Hands gently shook him awake, "Naruto it's time to get up." As he recognized the angelic voice he feigned sleep. After all it wasn't everyday that Sakura was so gentle with him.
"You'll never wake him up that way. Here let me show you how it's done."
That voice was Jiraiya. When did he get here he thought a second before his nose was pinched shut. Gasping he swatted at the hand that was blocking his breathing. He glared up at the old pervert who just grinned down at him and said, "Come on, we are on a time schedule."
The blonde climbed to his feet and stumbled over to join the rest of the group who had formed a semi circle around an empty patch of dirt. Jiraiya crouched and a few hand signs later a three-dimensional map started to emerge from the dirt. Naruto had only seen this jutsu once before and he still thought it was cool.
The base was a sprawling structure between two and three levels deep. Long corridors branched at right angles occasionally opening up on large cavernous junctions. There seemed to be little rhyme or reason to the room's layout which was probably intentional he thought. The entrances seemed to be clustered on the eastern side but, there were long shafts that were probably meant for taking in air on the side furthest from the entrances.
"This map is not perfect," Jiraiya spoke up in what Naruto recognized as his serious tone. "We relied heavily on the Hyuga to gather this information but, they were limited to only a few hours. Still you should try to commit as much of it to memory as possible. I am going to use Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld here, here and here."
As he spoke three quarters crumbled and the map was now bisected into two pieces. "That half," Jiraiya gestured toward the larger of the two parts, "will have its entrances blown sealing it off."
"That won't stop them from digging themselves out," Ino pointed out.
"Pineapple head is right," Otonashi added.
The white-haired man nodded in agreement. "Yes but that will be mostly Kumo's problem. They're going to drop smoke grenades down the air shafts on that side to further the confusion and that should buy us enough time to take out this other half of the base." With a single hand gesture half of the map disappeared. "This is where we're attacking and I'm sure Orochimaru will be there."
"So why don't we just flood that whole area with that jutsu of yours?" Naruto remembered how big that particular jutsu could be. It had after all nearly sucked down the largest snake he had ever seen.
"Two simple reasons really. First even combined we wouldn't have enough chakra to pull that off. The second reason is also why I know Orochimaru is there. In the oldest part of the structure the walls are surrounded by fourteen feet of reinforced concrete. There is no jutsu in anyone's repertoire that could penetrate that much cement in a reasonable amount of time."
"If we're sealing the entrances and we can't break in how are we getting in?" Naruto was grateful to Sasuke for taking the attention off of him.
"Air shafts," Shikamaru supplied taking over the briefing. "They're several large shafts over here. We will be going down this one," he pointed to a long column that actually seemed to go deeper than the lowest level. "The shafts will most likely be booby-trapped so we'll have to take them out before going down. The shafts themselves are guarded and they're using the Bell System so will have to be careful."
"What is a Bell System?" Naruto whispered to Sakura who was standing next to him.
"It's when they use two guards. One is meant to be a sacrifice. That one generally doesn't have a lot of training. Basically he's watched by the second guard and if something happens to the first guard the second one raises the alarm. Now pay attention," she said finishing.
Shikamaru had continued speaking. "Our assignment is to gain control of this room." The room he pointed to was large and seems to be a junction for several corridors. "If any of us run into Orochimaru report it immediately and only engage him if you don't have a choice." The map suddenly dissolved back into the earth. "Any questions?"
"How many are attacking with us," Choji asked.
"Sixty-two are going down other air shafts, everyone but this group is chunin and above. About a quarter are ANBU," Jiraiya answered.
"Anything else," Shikamaru asked. Silence was the only answer, "All right let's move out."
Naruto was about to leave when he felt Jiraiya hand on his shoulder. He looked up at the older man questioningly.
"When this is over we can finish our training trip."
The blonde smiled back, "I would like that."
"That kid can't be twelve years old," Sakura muttered in disgust.
Naruto nodded in agreement. The kid she was referring to was the bell part of the security. He wore a Hitai-ate but in a thousand ways it was clear he had little to no training. As a guard he was pathetic even in Naruto's opinion. The boy was sitting on the ground his back against the pillar that supported a roof over the air shaft. He was repeatedly stabbing a kunai into the ground clearly bored out of his mind.
Naruto heard a sword being drawn and he glanced over at Sasuke, "What the hell are you doing?"
"Getting ready," his teammate replied.
"You can't hurt him he's a kid."
"He is a guard," Sasuke replied.
"I hate to agree with him but Sasuke is right. We can't give him the chance to raise the alarm. Even if he shouts it might blow the entire operation," Otonashi added.
"No, we're not killing him." Naruto said emphatically hurt that his friend was agreeing with his rival. "I'll sneak up on him. We can tie him up." He glared at the two chunin.
