A/N: And after a pretty long time, here's another chapter :)) This one I like a bit better than the last, although honestly I'm not very good at writing filler. As the story moves into the chunin exam it'll probably get a bit better hopefully.
Anyways, in this chapter we finally, FINALLY, get some Mokuton action (only a tiny bit though hehe). With that in mind, I just want to say that I'm not a certified Naruto nerd, and as such I took a lot of creative liberty with the powers of the Mokuton, even more so later on. I hope you enjoy and I do appreciate constructive criticism but please no hate saying "THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS IN CANON" or something.
Welp, that's it. Hope you enjoy the (slightly short) chapter and I'll try to get the next one up soon!
[chapter 9]
The sun had just begun to rise over the rubble when Sakura crawled out of her tent the next morning. The climate here was nothing like Konoha, she remarked while shivering. Wispy fog blown over the water covered most of the island and despite it being Spring the air was chilly. It was quiet too, compared to the various clattering and screeching that could be heard on an average Konoha morning. No birds had returned here to make their homes since the attack on Uzushio.
Bundling up in a few extra ayers she groggily made her way to where a small campfire burned merrily through the curtain of mist.
Naruto and Kakashi were already sitting there, the latter having taken the last watch. Their sensei seemed absorbed in his own world, again with his ever-present orange book. Naruto, though, sat silently on one of the logs, arms wrapped around himself as he stared blankly into the fire. His eyes were red-rimmed and a bit puffy, Sakura noticed absently.
She chose not to mention it though, instead letting out a quiet greeting and sitting down next to Naruto.
"Good morning, Sakura" Kakashi greeted airily, without his eyes ever leaving the page of his book. Naruto made no move to acknowledge her presence at all.
They hadn't caught any animals the day before - in all honesty they hadn't even seen any - so resigning herself to the bland taste of ration bars, Sakura unwrapped one from her bag and took a bite.
Sasuke joined the three of them soon after, and like her, he didn't say anything about Naruto's appearance although he obviously noticed it. He pulled out a ration bar as well and slowly chewed on it.
The Konoha ration bars were interesting, to say the least. The current version had been created after specialty nin-psychologists had determined that one of the factors leading to shinobi snapping had to do with the complete blandness and routineness of eating ration bars, especially on the front lines during the war. As if the constant murdering and blood and gore wasn't enough, Sakura thought, rolling her eyes. Anyways, these new ones were modelled after various "flavours" of food, although in some ways it made them even worse. Last time she'd had to eat Soba-flavoured ration bars for a week and, well… the restaurant owner hadn't been too happy about her instinctive reaction to their food.
"We'll head out to the coast after breakfast," Kakashi spoke up. She glanced over to see that he had yet to look up from his book.
"Yes sir," she mumbled sarcastically, not at all excited to have to do anything today.
The next few hours passed by in a blur. They travelled at a slow walking pace back to the pace, not in any particular hurry, and spent the morning searching for the bioluminescent plants their client had requested. But despite the quite specific descriptions they had been given, it was just too hard to pick out from all the other, normal mosses growing on the seashore rocks.
Finally, after a few hours of unproductive searching, Kakashi had finally called them off, saying they'd come back at night, when it'd be easy to pick them out.
So they'd spent the rest of the day training on the water, doing mock fights while struggling to maintain atop the water. Sakura was pleased to find that despite having less chakra and strength than both of the boys - and as a result normally losing in any brawls she partook in - here she had the advantage. Out on the water, Naruto and Sasuke struggled to keep the chakra beneath their feet flowing while also performing jutsu, and were forced to rely on taijutsu only. Even with hand to hand combat Sakura was better, as a sudden hit from her could cause either of them to lose concentration, abruptly sinking beneath the waves.
By the time the sun dipped over the horizon and turned the sky to fire, Sakura's muscles were sore and her body felt tired.
Soon the sky was dark enough that they couldn't see each other clearly anymore. Kakashi gave them a silent nod and handed out clear containers of a thick type of glass. Each one was fancy, with a small battery-operated heater to keep the plants alive and some other technology that Sakura had no idea what it was for.
It was much easier now. The plants glowed softly on the coast and in the shallow water, making the island appear almost magical. She could understand that people might be fascinated enough with them to pay money for their retrieval. She'd never seen anything like them.
The team got to work fast, each choosing a different area to methodically dig up the plants. Some were a bit wilted, Sakura noticed. And there was the question of how they'd gotten to this island in the middle of nowhere in the first place. She wondered if perhaps they weren't native. Maybe some nin in Uzushio had brought them back long ago, and others had tended to them until they'd all been killed.
Honestly she was happy that the village had accepted the mission. It would have been a shame for all the plants to die out, leaving nothing but a barren coast. At least some part of Uzushio would be saved.
All in all, collecting the plants wasn't hard work, although it was far from simple. The instructions had been very specific that none of the roots should be harmed, so the process of removing them from the cracks and nooks in the rocks that they'd grown into was tedious work.
Soon enough, Sakura had filled up her glass container though, and looking around at the others, she saw that most of them were done too.
"Alright, let's head back to camp," Kakashi ordered a few minutes later.
They trudged back - although faster than they had that morning - and within half an hour Sakura was fast asleep. Collecting plants was quite exhausting was the last thing she thought before drifting off.
The next morning dawned early but Kakashi let them sleep in a bit.
"Change of plan," he told them once they were all awake and sitting around the fire they'd had breakfast at the day before. "I was going to have you complete a training exercise today but we're heading back to Konoha instead. The Hokage doesn't want us to linger with the recent activity from Kiri."
