Mehehehe, so...I make no promises on how fast this will be updated. love y'all!

-Chapter 3

-Ino-

Ino grunted as she squeezed through the narrow tunnel. Twice she had sucked in curses when her breasts were pressed so tightly to her chest that she had seriously thought they had flattened completely. They still ached, as did the rest of her body. Scrapes, bruises, probably even a few bumps on her head from running into a random stalactite here and there had her to the breaking point. If they didn't get there sooner rather than later she was going to tell them to stick this whole mission where the sun didn't shine.

"How much farther?" She ground out to the guide just ahead of her.

"Not far, we've almost reached it," Satoshi was an older man – Ino estimated he was in his mid-fifties – and was lean, almost thin. He had suffered from none of her woes as he slid through the tunnels like he had been born there. It was almost creepy how he slid along the walls, dodging and crouching suddenly without bothering to think to warn anyone behind him – Ino – that there were dangers ahead. He was the appointed guide of the team. The village leaders had claimed there was no one who knew the tunnels better than this man. Even annoyed with him as she was, Ino couldn't help but to agree.

"Thank Kami," she sighed as her shoulders slumped in relief. That same relief fled when her fingernails scraped painfully against an outcropping of rock. Her nails pulled away from the skin they had once been attached so tightly to and she yelped and held back a scream of frustration and pain. Envisioning the damage these stupid tunnels were causing her finely manicured nails made her want to weep. She didn't even want to begin to think about the dirt, so instead she imagined the spa she had passed on the way into the village. The village was covering all her expenses, and she was resolute that she would take advantage to the point of being unethical.

"Here we are," The cave-creature guide Satoshi held out a hand for her as she stumbled into the alcove. It was wide enough that she could hold her arms out and was able to touch both walls with only her fingertips, but it was smaller than she had imagined when they had described the place to her in the briefing. She looked back at the team behind her and felt the corner of her mouth drop as she considered the situation.

There were seven in her team: three Waterfall shinobi to protect, two researchers to help her gather and analyze, Satoshi the guide, and herself. If she had fully realized the size of her work space she would have never allowed so many. It was claustrophobic enough on the way in that she worried about all the carbon dioxide they were constantly expelling into the air. Satoshi had reassured her earlier that there was enough air flow in the caves that it was no different from breathing outside, but she still had to deal with the tightness in her chest when the walls seemed to close in and the air seemed too thick to breathe. She pinched the bridge of her nose and focused on the sounds of the waterfalls that echoed through the cave like a constant roll of thunder that never ended. It had been the only thing to soothe her during the entire trek through the cave. Nausea roiled in her belly once more, her throat constricted to fight the bile rising up, but she managed to swallow it down. She didn't have time to feel nervous, sick, irritated, or anything at all. It was time to work, and work did not wait for her to get in her 'happy place'.

"Miss Yamanaka?" the female herbologist behind her was obviously waiting on some sort of response.

"I'm sorry, did you say something?" by the look on the woman's face she obviously had, and was not pleased at being ignored.

"The specimen is right there" the woman jabbed a finger indicating somewhere behind Satoshi.

Ino turned and clicked on her head lamp to illuminate the space before her. The uneasy feeling in her gut fled when she spotted the small growth of vegetationin the center of the room. Her eyes widened in wonder as she knelt down to inspect the plant. It grew out of a fissure in the center of the rock floor. Her eyes traveled the length of the crack from one corner of the cave to another and she sat back on her haunches, looking toward Satoshi.

"Is this place safe?" She gestured to the crack.

The guide let his eyes trail along the crack, kneeling down to touch it with his fingers. "It's rare to see a crack like this cause any problem. If you look closely you'll notice everything is sloping toward the center. No doubt this was probably part of a much larger cavern and it collapsed hundreds of years ago. This crack is just where everything compacted together."

