"Kakashi-sensei? Can we rest?" asked Sai innocently enough.
"No!" shouted Sakura.
"What's your problem, Sai?" asked Naruto, still moving as fast as ever.
Kakashi dropped back to that he was even with the third member of his team. "Sorry, Sai. I know we have been pushing rather hard these last two days…"
"Pushing hard?" questioned Sai sarcastically. "We only stopped to sleep for two hours last night."
Kakashi didn't know what to say.
"Don't worry about it," Sai finally added. "It's partially my own fault…I haven't been training as much lately…since the war ended."
Kakashi smiled with his half-moon eye. "I suppose we all can use the end of the war as an excuse to slack off a little. Just be patient with Naruto and Sakura…these two have a great deal invested in finding Sasuke."
Sai nodded. He knew that just as much as anyone. It was Naruto's original discussion about bonds with respect to Sasuke that taught Sai a significant amount about what it meant to have friends, forge ties, and allowed him to, once again, show emotion.
"Kakashi-sensei, exactly how far are we from Hidden Mist?" asked Naruto shouting back to his sensei.
"Oh…I'd say we're definitely more than half way," Kakashi replied.
"It seems like we should be farther than that," said Naruto.
"I've never taken this path before…I've never had a need to go right from Cloud to Mist before. All the other missions I've been on have been directly from Konoha, so you could very well be right. Plus all we've seen are trees ever since we got on this island."
"Yeah, it makes it harder to navigate," said Sakura. "That's for sure."
"Don't be in such a rush, Naruto," said Kakashi. "After all, we don't even know if we're going the right way yet." Kakashi had summoned Pakkun, but had sent him back within hours because he could find no familiar scent to follow. "Be sure to note any detail that may seem out of place as we run through these trees. Focus is more important than speed at this point."
"Right!" said the three other shinobi.
OlOlOlOlOlO
Sasuke awoke to someone coughing across the room. Being that they were twins, and were still on the cusp of puberty, it was difficult for Sasuke to disseminate if it was Kanja or Sumato.
Soon enough, however, it was confirmed that Sumato was the one hacking. The male twin approached Sasuke and changed the wet cloth he had kept on his forehead.
"I'm feeling much better," said Sasuke to his teammate. "I may not even have a fever anymore."
Sumato started coughing again and turned away before speaking. "Don't be stupid," he said. "I can tell you are only trying to make me feel better."
"Oh, that's right. I forgot you can practically read minds based on how we are feeling," said Sasuke. "But perhaps you ought to take it easy yourself. You don't look or sound well."
"Kanja is still unconscious and you are both injured and sick. I have to take care of you two," Sumato said.
"How long has it been?" asked Sasuke.
"Nearly a week," said Sumato. "It's a good thing we packed as well as we did. I also got an opportunity to grab Rida's pack from outside as well."
"That's right," he stated the obvious. "She didn't make it. Have you had an opportunity to set something up to point the search teams our way?"
Sumato's face turned ghostly pale. Sasuke could tell he had been quite overwhelmed with what he was dealing with already let alone trying to think about being found by allies and not enemies. Now that he was recovering nicely, perhaps he could change that.
"Sasuke, I…," started Sumato. He felt incredibly bad for not thinking of everything.
"Don't worry about it. We're still alive thanks to you," Sasuke tried to comfort him. Sumato could tell he was being genuine so he appreciated the kind words.
Sasuke rolled over in an attempt to get up. He nearly fell to the left before catching himself when he stood up. It had definitely been a while since he was mobile and the balance centers in his brain were letting him know to go slowly.
He looked around after the lightheadedness wore off a little more. There didn't appear to be an obvious exit. "Where exactly are we?' he asked.
"I found a small cave near where we fought those shinobi," said Sumato. "I dragged both you and Kanji back here one at a time. I made sure we were far enough back to as not to be easily seen from the outside."
"I see," said Sasuke. "I'm going to take a look around. Stay here with Kanji."
He started to walk in the direction where the faintest of lights was making its way inside. Yes, this was the right way. He did get us pretty deep into the cave, he noted to himself. That was good thinking. But it was no wonder no one found us – either friend or enemy. Behind him he heard Sumato continuing to cough.
Sasuke soon reached the outside and it was definitely during the daylight hours. His eyes hurt when the bright sun hit them and he had to wait for them to adjust for a few seconds before proceeding.
This doesn't look familiar. He walked for a few minutes more. Then he heard someone talking.
Quietly, he approached the people who were talking and hid behind a bush when he had finally found them. Now I recognize this place. We battled right along this road.
The talkers were two women who were obviously just headed from point A to point B along the road.
"Did you hear what happened here?' said one of the ladies.
"Yes, can you believe it? We're not even close to any of the Hidden Villages!" the other responded.
"I wonder what happened?" asked the first lady.
"Must have been one hell of a fight for someone to die," said the second lady.
As they continued to walk, their voices got fainter to Sasuke who kept his hidden position. When they were gone, he came out from behind the bush and onto the dirt road.
