Chapter 19
"We're ready!" Naruto said as soon as he set foot in the Hokage's office.
"It's about time!" Kiba yelled when he saw the blonde. "We've been waiting for... ten minutes!"
"H-hi N-Naruto-k-kun," Hinata greeted.
"Hey Hinata. And we were only ten minutes late! It was Kakashi-sensei's fault!"
Kakashi shrugged. "My dryer caught on fire. Faulty cord," he lied.
Tsunade rolled her eyes. "Now that you're all here, I finally can give you the details of the mission..."
"I'm coming too!" another voice called out, and Clare popped into the doorway. She was panting. "Come on, Gaara!"
"I'm right here," he told the overactive girl. Lee was with him. "Consider this repayment for my rescue," he said before Tsunade could get a word in edgewise.
"Fine. I've received intel that he's in Iwagakure, don't ask me why. Good luck, you're going to need it."
XXXXXXXXXX
"This is crap," Sasuke muttered angrily while running through the trees at a breakneck pace.
"Now, now, Child," Orochimaru chided, earning a pointed glare from his student. "The traps guarding this scroll will test your new abilities, and the scroll is rumored to contain quite a few ancient jutsu."
"It would be much more productive to attempt the Vault in Mist," Sasuke told the Sannin.
Orochimaru would have agreed, had he not had an inkling of what was guarding that vault and who owned it. It was supposedly owned by the Shino cooperation, Daisuke Inc; who specialized in producing impossible traps and labyrinths, and then there was Kahaku. Kahaku was rumored to possess a kekki genkai that allowed him to manipulate the blood of another person's body and was a master stealth ninja. Additionally, it was impossible to break in, only three people had the pass card, and they had sworn an oath to die before allowing someone else to get through the maze, and it was nearly impossible to touch them. The pass card was only one of many precautions anyway, a person had to memorize the locations of several pressure plates to get through the maze without the alarm being triggered and one wrong step would result in the alarm being triggered as well.
Even Orochimaru wasn't stupid enough to attempt that. "Patience, Child. Not even you are strong enough for that, yet."
"Hmph, it can't be that hard, it's not like there's a demon guarding it."
Orochimaru wasn't so sure about that. There had been a few rumors a while ago... "In any case, we're closer to the scroll in Iwagakure."
Sasuke didn't look convinced, but also decided not to press the issue further. They stopped when they reached the abandoned cemetery. Unlike a horror film in which these sorts of things usually happen in, the sun was bright, the grass was green, and there was no mist. Just a few dead flowers scattered here and there.
They approached the catacomb in the middle of the cemetery, and other than a musty, rotting smell, nothing seemed out of place. Regardless, Sasuke activated his Sharingan and scanned the area, just to be sure. There were no traps apparent, so he swung open the metal gates.
"Sasuke!" a feminine voice yelled, and crashed into him for a hug.
"Sakura, what are you doing here?" he asked in an annoyed tone.
The pink haired girl let go of him. "We're here to bring you back to Konoha," Naruto answered. "Let's go, before that weird snake guy comes back."
"I'm not going," Sasuke told them coolly. He knew that Orochimaru was watching from somewhere nearby, and had probably moved into the shadows as soon as he detected the other ninja. "I've outgrown Konoha."
"If you're not going to come back with us willingly, then we'll just have to drag you back!"
Sasuke reached into his own pouch for kunai. "That's fine by me."
"No! Don't fight, SASUKE!" she screamed when he took a punch to the face. Naruto followed up with another one, which Sasuke also took without defending himself.
"That's for leaving us in the middle of a mission!"
The force of the kick to the chest Sasuke took cracked a headstone when he fell on it. He waved Sakura off when she tried to help him up and he stood by himself. "I'm not going back," he told Naruto, which incited the boy to charge after him. Sasuke caught Naruto's fists, ignoring the fact he was being driven back through the graves. Sasuke dug his heels into the soft dirt, bringing the two of them to a stop. Naruto let go first, and directed a kick to Sasuke's head, which was parried with a kunai.
To that Naruto responded with making a ton of shadow clones, which Sasuke destroyed and then went after their creator. Fire jutsu scorched the grass and a few stones, but missed Naruto who quickly started to sign for Rasengan. Sasuke did the same for Chidori, but then they clashed Naruto's Rasengan was stronger. The black haired boy managed to get out of the way in time to escape mostly intact, but his sleeve and some of the skin on his arm was torn. The whiskers on Naruto's face had deepened, and feral canines were poking out above his lip.
Dark marks slithered across Sasuke's skin, and one of his eyes changed color, but Sasuke didn't allow it any further than that. His Sharingan allowed him to catch a punch that Naruto attempted to land, and land a kick of his own. The force sent Naruto reeling, and the crash sent up a cloud of dust.
