention to accompany Kankuro to Suna, before heading to Konoha. Shinobis never travel alone.
Although Kankuro had insisted he was ok to return by himself, Sasuke still had questions to ask "the gatekeeper". He wondered if he knew what (or who) the men could have been hiding. He also had a feeling that it had a connection to his and the others' presence.
Nightfall was upon them. They would have to stop for the night. He shivered at the thought.
Hopefully it will be a night without dreams, he thought.
He suddenly felt light headed and felt a tingling on his shoulder. He looked at the wound again. There was a faint bluish scratch that wasn't there before. Maybe it was getting infected? He thought about the blade and the way the man had licked it before. He looked at Sakura's back, as she was walking beside Kankuro. They were having a conversation about Temari and Shikamaru and how she was getting accustomed to the Nara clan's customs.
"She was so happy she could see and touch the deers from the Nara clan forest! She told me she felt privileged to be able to be in their presence. You should have seen her! Her face was as bright as day! I've never seen her like that! ha ha!"
"Pfff … me neither! She usually is not an animal person! Then again, there are no creatures in the desert except for nocturnal monsters … not very cuddly …"
"She likes it so much she always goes first thing in the morning, since she is now part of the clan. She feels at peace there!"
"Even if one of the Akatsuki is buried alive there?"
Sakura shivered. Hidan was still alive, beheaded, his body dismembered. Buried like this under the watchful eyes of the Nara clan's deers; for eternity; thanks to Shikamaru.
"She is not bothered by it, apparently. She said she doesn't feel his presence. She feels safe."
"That would give me the creeps!"
Sasuke rotated his sore arm. He felt a series of cold strings shooting from his arms through his entire body. He had a few cold sweats. Maybe he would feel better in the morning. He found some medicinal flowers not too far from the camp. He chewed the bitter petals and massaged the paste on his shoulder. That should do it, he thought.
"Do you need me to take a look?" Sakura asked him; She had turned to him at the moment when he was massaging his shoulders.
"No need. Just a scratch. I already took care of it."
"OK! Let me know if it gets infected, all right?"
"Yeah, sure ..."