Ino placed her hand against the rock and traced the crack with her fingertips, she was surprised to see them come away glistening. "There is water coming in, but its not gathering in the center," she mused as she rubbed her thumb against her fingertips. "Do we know what is below us?" Ino looked to the guide for answers once more.

Satoshi stroked his mustache and shook his head, "This part of the mountain has been completely untouched until recently."

"Why is that?" She was pulling out tools as she spoke, weary of the man's answer.

"The passages had been closed off by rock. There was no entrance." His matter-of-fact answer proved she had been right to be weary.

"And no one wonders why these passages suddenly opened?" The last thing she needed was some ghostly encounter, and she really didn't feel like dealing with bandits or criminals.

"A team was sent to investigate but they found nothing. that being said, it's not improbable to think they missed a few tunnels." Ino nodded in understanding. In other words, it was completely possible that whatever opened up the tunnels was still in here with them.

"Daichi, why don't you take Kaito and Rokurou and have a look around. See if you can find a tunnel that would lead below us." The three ninja seemed relieved by the order. She couldn't blame them, they were not helping with the plants and were otherwise being wasted standing in place while the walls seemed to shrink around them.

It was almost an hour later when Ino surveyed her work. The plants had been clipped, snipped, harvested, and investigated. Her party now had quite a bit of research material to work with, and it was time to go. She still longed for that spa, and hoped they'd be open late. "Where is Daichi?" Satoshi shrugged in response before lifting his radio.

"Daichi, come in." Ino stood up, dusting off her knees and meeting the older man's eyes as they waited for a response. The uneasy feeling slammed into her when they received no response. By the fourth try, Ino's heart was racing in her chest while her stomach twisted.

Satoshi didn't look alarmed in the least as he slid the radio back into its proper pocket on his belt. "Often our radios don't work inside the mountain. They could be one tunnel away but all the rock could block the signal. No reason to be alarmed," Ino's shoulders slumped, so much for that spa.

"Okay, let's get this stuff out of here and back to the lab. Start preliminary testing and get one of these babies planted in a sim-environment. Satoshi-" she turned from the other two to look at the creepy cave guide, "Let's go ninja hunting."

Satoshi smirked ever so slightly, but his eyes twinkled with mirth. Ino was shocked to see a sudden warmth and attractiveness to his features she hadn't fully appreciated before. Satoshi was no doubt a man who enjoyed a bit of wit and dry humor. "Any idea where you'd like to begin?"

To her annoyance, her discomfort also seemed to amuse him. She watched the retreating backs of her research team before answering. "The spa in town would be nice," she had grumbled it to herself, but Satoshi's smile meant he had heard. "I can sense chakra nearby, but it's hard to tell where. I'm just going to sniff around until it gets stronger I suppose."

For the first time Satoshi looked uneasy. "I would recommend wasting no more than an hour on the sniffing. We are losing charge in our flashlights and if we lose our light it will be impossible to get out of here."

Ino gulped, that nauseous feeling reared its ugly head at her. Her hand went to her throat, as if rubbing at it would settle the stomach acid that was gathering there. "That sounds great," her sarcasm snapped like a whip. "Now let's get moving!"

Approximately fourty-five minutes later, Ino trudged behind the guide with her hands cupped around her mouth as she called for the lost ninja. Everything had failed, and their time was getting far too short for her comfort. Satoshi sighed, "Miss Yamanaka it is time to go. We only have enough energy left in these to get out."

Ino's disappointment was plain on her face. She didn't want to leave them behind, even if they were from a different village they were still her comrades on this mission.

"We can send out a search team at first light tomorrow. Our shinobi may not have the same reputation as those in Konoha, but they are still shinobi. They will survive on their own for one night."

She couldn't argue with that even though all her sense were screaming that something was terribly wrong. "Okay, lead us out."

She followed him without a word. Her intense searching had taken them far deeper into the tunnels than even Satoshi had been comfortable with, and now he was concentrating on retracing their steps. He was shining his flashlight down every passage, looking for the chalk marks he had made on the walls. After a while he became frustrated, "We did not travel down this passage this far, I must have missed a mark."