Over there is where I got hit in the head. And over there, behind that boulder is where Rida… He walked behind the large boulder. There was still dried blood on the ground where Sasuke remembered she had been lying.
Wait…where is the body? Who took it? Footprints confirmed that there had been someone around here at some point in time, though it was impossible to know if it was right after the fight, or a few hours ago.
The bodies of the four who attacked us aren't here either. But I don't know if any of them died, or if all four made it. I wish I could remember everything that happened.
OlOlOlOlOlO
Kakashi was again in the lead as the team continued to move at a fast pace towards the Hidden Mist village. He abruptly stopped and his team, as they had been trained to do, stopped suddenly and silently as well.
Naruto jumped next to his sensei and whispered, "What is it?"
"I just sensed movement somewhere below us," Kakashi whispered back.
Everyone sat and listened for a few moments. Sure enough, in a matter of seconds, a single person could be heard barely walking…more like stumbling…underneath the trees in which they stood. There was definitely something wrong with the person from the way he was walking, but Kakashi couldn't tell exactly what at first. He decided to talk to the man alone to see if he could figure out what his problem was. Perhaps he was injured…or sick…and needed assistance. Perhaps he was fine. Perhaps he might have even seen Sasuke and the twins and could point them in the right direction.
The limping person fell over at that very moment and groaned.
Kakashi swooped in immediately. The first thing he noticed was that this person had been badly beaten. He was sick, that was for sure, but it most likely started with the injuries he was obviously sporting. Kakashi couldn't ask the man anything…he was already unconscious. He signaled for the others to join him.
"What's wrong with him?" asked Naruto.
"Duh, genius, he's hurt," said Sakura naturally taking over examination of the man from Kakashi as soon as she arrived.
"From the looks of him, it must have been quite a battle," added Sai.
After a few seconds of chakra probing, Sakura made an announcement. "I don't think there's much we can do for him. This isn't a recent thing. He's probably been walking around like this for days."
Sakura looked down at the man again and noted that he was now staring back up at her. He had come to. She noticed that his mouth was moving, as if he had something to say…so she leaned down so her ear was now nearly touching his mouth.
The three men simply looked at their team member as she listened to whatever this man was now saying.
"Hurry up," Naruto prodded after the one-way conversation had lasted well over a minute.
Kakashi gave him an annoyed look, so he shut up right away.
Finally, Sakura sat up and looked at the man's face. She gently closed his eyes. "He's gone."
"What did he say?" asked Sai.
"Apparently he was involved in a battle…with Leaf shinobi," said Sakura.
"Sasuke! He has to know that we're Leaf shinobi…why would we trust anything he has to say? Don't listen to him," said Naruto.
"Shut up," said Sai. "He was dying. You never know what a dying man might say."
"Go on, Sakura," added Kakashi.
"He doesn't know what happened to all the Leaf shinobi they fought, but his mission to kidnap the twins failed. He was able to successfully disengage from the fighting after being gravely injured, and did end up going back and retrieving his three comrades," said Sakura. "However, they all died somewhere between here and where they fought. As sick as he is, he didn't bury them or anything…but he did hide the bodies. He asked us if we would bury them for him."
"But where are they from?" asked Naruto. "They don't have any hitai-ate."
"I don't think we'll ever know," said Sakura. "He didn't say."
"We can find his friends and bury them per his last wishes…and it should lead us to the place where they fought. Maybe then we can find out something more about Sasuke and the twins," noted Sai.
"Makes sense," added Kakashi. "But let's start with him."
OlOlOlOlOlO
It didn't take long for Team Kakashi to find the remaining three bodies. They hadn't actually died that long apart from one another based on where they found them…the fourth man, the one Sakura had talked to, had actually made it a lot farther after he was alone and didn't have to drag his three comrades with him.
"He might have lived if he hadn't tried to save all of them," noted Sai as they buried the last body they found.
"Yeah, but would you leave a comrade behind who was still alive just so you could live?" asked Sakura.
Sai saw this as one of the many philosophical questions that he could ponder moving forward and his face already showed that he had started thinking about it already.
"So we think Sasuke is somewhere around here?" said Naruto.
"Most likely," said Kakashi. "We know they battled near here…well, I'm assuming the Leaf shinobi those four dead men fought were Rida's team. And we know they never made it to Mist. Chances are they are between here and Mist, which is less than a day's travel away from here."
"Let's get going then!" said Naruto quickly running off towards Mist.
"Hold on," said Kakashi. "There's a better way."
Kakashi had already recalled Pakkun earlier simply because he was not finding anything from so far away. But now that they were near the ground where the battle took place, he thought Pakkun could be extremely helpful now.
"Summoning jutsu!" shouted Kakashi after taking a bite from his thumb and slamming his hand onto the ground.
Pakkun appeared and waited for instructions.
"Pakkun, please sniff around to see if you recognize any of the scents from this area besides Sakura, Naruto, Sai and myself," said Kakashi.
Pakkun sniffed off in one direction, and then turned left and sniffed in another direction.
"There are a lot of scents," said Pakkun. "But there is only one I recognize: Sasuke Uchiha."
"Take us to him," said Kakashi.