Otonashi suddenly smiled and tossed him his headset. "All right but if he senses you he's done for."
Moments later Naruto had circled around the small clearing and was simply waiting for Shikamaru signal. A moment later the radio crackled to life and his friends familiar voice spoke, "Guard neutralized." Tamping down his excitement he started creeping towards the kid. Stealth was not his forte but, his target was so oblivious he could have probably just walked right up to him.
When he was only a few steps away he noticed that probably by accident the kid had his back to the sun which meant he would cast a shadow as he approached. This was solved easily enough by slipping into the shadow of the roof.
Then when he was only an arm's length away he longed forward grabbing the arm with the weapon and pulled him to the side. With his other hand he covered the kid's mouth. Planting his knee into his back Naruto trapped the kids arm under his other leg. He tried to scream but it was muffled by his hand which caused him to bite his hand.
Naruto increased the pressure on his back and hissed, "I don't want to hurt you." The boy didn't seem to find that reassuring. The single eye he could see seem to glare at him as he redoubled his efforts to break free. Sakura darted out of the brush and plunged a hypodermic needle into the kid. He stopped struggling and Naruto looked up at his pink haired teammate questioningly.
"He's okay but he'll be out for at least two hours. Come on help me move him." They searched him but he had no radio or any other weapons besides a few other kunai.
"Hurry up you two and grab a thick branch while you're over there," Shikamaru called to them.
The two left the kid in the shade not bothering to tie him up. It took Naruto a minute to find a thick branch that he could break off and run it back to Shikamaru. By then the blonde had figured out why he asked for it.
While he and Sakura had been dealing with the kid Choji, Ino and Shikamaru had been placing explosive tags on a metal grate that covered the air shaft. Directly under it was a fan, slowly spinning sucking air down into the underground caverns. It spun slowly and as Naruto watched Shikamaru shoved the stick down between the metal grate temporary stopping the fan spinning. This allowed his two teammates to place explosives on the fan's support.
"Everyone back," Shikamaru said releasing the fan.
This was the part Naruto hated the most the waiting. They were ready but had to wait for everyone else to catch up to them. He tried to go over their mission in his head but there really wasn't that much to it. Hopefully by the time they reached their target location several other teams would be there.
Instead he started to think about the base itself. "I wonder how they built this thing without anyone noticing."
"It has to be an artifact," Otonashi answered. "There's no way both of our villages wouldn't notice construction this massive."
"Umm, what's an artifact," Naruto questioned.
"Don't bother Otonashi he didn't pay attention in history class." Sakura turned towards him, "An artifact is something that predates the ninja era." The orange clad genin nodded.
"Get ready to go in thirty seconds," Shikamaru announced. There was a soft rustling as everyone prepared to move. "Twenty seconds," Naruto reminded himself that he was supposed to go in last since he was bringing up the rear. "Ten, nine, eight," Shikamaru counted down the last few seconds. "Three, two one," several tags exploded simultaneously. In the distance other explosions could be heard but, as the fan and grate fell there were several other muffled explosions as the traps in the shaft went off.
Shikamaru was the first down the hole followed by his two teammates. Sasuke led the rest of them down. Naruto bounded down the shaft using his chakra to grip the smooth cement. The shaft bottomed out right in the middle of a tunnel and Naruto nearly collided with several of his teammates at the bottom.
Spinning to miss the fan's wreckage he slammed against a wall and rebounded off of it. "Why aren't we moving?"
"The map is already messed up," Sakura supplied. "There was supposed to be a break in the shaft up above but it was sealed tight. This tunnel is new," she gestured around them. He glanced around himself, the light was dimly lit but, he could see the walls were not cement.
"Naruto, create two clones and send them down the passage. If they find stairs tell me right away," Shikamaru shouted to him. "Everyone else let's move I don't want to stay near our entry point for too long."
They had not gone twenty feet when it happened. A huge white wall burst out of the ground cutting the corridor in two and cutting their group in half. Then the ground shook. Naruto tried to skid to a stop but ran into Otonashi who in turn collided with Sakura. All three of them ended up on the floor.
"What happened," Otonashi asked climbing to his feet.
Naruto shook his head and looked around the corridor in the dim light, "It's a trap but, I can smash through this wall." The blonde quickly created a doppelganger to help him with his Rasengan. In record time he was able to smash the spinning ball into the wall.
He expected splinters or perhaps a shriek of metal. What he had not been expecting was nothing. His chakra seemed to pass right through it without causing any damage. Shocked and annoyed he was about to prepare another one when Sakura grabbed his arm. "Naruto stop, listen."
The blonde cocked his head and did as he was asked. He heard something but couldn't identify it. Whatever it was it was growing louder. All three of them were staring at the opposite end of the quarter. It was at that moment he received some information from his clones, it was confusing but, they seem to have been bitten. "Cling to the ceiling."
