Five weeks later, Naruto sat in a room with seven empty chairs in the middle, a larger throne set higher up behind them against the wall and a few throw pillows and a table for the audience. From the throne, a pair of green eyes considered his presence in the Orochi Grand Hall while a pale man with a similar name stood just outside the door. Naruto sat in silence as the mizukage deliberated over the young boy's presence in the hall of the seven swordsmen of the Mist. The mizukage was pleasantly surprised at the boy's mettle; not once did he break eye-contact. Those eyes, fluorescent blue like his chakra, were rocks in space, spinning on their axis as they revolved around their suns; the phases of the moon, the birth and death of the sun. There was something about those eyes, and in association, that boy, that made the mizukage finally order a bodyguard to call Orochimaru back into the room. Naruto would spend the next six months in Mizu; at the time, he thought maybe he had found his burial ground, his final resting place, but what he didn't realize was that there was much more in store for him than to be used as a bargaining tool against the other military powers of the shinobi world.

Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Excuse me for any inconsistencies, I'm still ironing out the timeline. Let me know if you see anything wrong! Thanks!

Sasuke sat in his chair, looking down at the ground past his knees wrapped in a blanket. His eyes peeled back the layers of the floor below him, looking past it to something else, something he couldn't find on this earth. His thoughts were on his brother and he pondered about his situation and about his own current predicament for so long that he began to lose track of time. The sanitized smell of the hospital might have gotten to his head by now if he hadn't spent so much time outside thanks to the company that he kept. He was alone in his hospital room but he knew the solitude wouldn't last; it was noon and every day at noon about five minutes late, Ino would stop by and tend to his flowers while she spoke with him. She would sit on his bed, he on his chair, and she would drink tea while his grew cold. Today would be no different, he thought.

"Sasuke!" That was Ino calling. Typical.

"Hai, hai. I'm here." He called back lazily; sitting further back in his chair as he used the arm rests to help him slide back into the uncomfortable wheelchair while he waited as the pretty blonde opened the door and stepped through, closing it quickly behind her with an ecstatic look appearing on her charming face.

"Sasuke! Sasuke! The Princess Gale story is out in theatres! Want to go with me?"

Sasuke smirked, "I thought you said you'd stop trying to ask me out."

Her own face twitched into an annoyed look as she grumbled, "Baka! Like anyone would want to date your moody ass. You get more visitors than any of the kages ever got to their funerals by all the female population of Konoha and it's making your head big like a fat Akimichi."

Sasuke snickered, "A fat Akimichi is like a… double negative."

"Well it certainly makes for a positive growth to your head."

He laughed at that. "I'm glad I can still get a positive growth to my head." Ino flustered incoherently but he ignored her reaction to his joke and frowned, acting hurt saying "You don't care anymore about my legs, do you?"

Still red in the face, Ino responded, "I was over that after the first day when you called me a 'nagging, straw-haired bitch'," she said, emphasizing the words as she placed her hands on her narrow hips, "and then shoved me off and nearly made me fall on my-"

"-flat," he interjected.

"Ass." She scowled at him, giving him what he liked to call the eye.

"You were asphyxiating me."

"You know, only stuck up assholes use words like 'asphyxiating' when they're actually talking; you think you're narrating your own life story or something. I was hugging you, asshole. I felt sorry for you. But now I realize that you're just a stubborn ass who couldn't have had a better thing happen to him in his life than to have his legs broken, because who knows what sorts of crazy trouble you'd get yourself into someday if you were, god forbid, ever able to walk again."

Ino glared. Sasuke shot one back. They both leered.

Then they laughed.

Sasuke didn't know why, but the young girl's presence ever since the kidnapping incident made it easier for him to cope with the loss of his legs. Her blunt attitude let him laugh at his own predicament and wonder less about what might have happened if that boulder had missed his legs. Maybe it would've hit him directly on the top of the head and he'd be dead. Either way, he had no illusions of ever becoming a shinobi again; with his left leg amputated and his right mangled he could barely wipe his own ass (and he did due to his own pride, and he was lucky that he still had a bit of mobility in his hips, though he struggled to and it would be easier if he just let someone else do it), much less hop from branch to branch as he burst through the forest on some ridiculous mission.

He found the other day that his chakra system was still working just fine, though he seemed to have slightly less of a chakra capacity ever since then. Oddly enough, his fireball jutsu seemed stronger ever since the incident, it just didn't last as long. He wasn't sure why, but he figured he could at least still learn something from the ninja library if the Hokage would only give him access.

"So, please Sasuke? C'mon, it's probably a real good movie! A new up and coming actress is performing in it and I hear it's based off of that old legend about the barefoot woman in the land of snowflakes who started off as a beggar and ended up being the Princess of the entire country."

"That sounds… excruciating."

"See? You sound like an arrogant ass when you use words like that." Ino smirked and Sasuke turned to look out the window and shrugged.

"Yeah, let's go. When does it start?"

"Fifteen minutes! C'mon!"