Sakura gave a sigh of relief and she could see similar expressions on Sasuke and Naruto's faces. No one felt comfortable here, in the too quiet, broken city.
A few hours later they were heading back over the water again. The return trip wasn't quite as challenging as it had been on the way there. Naruto and Sasuke seemed low on energy, and Naruto's unquenchable spirit still felt a bit dampened by all that had happened over the past days.
He still hadn't talked with them about the painting and the information they'd found, instead remaining oddly quiet the last few days.
Sakura was a bit worried, to tell the truth, but there was nothing she could do. She'd give him space and when he was ready he'd talk to them.
It was a bit disconcerting to realize that she'd always taken Naruto's attachment to the team for granted. He'd treated them like family, probably because he'd never known any other. She wondered if anything would change now that he knew his origins.
They spent that night at the same inn as before.
"Odd, I guess the innkeeper's still not back," Kakashi remarked flippantly.
And despite the hallucinations of blood splotches on the whitewashed walls of the inn, Sakura slept soundly that night.
The following day was a bit nicer. They woke up to the bird songs that they'd been missing on the island, putting everyone in a better mood. To their disappointment, there wasn't any good food left in the inn, meaning yet another meal of fake-tasting ration bars.
They set off soon, everyone eager to get back within the walls of Konoha. Kakashi seemed a little on edge even, perhaps because of what he'd done soon.
Despite the few words it was a nice morning. They'd learned tree walking and water walking but now Kakashi wanted them to put it to use.
"We'll make good time on the way back if we travel the normal way. And by that I mean through the trees," he said.
At first it was nerve-wracking, jumping from branch to branch. Sakura expected the wood to crack beneath her feet at any moment and send her hurtling to the ground. Or even worse for her foot to land completely miss her target. They made slow progress at first, her refusal to go faster meaning she didn't have enough momentum to clear most of the jumps. Even the faint figure of Kakashi running below them on the ground, ready to catch her if she fell couldn't make her heartbeat calm down.
Before long they were truly running though, dashing from one branch to another in a way that made the wind whip her hair in her face. It was a nice feeling though.
As they travelled she dropped back to move next to Naruto, who'd been hanging quietly at the back of the group without any of his normal exuberance.
"Are you going to go searching for your family if they're out there?" She asked softly.
The blond was silent for a moment before shaking his head. "I'm going to ask old man Hokage about it before doing anything."
He paused. "Besides, I keep having to tell myself it doesn't make a difference. Knowing the name of my family doesn't make me any closer to actually knowing them."
"It's a start though," she said.
Naruto shrugged. "They haven't been here all my life. Just because we're related by blood doesn't mean they'll even want to know me. Or there might be none left. I know my parents are dead, and the rest of my family might have died in Uzushio."
Sakura didn't allow pity to enter her voice, knowing Naruto wouldn't appreciate it. "Well, if you decide you want to go looking for them you know I'd go with you. Sasuke too probably, although the bastard would grumble about it the entire time."
Naruto smiled at her warmly, the first one she'd seen in a while. "Don't worry about it, Sakura. I've got you guys for now. You're my real family."
His words made something in her heart clench a bit.
"Yeah, we are," she agreed.
The blonde laughed a bit before cracking a grin. "When I'm Hokage everyone will know my name and then my long-lost family members will come flocking to Konoha."
Sakura rolled her eyes and lightly punched him in the arm. "That's not happening anytime soon."
They kept jumping through the trees after that, but the atmosphere was a bit nicer and it felt like something had been taken off her chest.
Around midday Kakashi raised a hand and came to a stop on a branch about a hundred metres ahead.
"We'll stop for a quick break here," he ordered. "Make use of the time to rest and stretch. We continue until sunset after."
They leapt down from the trees, Naruto and her immediately collapsing ungainly onto the ground while Sasuke still managed to sit down on a fallen trunk relatively gracefully. Kakashi, of course, looked like he hadn't broken a sweat.
"Alright," he mumbled, ruffling through one of the hundreds of pockets on his pants before pulling out a few ration bars. "Time to feast."
Sakura groaned. "I would give anything for actual food right now."
"When we get back to Konoha," Naruto said determinedly. "First place I'm heading is the ramen stand. Nothing will stop me. Nothing."
Sasuke just took one of the ration bars handed to him by Kakashi and unwrapped it, trying his best to look as if he didn't care enough to agree. Of course the slight vehemence that he bit into it with seemed to indicate otherwise
After finishing the bar, she did what Kakashi had recommended though, taking some time to stretch and lie back on the ground. There'd be dirt in her hair now, but it was worth it. Besides, the first thing she'd do upon getting back to Konoha would be to take a nice, warm, shower.
The next thing she knew she was being shaken awake. Naruto's whiskered face was a few centimeters from her own.
"Ugh, I don't want to leave," she grumbled, rolling over and getting even more dirt over herself.
Naruto laughed, moving away and grabbing his pack.
"Sakura, let's go, get a move on," Kakashi said lazily, already perched in the trees. Sasuke was by his side.
Very dramatically she made a show of sitting up and grabbing her stuff. As she stood up from the ground, preparing to climb back in the trees to continue travelling, she placed a hand against the tree behind her for support.
Her fingers touched the hard bark, the texture coarse beneath her skin.
Overwhelming emotions and feelings that weren't her own flooded her.
DANGER! FEAR! DEAD! RUN! the voices said, the sound pounding and echoing within her skull.
She didn't know what to do.
She screamed.