"Why," Otonashi asked.
Before the jinchuriki could explain the reason became obvious. A slithering horde of snakes appeared at the end of the quarter. There were hundreds of them slithering and writhing over each other. They had to be a least a foot deep and they were coming closer.
Kiba Inuzuka and his only remaining human teammate Shino Aburame walked down a tunnel. Every ten paces one of them would place an exploding tag on the wall. Not for the first time that day Kiba wished that Hinata was still with them. Her Byakugan would've allowed them to split up and let them set the explosives twice as fast. Instead they had to rely on Akamaru's ears to detect traps. So far they had narrowly missed four trip wires, a pit so deep that they couldn't see the bottom and his personal favorite the ever popular hail of arrows.
"Damn generator, if it was quieter I could use my own ears," Kiba muttered.
"Complaining about it won't make it any quieter," Shino answered placing another explosive.
"This whole mission sucks. Why couldn't we be part of the main attack?" Team Kurenai had been assigned to take out some of the small bases along the border. When they had attacked the underground structure they only found wounded and exhausted Sound ninja most likely left over from the recent attack on Konoha. Of the ten only two had put up a fight and they had been both dealt with via genjutsu. "I haven't even drawn a weapon yet."
"Just because the mission has been easy thus far doesn't mean it can't suddenly turned deadly."
"Shino, you're a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day." Kiba thought for a second and then asked, "What are we going to do with the prisoners." Their prisoners were currently under the guard of Kurenai along with three Kumo chunin who were supposed to be their backup.
"We'll leave them with the Kumo team and then attack the next base. We want the path of retreat to be as wide as possible if it is needed," Shino did not sound like he was interested in the conversation.
Kiba growled irritated, he had a headache. It was making him irritable but sometimes he would swear Shino was teasing him. "That's not what I meant. What are we to do with the prisoners tomorrow just let them go?"
"Something like that," Shino answered.
"Doesn't it seem kind of stupid?
"Sound itself is not the problem. It is their leadership that is pursuing the war. With that gone they would most likely become just another hidden village."
"Filled with people we just kicked the shit out of," Kiba added.
Shino sighed or at least, as close as he ever came to sighing. "My father suggests that Konoha should try to encourage the other nonaligned clans in the Rice country to join Sound. That will dilute any residual anger and besides look at Sand. We have fought a major war against them and they betrayed us and yet they are still our allies. As ninjas we must be eminently practical."
Kiba snorted, "There's being practical and there's being stupid."
"I think the appropriate term is trust but verify. Besides the alternative is wholesale slaughter and no one in our village has the stomach for that."
They came to a doorway and Akamaru sniffed it before admitting a series of soft barks. Kiba interpreted. "It's just a storage room," he reached up and put in place an explosive at the top of the doorway. Akamaru whimpered some more and he had to commiserate with him. "I've got a headache too but, we left our medical supplies back with Kurenai sensei. As soon as we're done I'll get you something for it." He continued walking but noticed his teammate wasn't following him. He stopped and turned, "What's up?"
"You both have headaches?" Shino asked.
"Yeah, so what?"
"We have to get out of here now," Shino turned and ran back the way they had come. Kiba had known his teammate long enough to know that on the rare occasions that his teammate lost his composure he should be terrified. So, he did his best to catch up to him.
Akamaru passed them both and was the first out of the underground base followed in quick succession by the rest of his team. Kiba bent over to catch his breath. Surprised he was winded from such a short distance. Looking back he half expected to see the tunnel collapsing or something chasing them.
Kurenai ran over from where she had been watching the prisoners a kunai in hand. "What's wrong?"
Kiba glanced over at his friend wanting an answer too. Shino straightened his sunglasses and resumed his nothing bothers me attitude. "There was at least one more person in the base that we missed. They clogged whatever was ventilating the generators exhaust. We almost succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning."
Kurenai looked into the woods with newfound suspicion. "Shino as soon as you're up for it I want you to send your bugs into the woods. It's unlikely but the person who set the trap might still be lurking around hoping to rescue their comrades."
Shino responded by allowing his bugs to start to creep out from underneath his coat. Within a minute they were in the woods searching. Kiba straightened himself and grinned deciding to find all of this amusing. "Do you think they'll find them?"
His sensei shook her head in a negative fashion. "I doubt it was more than one or two people. If they saw you come out they probably assumed they couldn't rescue their comrades and will try to go back to the main base to report this and them." She nodded towards the Kumo chunin who were still guarding the prisoners. "Do you think you planted enough explosives to destroy the base?"
Kiba gave a toothy grin, "Oh yeah, big explosion." His eyes shined with hope. "Can I detonate it?"