And without anymore warning, Sasuke felt Ino take the reins and rush him out the door and down the hallway out the hospital with nurses running after them waving their arms and yelling for them to come back just as Ino barreled him down a series of staircases, making him bounce roughly in his chair as he was tilted back and moved down the flight of stairs with ease. Every time the wheels to the chair hit the step below them though, his ass would bounce relatively hard on the uncomfortable chair, making him curse the blonde.

But he didn't scream. Why bother? If he broke anything else he probably wouldn't be in a much worse situation than he already was.

The Hokage signed off on another A rank mission Kakashi was to take to search for Naruto. It was the third one in last two weeks, six in the past three months. The first three months ago was to Mizu, immediately acting on Orochimaru's words during the incident, but Kakashi was unable to get across due to a rebellion that was taking place that supposedly ended the life of the Yondaime Mizukage and lead to a bitter war between many of the clans that had kekkei genkai and those whose lineage dated back to the founding of the village. Some even claimed to be from the giant sea behind Mizu away from the great shinobi continent.

Sarutobi was getting desperate, but his hope was starting to die down as well. He wanted to hear something back from the boy; it felt as if he were locked out of his own house and he knew that the key was inside, but just in case he checked everywhere and with everyone else because there was no way for him to get in without breaking his window and damaging his property.

Kakashi ended up infiltrating Kumo and Iwa instead of Mizu, but there was no sign of either Orochimaru or Naruto making it to either of those countries. He did learn a few interesting things. Iwa's populace laughed at the possibility of an heir to the Yellow Flash. He found that there was indeed a small group that had banded together with the intention of capturing the boy, but spies had quickly reported back in Iwa letting them know that the boy in question had already been abducted, possibly killed, and either way there was no proof that he was the Flash's boy in the first place. There were wild stories populating left and right, but not a single one mentioned Orochimaru's involvement in the kidnapping.

In Kumo, Kakashi found that they were still trying to find ways to get a hold of Konoha's Byakugan, and most of their training seemed to be geared around the possibility of running into an experienced gentle fist user. It was an interesting tactic, and Kakashi used his seven days in Kumo to find out more about their tailed beast vessels and learned that the Raikage's younger brother was apparently one of them. Kakashi left Kumo with little more information about Naruto. There was a rumor that the Godaime Mizukage had been selected by the time Kakashi left Kumo two months ago, five weeks after the abduction, but he was unable to verify it, even after trying to get back into Mizu again only for him to be attacked a mile from the shore by Mizu missing nin that were out hunting stragglers trying to exit the country due to the war.

They were all in his bingo book, so Kakashi disposed of each of them and even sealed away the bodies for further inspection himself, since he was an ex-hunter nin.

The further he tried to infilitrate, the more dangerous it became with ambushes and attacks sprouting up even by water when a group of shinobi who could breathe ice made their way out on his boat. After dealing with the strong, but young and inexperienced owners of their own kekkai genkai, Kakashi realized that he would need back up to infiltrate Mizu. Her turned back that same night and started heading back home.

When he returned to the crowded streets of Konoha after his mission debriefing, he saw Ino and Sasuke exiting the theatre together and smiled. It was good that the Uchiha boy had someone who cared about him the way family should; after all, the boy's only family alive was his brother, and there was no chance of them reconciling their differences… much less his brother Itachi reconciling his differences with the village.

Kakashi, worried about the effects that the cursed seal might have on Sasuke's body, walked up to the two young genin to see how they were doing.

"Yo! Sasuke-kun. Ino-kun."

Ino smiled when she saw the jonin sensei; she was surprised to hear how many missions he had gone on lately. They weren't kept much of a secret, the Hokage constantly explained to Naruto's close friends and not that the boy was being searched for, and they were doing everything in their manpower to retrieve him. Ino still had the scar of the map on the inside of her arm, though it was fading away slowly; it was a painful reminder that all of her struggling to maintain her jutsu had been in vain. It wasn't that she felt any sort of anger towards the Hokage or Kakashi or even her father because of Naruto's abduction, but she just had a lot of resentment towards herself. Had she just ignored what Naruto said and gone with him… Ino squeezed her lips together, drawing them firmly as she remembered the passionate,messy kiss that they shared during those last few seconds in desperation. Her face must've been red, because Kakashi chuckled.

"No need to be embarrassed, Ino. I won't tell anyone about your relationship; I just wanted to see how the two of you were, maybe we can all share an order of dumplings and talk about it?"

Sasuke smiled, "Yeah, I'm actually pretty hungry if you're buying."

Kakashi blinked, "Huh? Why do I have to buy?"

"You're the one doing all the A class missions, not us. You should treat us since you're the one who offered anyways. C'mon." Ino said, and then proceeded to wheel Sasuke along while Kakashi dragged on behind them.

I didn't say I would pay though…

When they arrived at the dango shop, Kakashi remembered that this was the same one that Anko frequented because she loved the sweet-tasting dumplings and could eat orders and orders of them; chalk it up to his dating experience when he was much younger: remember to take a girl somewhere where she won't want to eat away every last ryo to your name. Instead, get her that favorite treat of hers as a gift, hopefully not one used to make amends.