Without waiting to see if Naruto would get up, Sasuke sent kunai with wires attached to them into the dust cloud and then activated a jutsu that sent fire down the wires. When Naruto charged out of the dust, the burns were already healing and he had a Rasengan in his hand. It was caught, but not before it skinned Sasuke's cheek. Naruto expanded the jutsu, causing a little more damage before Sasuke deflected it and kicked Naruto in the cheek.
"Give it up," Naruto said. "I don't want to fight you, but you have to come back to Konoha."
"I'm learning much more with Orochimaru then I ever learned in Konoha."
Another wave of copies came after him, but not one scored a hit. They were incinerated before they got the chance, and Naruto took the opportunity to charge through the brilliant flames and punch Sasuke into the opened catacomb. He didn't see the black marks form into one solid grey mass that covered the other boy, nor did he see the hand-like wings unfold. He did hear a weird moaning noise that echoed through the graveyard.
"Come on, Sasuke! I'll stop hurting you if you just come back to Konoha!" Naruto called.
"Idiot, that wasn't me," Sasuke growled as he came barreling out of the crypt. The phrase "like a bat out of hell," sprang into Naruto's mind.
"Then who was it?"
Sasuke had taken a defensive position beside Naruto instead of against him. "That crypt was guarded, idiot. When you pushed me down there it activated some kind of jutsu."
"Who would want to guard a bunch of dead people? They're already dead," Naruto asked, all animosity towards Sasuke forgotten for the moment. Like a cliche horror film, one skeletal hand pulled the rest of the corpse out of the catacomb. It was followed by another, and through the grate Naruto could see that there were more.
"Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
"Phoenix flower jutsu!"
They sliced and diced as many as they could, but the undead just kept coming, undeterred by the sunlight, and they had weapons. A few even knew rudimentary jutsu, and after an hour both were panting heavily. Sasuke threw in five kunai with wires attached, and then electrified them. The zombies lit up like Christmas tree lights, but more replaced them.
"Raaaaaaaaaaah!" Naruto yelled, and started charging through with a Rasengan gleaming between his hands. Piles of zombies accumulated on either side of him, and Sasuke punched the last of them that were out of the crypt. Naruto stood by his side.
"I think that was the last of them," Sasuke said in between pants.
"Yeah... I think we got them. What's in there that's so important anyway?"
"NONE MAY ENTER! TURN BACK!" an ominous and loud voice boomed suddenly. The birds fled from the trees, and both Naruto and Sasuke had to cover their ears to avoid being deafened.
"God, that thing's as bad as Sakura for being loud," Naruto complained.
"Agreed."
"Well now that we've gotten this far, we have to see what's in there. What are you waiting for, Sasuke-teme?"
By this point, the sun was beginning to set. It cast long shadows over the broken graves, and Sasuke was half expecting the zombies to rise again. Naruto seemed to catch his train of thought, and shivered. Sasuke himself looked scary with the grey skin and wings, combined with the Sharingan, he looked like something that would crawl out of that sarcophagus. When it became apparent that the zombies were destroyed adequately, the black star on the bridge of his nose and the rest of the grey covering his skin receded back into the curse marks, and the wings into his shoulders.
The claws on Naruto's hands as well as the red aura surrounding him faded as well. In a few minutes, the two of them were back to normal, and it was almost as if nothing had changed between the two of them.
"I'll go first, we don't need to set off any more traps," Sasuke decided, and shot a pointed looked at Naruto. Naruto nodded, and followed Sasuke in.
"So, Teme, why did you leave Konoha in the first place?" Naruto asked by way of making conversation. He brushed a spider web out of the way as he walked, the only way he could see was because he had taken on the fox's eyes. Sasuke had his Sharingan.
Not that it wasn't making Naruto nervous. The lack of light lended the entire place a creepy feel, any minute something could pop up, like a ghost...
Naruto did a full body shiver and looked behind him, but there was nothing. He wished he had the Byakugan, just to be sure.
"Something wrong, dobe?"
"N-no. Hey, you don't think there are any ghosts down here, do you?" Naruto asked in a shaky voice.
"There are no such things as ghosts," Sasuke said firmly. He decided that a freaked out Naruto wouldn't help him much, and changed the subject. "I left because I want to become stronger."
"To kill that man you were talking about." Naruto shivered when he heard a low moan, and Sasuke stopped entirely. "W-what was that?" he whispered.
"How would I know? It's not as if we set off any traps, it could just be a draft of wind..."
"Sasuke, duck!"
As it was better to err on the side of caution, Sasuke did as Naruto had directed. When they straightened, they saw holes had opened up on the other side of the wall. Naruto picked up a senbon that missed.
"Is the entire thing going to be like a cliche movie? First the zombies, now Indiana Jones..."
