It's me again…obviously. I mean who else would be talking to you in my story? But anyways, sorry for the delay in uploading, I didn't really have a good idea of what I wanted to happen next, so I just kinda didn't write it. Well, now I present to you Retrieval, chapter 4.
Sasuke stopped his thoughts and stood up in the dark, facing his two teammates. "Hey, Sakura, what time is it?" he questioned. Sakura quickly took note of his question and went to the clock on the radio.
"It's ten o'clock," she answered him. "Ten o'clock…that means it will be time to go to sleep soon. I should try and get close to Sasuke now," she schemed in her head. It was indeed getting late, and if they wanted to get up early and get some flags they should get to sleep, or so she figured. However, Sasuke seemed to have different plans.
"Alright, we're going to go ahead and strike now. The other groups will most likely be sleeping or will only have one alert, so we should be able to do this easily," Sasuke informed his teammates. But, when he gazed into their eyes, especially Sakura's, he could tell that they weren't fit for moving about. In fact, Sakura looked like she would fall asleep any minute now.
"But…we also need to protect our own flags. So, I'll be the striker and go grab as many flags as I can, while you two stay back and take turns guarding our own flags. You should take turns resting though, so that we aren't all tired tomorrow," Sasuke added. He really didn't think they needed to protect their flags at all, but he definitely wasn't going to tell Sakura that he was worried about her, so it was a convenient excuse.
Naruto was again irked by Sasuke taking the "fun" job for himself, and yet again he didn't mind to much because he was to be left with Sakura.
"Be careful Sasuke," Sakura uttered as Sasuke dashed off in a streak. In a second he was already out of sight. She wasn't really worried about the other teams injuring him severely, they would probably just make sure he didn't get any flags, if they could stop him in the first place. But, these caverns were a previous location for the Chuunin exam, and they hadn't really encountered anything too troublesome yet, so she didn't know what was lurking about.
"Hey Sakura, you go ahead and go to sleep, I'll watch over you, so don't worry about anything," Naruto assured Sakura with a grin. She shouldn't have protested, because she was in fact quite tired, but she figured she could always wake Naruto up if anything important happened. Plus, she didn't want to be always be watched over. During the Chuunin exam she had promised herself she wouldn't, and she wasn't one to break her own promises.
"Actually Naruto, I'm not tired at all," she retorted. "If you don't mind, I'll take the first shift awake, ok?" she stated with a warm smile. If it wasn't dark, Naruto would have noticed the tired glaze that hung over her eyes. However, as it was, he was a little tired himself, and he couldn't say no to Sakura.
"Ok, but then you wake me up whenever your ready, ok?" Naruto replied calmly. He laid down right next to a wall of rock and dug into his bag quickly, pulling out a random sheet he packed and his cow-spot sleeping cap. He couldn't very well get to sleep without it, now could he?
As Naruto dozed off into slumber, Sakura shivered slightly. She assumed since that it had gotten colder outside, the caverns had dropped in temperature as well. If only she had been paying more attention to her surroundings, she would have noticed the entity that had been listening in too her conversation, and the one that had been creeping closer and closer.
Meanwhile…
"Ino? Chouji? Kiba, Hinata, Shino?" asked Shikamaru aloud. It had been 6 hours since his teammates had gone missing and 5 since team 8 had left him. . "Anyone, please," Shikamaru hopefully and desperately through the words into the cavern. He wanted to go look for his teammates, but then he didn't want to leave on the odd chance they would come back. "Damn, this is one hassle I have to deal with," he told himself.
"This is far too easy," thought Sasuke as he approached team 10's base. He thought that there would probably only be one person on watch, but this person was giving himself away by talking aloud? "I'm assuming it's Shikamaru since that was the only name left out of the question earlier, but he is supposed to be a genius. And why would he even be asking for the other group?" Sasuke battered himself with questions as to Shikamaru's current state to be acting so carelessly. After a few moments, he assumed something had to be wrong, and receded the Sharingan eyes he had taken out earlier. He knew Shikamaru would present a problem with his Shadow Copy no Jutsu if he had to fight, but he really wasn't expecting a fight to be needed.
"Hey Shikamaru," Sasuke announced just loudly enough for Shikamaru to hear.
"Who's there? Is that…Sasuke?" Shikamaru finished as Sasuke walked slowly into view. "Sasuke, have you seen any members of the other teams yet?" Shikamaru wanted to make sure that they weren't just playing a cruel prank on him for being the only one promoted to chuunin. He knew that Sasuke wouldn't have any part of a childish prank however, and could at least get an honest answer.
"No, you are my first encounter…"Sasuke responded. "Why do you ask?"
Inwardly, Shikamaru was cursing at himself. Why had he listened to Ino in the first place? If he had been with his team, he could have surely…"about 6 hours ago my team disappeared," he started. "Then, I met up with team 8, and they went to go get their radio for me, but they haven't returned yet…and it has already been 5 hours. I think…something might be going on."
Sasuke pondered this for a moment. He wondered what could happen to all of those ninjas. They were all pretty talented, and it would be amazing if they had been taken without a fight at all, even if a normal Jounin had attacked them. And if the ninja had been that powerful, then why would he be bothering to take a bunch of Genins? It just didn't make sense…and then it hit him. He still had no idea who it was, but he remembered that he had left Naruto and Sakura alone at their base.
"Crap! Lets go Shikamaru, I'll explain to you on the way," Sasuke blurted out in a tone of voice that showed fear, and anger, anger at himself. He knew Naruto was powerful, he had seen it first hand. However, he had forgot to tell Sakura to be the one to sleep, so she could have…"No, she wouldn't…Naruto wouldn't let her…" he kept assuring himself. "If Sakura was the one keeping watch, then she would have no chance against a powerful ninja. Hell, even Naruto, with all his power, might not stand a chance against this guy." His thoughts continued even as he murmured what his take on the situation was to Shikamaru.
Shikamaru had been thinking the same thing…that it was some strong ninja most likely, because no one would ever pull a prank and not tell Sasuke about it. He knew first hand that most of the girls were in "love" with Sasuke, and they would never dare keep him out of a secret. Hell, if anyone was to pull a prank it would be Naruto anyway, and Naruto had a big mouth. He would have certainly mentioned it to Sasuke. As much as Shikamaru didn't want to admit it, that only left one possible scenario…someone extraordinarily strong had abducted them. If he had not been so worried about what was to become of his friends, he probably would have mentioned something about it being a pain in the ass.
After about a half an hour of running at top speed, Sasuke and Shikamaru reached the base of team 7. "Shit," Sasuke thought. He couldn't sense Sakura or Naruto anywhere. All that was left behind was a small puddle of blood.
Haha I bet you all hate me for basically not telling you anything at all about the bad guy. I can't help it, I'm evil lol. Well, now that I've gotten the basic beginning of the story set, I can actually start having fights and cool stuff like that. Excited? I know I am hehe.