Remembering those fond, but brief, memories of Anko, he was not ready to hear what Ino had to say next.

"So, Kakashi-sensei. You've been gone for a long time on missions; did you hear that the proctor for next year's chunin exams here in Konoha has gone missing?"

Making a sound with his mouth, Kakashi didn't quite hear what it was exactly, but he was sure it made him obvious that the news upset him. "I'm sorry, were the two of you close? She's a few years younger than you, maybe? I'm not sure."

"Two years… I didn't know. How long has she gone missing?"

"Ever since Naruto was taken away…" Ino said, mumbling nearly under her breath. Reliving the kiss didn't exactly make things easier, and her feelings about the blond boy were all over the place; the worst thing about it was that he wasn't around for her to find out if she actually liked him or was just infatuated because of the circumstances surrounding him.

"That same day?"

Sasuke shook his head. "Hokage-sama said he wasn't sure when he came to visit me. He also said that it didn't look like anyone had broken into her apartment and she either was taken outside of her home or left on her own. Either way, he had to label her as a missing nin. Her name will show up on the new bingo books next quarter if no news comes back on her."

"Yeah, I remember that. She was Orochimaru's apprentice at one point… is it possible that…?"

Kakashi frowned and shook his head. "Anko spent a significant portion of her life trying to gain Orochimaru's acceptance because he was one of the few people who enjoyed her unusual mannerisms. He trained her at an early age and exposed her to dangerous experiments, even using her as a guinea pig for his cursed seal technique which you now bear on your shoulder, Sasuke."

Sasuke reached back and gripped his shoulder firmly, "Hokage-sama told me that only one in ten survived this cursed mark. I figure whatever Kami-sama has planned for me, it must be something big for me to still be alive after that seal and that boulder."

Ino grinned, "To annoy the hell out of us, of course."

Sasuke scowled at her and Kakashi sighed. "Is something the matter, Hatake-san?"

Kakashi turned his head and looked at Sasuke, a frown hanging underneath his mask. "I have been looking all of this time for Naruto, and I haven't found him. The place I know where he must be is in lockdown right now; there are just way too many shinobi fighting to get away unscathed."

"Is Mizu really that bad right now?" Ino asked, looking down but hiding away her arm from her sight to avoid being reminded by the mark.

"It's terribly bad. The traps they have set up are devious and there are bodies and parts of bodies lying all around the island shore. Many of them were the bodies of civilians trying to leave the country. With the reign of the previous mizukage finally drawing to an end, the normally violent shinobi from that bloody mist are twice as bad right now. My first few steps into the country had me fighting several chunin level shinobi that had defected and were now stealing from the corpses lying around; apparently most of the traps were set by them. I relived a bit of my ANBU days when I went to Mizu."

"That's so sick…" Ino bit her lip and turned her head away. "So… nothing at all about Naruto?"

Kakashi seemed prone to frowning today. One of the waitresses finally made it to their table and took their order, and moved back quickly to bring them five orders of dumplings so they could have some left over and some tea. Ino liked lavender green.

When the tea came a few minutes later an ugly silence took over the table as the three of them tried to cope with the loss of the young boy, someone they knew, if hardly at all the way they wanted to.

"We take people for granted." Kakashi said, finally breaking the silence. "I lost some very important friends of mine that made me the man and shinobi I am today… but I would trade all of that away to see any one of them again…"

Ino leaned forward on the table, covering one eye with her left hand while her right rubbed at the corner of her right eye. Why was Orochimaru in Konoha all of a sudden, just for Naruto? Ino felt the bitterness she bottled up inside for what happened about to burst out of her and bring her to tears when suddenly Sasuke spoke up in a different, unwavering voice.

"He'll come back."

Ino looked up, her eyes slightly red though she felt the tears dry up slightly.

"What?"

"If he doesn't come back on his own, I promise to bring him back on my own…" Sasuke closed his eyes as he searched for words before reaching out and setting his palm on the table in front of Ino, turning his hand upright to offer his palm.

"I will bring Naruto back for sure." Sasuke said. Ino shook at the look of determination that crossed his eyes. Ino couldn't believe what Sasuke was saying with that look on his eyes. He couldn't possibly find Naruto and bring him back in a wheelchair! No therapy or chakra or treatments or anything else would make it possible for him to go out and find the blond all the way in Mizu. Ino's doubts in others and herself, her regrets and the weight of her inner struggle were breaking her shoulder blades. Just when she thought she couldn't bear it anymore, everything… everything was wiped away in a single sentence said with the utmost sincerity and the most perfect timing possible.

"It's the promise of a lifetime."

Update: (5/3/12) One word was all it took to imply something that would ruin what I have been trying to build up to from the very beginning. Lmao. I hope nobody noticed it, but if you did, then I did not mean to imply what it did... Had to do with tailed beast vessels. By the way, finals are over! I'll be writing up something new soon.

Thanks again for reading and I hope you enjoyed. Very few things changed in this chapter... just that one word and added a little paragraph about the hokage. Thank you for your wonderful reviews!