Sasuke didn't wait for Naruto to finish, he pushed him out of the way. A hole stood where Naruto had just been, with sharp spikes at the bottom. Then Sasuke himself had to move, lest he be subject to the sharp and unpleasant looking fate. They quickly figured out that if they stayed in the same spot for more than a few seconds, the tiles would move out from under them.
It turned into a race as to who could get across faster, until they finally came across a piece that looked like a normal catacomb. Coffins lined the walls, and the scent of decay had faded but was still present. Nothing looked out of place, which made it all the more suspicious.
All the same, the two of them walked out into it. Nothing happened until they were about halfway through, and then a cloud of something that stung their lungs burst out and filled the entire chamber. Whatever it was, it flooded the room for a few seconds and then seeped out through vents in the walls.
For Naruto, the effects of the poison faded over a period of a few minutes. When he woke up again, he moaned. "Sasuke-teme?"
There was no answer. Naruto blinked to clear his vision and in the process noticed that Sasuke was still unconscious. He pulled out some smelling salts that Raito had forced him to take and rubbed them under Sasuke's nose until the other boy woke up, coughing. It sounded really bad, and he looked extremely pale and sick.
"Sasuke-teme, come on, this is no time to be taking a nap," Naruto said as he stood and extended a hand to help him up.
Sasuke coughed again, and there was a rattling sound in his chest. "...Can't," he said after a few minutes of coughing. He literally couldn't, his body was refusing to move.
"Oh, that was poison, wasn't it?" Naruto realized, slapping his forehead. Without warning, he grabbed a syringe, yanked the cap off, and grabbed Sasuke's arm. He extended it and felt around his elbow until he found the vein Haku had told him to find and injected the contents into Sasuke. Then he waited patiently for a few seconds while Sasuke recovered.
"What was that?"
"That was an antidote Haku gave me, it's supposed to cure just about any poison," Naruto explained. "Good thing he gave me that, huh?"
The yellow haired boy put the cap back on, there was still plenty left. Haku had told him that it "Yeah," Sasuke agreed. He stood up a little shakily. "Come on, we need to get going."
Naruto nodded. "Sasuke, I think you should take the rest of this. I can purge most toxins from my body on my own, thanks to the fox, and if I need it I can always get more from Haku."
"Hmph," Sasuke said, but took it anyway. It disappeared into his kunai pouch for safe keeping.
"I hope Sakura-chan's alright," Naruto voiced after a few minutes of silence. Nothing had happened for the past few minutes, just walking down the crypt.
"Sakura's no match for Orochimaru-sensei," Sasuke replied coolly.
"Nah, Sakura-chan's gotten a lot stronger since you've left. Granny Tsunade taught her some of her moves."
Sasuke snorted at the familiar address, but it was Naruto. "Not strong enough to beat Orochimaru-sensei."
"Sakura-chan's scary now, I think you're underestimating her. Not that you ever recognized her place on the team anyway," he added.
"Sakura never did any of the work when we went on real missions. She screamed my name a few times and watched," Sasuke argued.
"Sakura-chan saved Haku and Raito," Naruto replied before he remembered exactly what Raito had threatened to do to him if he told anyone that. "But don't tell Raito or Haku I told you that, they'll kill me."
"What do you mean, Sakura rescued Raito and Haku?" Sasuke asked, now genuinely curious.
Naruto's face stretched into a devious grin. "Can you keep a secret?"
"I've yet to tell Sakura about the time you impersonated me," Sasuke pointed out.
Somewhere, Raito felt a disturbance in the force and had the sudden urge to beat Naruto senseless.
"Raito. In a dress."
Sasuke's eyes widened in the darkness. "How?"
"This organization in Suna, the CICOP and C, they kidnapped the two of them and dressed them up for a parade," Naruto said conspiratorially. "I don't know how they got Raito into a dress and the two of them to impersonate a rainbow, but they did. They were going to do the same thing to Sakura and I when she heard someone calling our names..."
"Wait just a second, you expect me to believe that some organization in Suna managed to kidnap Raito and Haku? I don't believe you."
"Ren was there," Naruto muttered.
"I'll bet." It was evident from Sasuke's tone that he didn't believe what Naruto was claiming.
"I'm serious! Raito threatened to autopsy me and everything while I was alive if I so much as so much as thought of it!"
Naruto was almost so busy trying to convince Sasuke that he was telling the truth that he nearly ran into the giant double doors that stood in their path. Without so much of a thought, Sasuke pushed them open.
The room was empty, and there wasn't another door. After thoroughly checking the room, both arrived at the same conclusion, they had missed something, or someone had gotten there before them.
"Man, that was a waste of time! There wasn't even anything down here!" Naruto complained loudly.
"We should go, then." Sasuke sounded a little put out. "Come on, Baka."