"There is no way Satoshi, I looked at all of them the same as you, there were no marks. We just need to keep going," Ino didn't like the set of his jaw as he nodded in agreement. She crossed her arms over her chest as if to ward off a sudden chill. He was right though, they hadn't come this far down any passage. "Is there another way to find a way out."

"Working on it," his tone was short and Ino sighed. "We need to speed up, at this rate we will be the ones who need a search team." Ino agreed and they began at a cautious jog. He shined his light like before, down each passage until he stopped so abruptly her face smashed in between his shoulder blades. "Aha!" Their down the adjacent passageway was a chalk drawing of an arrow.

Ino sighed in relief as she followed Satoshi into the passage. They continued their jog until the were suddenly standing between four tunnels. Her brow furrowed, Satoshi stiffened. "I don't remember being in the middle of a junction like this," Ino finally voiced what was obviously racing through both of their heads. Satoshi said nothing, swinging the light down each tunnel until he froze in place once more. Ino followed the light's path until her stomach dropped down to her knees.

"Miss Yamanaka!" Satoshi shouted after her as she darted down the path.

"Daichi!" she shouted, she could see his face, eyes closed as he lay across the passage floor. It wasn't until she got closer that the splash beneath her feet drew her attention. The blood was thick, already congealing - he had been here long enough that his blood had gone cold. She reached down to feel for a pulse and pulled her hand away slowly as she confirmed her fears. She pulled at the corpse's flak-jacket, trying to assess his body for wounds when the light in the tunnel went out. "Satoshi I need that light!" she barked in annoyance. When he didn't respond she let out a string of colorful language and stood up, fully facing the entrance "Satoshi!" She glared into the darkness where the guide had been standing, "I said - Ah!" She shielded her eyes as she was suddenly blinded by the flashlight. "What in the Hell, Satoshi!?" she snarled as she tried to rub the black spots from her vision.

"Don't worry princess, seeing is the least of your fucking worries."

Ino's heart seemed to stop altogether at the words whispered in her ear. She twisted around as she stumbled back but the black spots were still dancing before her vision. She could see silver hair, the form of a man, pale skin. Her heart thundered as her instincts and the adrenaline kicked in. "Run, Satoshi!" she screamed as she bolted back toward her guide. But even as she ran she looked back - Hidan leaned against the cave wall with seemingly no intention of chasing after her. She realized her grave mistake then, her head turned back to the foe before her too late. She had ran right into his arms - literally. She bounced off of the accomplice's chest and tried to use the momentum to turn out of his grasp, but his arms were like iron around her. He held her arms crossed in front of her, the light had dropped to the ground and plunged them into darkness as she struggled to free her hands to defend herself. Hidan's cackling growing closer made her fight harder, but the man who held her seemed to be having no trouble at all. She sucked in a breath, the fight leaving her as her old enemy knelt to pick up the flash light.

Hidan held the light beneath his chin, like a child telling a ghost story, "Boo!" he shouted, jumping toward her.

Ino yelped, flinching and struggling to protect herself even though the living straight jacket still held her arms across her middle. Hidan seemed to have a good belly laugh at that before advancing closer. He was less than an arm's length away when he stopped, no longer smiling. He looked her over from head to toe, his gaze made her feel like there were a million insects crawling over her flesh. He looked past her to the man who held her "What do you want to do now?"

"Knock her out," the voice made her blood run cold. She was craning her neck to look back at the man, trying to confirm that her mind had to be playing tricks on her. With the light pointed in the wrong direction, all she managed to glimpse was a flash of emerald green irises, floating in a sea of garnet sclera.

"No!" was all she could gasp before a sudden throb of pain and her vision blackened.

O

I know I said i'd try to make these longer but...well...I DIDN'T! Please be happy with the little bit more I managed to churn out!