"Baka!" Naruto yelled in protest. "I'm not the one that wanted to come down here!"
"Yes you were! You said that since we got as far as the zombies, we might as well see what was down here!"
"But you were the one that was going to come down here first!"
"You pushed me!"
"Well if you had just stayed in Konoha..."
"Enough."
Both boys turned around. "Who are you?" they asked in unison, then glared at each other.
"I am the guardian, and I can not allow you to leave. You have learned too much about what guards the scroll."
"So there is a scroll," Sasuke said with some interest. He gave Naruto a "I told you so" look.
"It does not matter, neither of you will see it. Your journey ends here." The guardian drew a slender katana and took a fighting stance.
"I knew there had to be something else down here! I'm going to defeat you, believe it!"
"It takes some kind of stupid to try and defeat the two of us," Sasuke said as he drew a handful of kunai.
"We shall see," it replied. Without even moving, it deflected the kunai and in a deft movement it blocked Naruto. Seamlessly, it defeated Naruto's shadow clones as well as scoring a cut on Naruto's shoulder.
"Phoenix flower jutsu!"
The flame engulfed their enemy, but when they cleared he remained perfectly intact.
"Is that all?" it asked. Faster than even Sasuke could keep up with, it moved behind them and they barely managed to escape the blade.
"Not even close!" Naruto declared as he blocked the katana with two kunai. They held for maybe a moment before they shattered. Sasuke attempted to stab the being with a kunai as he had a clear shot, but it went through as if there was nothing there.
"You can not kill that which is not alive," the apparition said as he swung his blade at Sasuke.
"Then how are you even here?" Naruto started signing for more shadow clones, but it ran them through before they got the chance to do anything.
"I've been sealed here, my will bent to my masters," it replied. Shuriken aimed for Sasuke, but before they could hit he had moved and was now looking for the seal.
"Naruto, there!"
"Right! Rasengan!"
The specter turned to Sasuke. "You."
He slashed the katana downward, cutting Sasuke's cheek. Sasuke managed to block it before it went any further and deflected it before jabbing towards where the stomach would be.
To his surprise, it turned to dust.
"I think we got it," Naruto said as his Rasengan dispersed. The tag was now in ruins, barely clinging to the exposed rock. Naruto picked it out and tore the thing up. "So, where's the scroll?"
Sasuke scanned the room for the scroll again, but still nothing appeared. Then again, he hadn't seen the tag before either. All the same, it wasn't worth it to have Naruto tear up the interior when it was likely it wasn't even here anyway. Sasuke cursed whoever built this place once again.
"I don't think it's in here. We'll search again on our way out, but if we don't find it then, I'm going to have to think someone took it before we got here."
Naruto nodded with a smile. "Then let's go."
As soon as he crossed the barrier to leave again, torches that they hadn't noticed the first time flared to life, illuminating the hall. It also shed light on Sakura and Raito, who were waiting in the hall.
"It's about time you guys got out here, you've taken longer than Kakashi," Sakura said.
"Sakura-chan? What are you doing here?" Naruto asked.
"We were waiting for you two, idiots," Raito replied for the pink haired girl. "What took you guys so long, anyway?"
"There was some kind of ghost sealed in... wait, Raito, I thought you weren't coming with me and Sakura to get Sasuke back?"
"This place is dangerous, when I heard he was coming here... I got worried," she said, her cheeks turning pink.
"Hmph, I can handle myself." Sasuke said it haughtily, but internally he felt a thrill that she cared that much.
"You took on a ghost, Naruto? Are you ok?" Sakura asked with concern visible in her voice. She took Naruto's face in her hands and looked him over, making sure he wasn't hurt.
Naruto blushed. "I'm fine, Sakura, really."
"No... I think you've got a cut on your lip. Here, let me kiss it better."
Sakura reached forward and kissed him, sliding a kunai out of her pocket at the same time. "Naruto, that's not..."
Before he could warn his friend, Raito was kissing him. Sasuke pushed her off somewhat reluctantly, and she pouted. "Don't you like me?" she asked.
"You're not really Raito, just like that's not Sakura."
Sasuke grabbed the kunai from Sakura's hand. Instantly she stopped kissing Naruto to glare at him. "I wouldn't have done that if I were you."
"S-Sakura-chan?"
"No, that's an impostor. I don't know how my Sharingan didn't see through it... but we have to get rid of them of them."
"You don't want to get rid of me, he's just jealous because I've realized that I want to be with you," Sakura purred. She placed herself in Naruto's line of sight so he couldn't see Sasuke.
"Now I know you aren't Sakura-chan," Naruto said. "The real Sakura-chan would never say something like that."
Sakura let go of him and took a step back, joining Raito. The two girls looked at each other and nodded. "Have it your way..."
"...but we're not going to let either of you out alive."