Hello fellow readers! ^^ Sorry this chapter took so long, I've been busy, had writer's block... a lot of stuff. Oh, and guess what? Today is my birthday today! I am now 18 years old! YAHOOOOOOO! XD XD XD

Oh and for those who'll be wondering as they read this chapter, Sasuke will appear! I guarantee that! ... It just won't be until the next chapter. *Sasuke fans and impatient readers give me the evil eye* Eheheh... heh... I'll just shut up now and let you guys enjoy the story. ^^;;

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Sonic, or characters relating to either!

Blurred vision was the first thing that came when Naruto finally began to open his eyes. He moaned a little, feeling a little achy but nonetheless all right. Slowly, he began to sit up before he stretched and yawned, trying to straighten out his worn out joints. The orange-red fox then looked around, wondering where he was now.

The surrounding area looked like some sort of workshop. What kind of workshop, Naruto had no clue. What he could tell was that it was for building things like what Tails rode in when they first met. 'What did he call it again?' he thought while scratching his head in confusion. After thinking about it, he gave up; then the fox hopped off of the cot he had been resting on and left to find out where Sakura, Sonic, and Tails were.

"Naruto!" Sakura exclaimed when she saw the said nine-tailed fox outside. She ran up to him and grabbed him roughly by the shoulders. "I've seen you do crazy things before but after what happened earlier, I want to know what the heck came over you, nya~!"

The pink cat's rant toward Naruto confused him. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

"You know very well what I'm talking about! Don't play dumb!" Sakura proceeded with shaking the blonde's shoulders before suddenly stopping and examined him. "… I just realized something. How are you still walking? You should be resting!"

Still confused, Naruto looked down and noticed that his torso, legs, arms, and stomach area were covered in bandages. He blinked a few times, then pulled off the strips of cloth. Before Sakura could stop him, the blonde fox had already pulled some of them off. Surprisingly, there were no wounds on his body, enticing Sakura's curiosity.

"Wha… But…" she said as she pulled off the other bandages and saw no wounds anywhere! "How? You were out for an hour and a half; there's no way you could've healed so fast!"

Naruto just shrugged, looking just as confused as her. "I didn't feel much pain when I got up…" he said, then his expression changed to shock when he realized what she just told him. "Wait. I was out for how long?" He looked around the area and noticed that Eggman, his contraption, and Sonic and Tails were gone! "Where is everybody? And what happened to you Sakura-chan?"

Indeed, Sakura did look a bit beat-up herself. She had a couple of large Band-Aids on her left upper arm, a few small Band-Aids on her right arm, and a scuffmark on her forehead; her clothes and hair looked like they had just been soaked but dried over time for there were obvious wrinkles in the clothing and her hair looked a bit messy and frizzy. Other than that, she could've looked a lot worse.

The said pink cat then took a deep breath and had to explain what had happened…

Flashback/ Explanation:

After Eggman and Chaos disappeared, Sonic and Tails had to carry Naruto into Tails' workshop, then the former went to get Sakura while the latter stayed to tend to the unconscious fox. After tending to both of them, Tails looked over at Sonic, worried about what Eggman had said about Chaos earlier.

"We can't let him get away with this… can we?" he asked as he placed a wet cloth over his scratch.

Sonic shook his head. "No way little buddy!" he said. "There's no way we're letting that happen."

"Let what happen?" Sakura asked from another room for she had just taken off her wet clothes and was letting them dry while she dried herself off with a towel. Because of her threats to hurt the boys if they tried to peek on her, Sonic and Tails were officially forbidden from entering the other room. "Are you talking about that Chaos creature?"

"Yep!" said Sonic. "You saw how that thing grew in size, right?"

"Uh-huh." Sakura replied. "I saw. The Chaos Emerald made it stronger as well! I felt that blow when that thing sprayed that jet stream of water and it hurt like hell! I can't even imagine how strong it will be with more Emeralds like that!"

Tails smiled a little, glad that there were other smart and observant people like him in the world… this one or otherwise. "She has a point," he said to Sonic. "… Hmm… I guess this means we'll need to find them before Eggman does, huh?"

At this, Sonic smirked at the two-tailed fox. "Good idea!" he exclaimed. "But… where do we start looking?"

"Remember that cave that blows a little wind from it every once in a while?" Tails asked as he got up from a chair he had been sitting on. When the blue hedgie nodded, Tails walked over to a cabinet and opened it. Inside of it was a green crystal on a small brown stand like a trophy's. He pulled it out and held it up for Sonic to see. "I found this last week, but I haven't been able to figure out what it is. When I passed by that cave, I saw a marking on a stone slab and an area that had the exact same shape as this stand. It might be the key to that windy area!"

Sonic smiled at his little buddy, then playfully ruffled the young fox's head. "What are we waiting for then?" he said. "Let's check it out!"

"Hold on!" Tails exclaimed suddenly. "We can't leave Naruto or Sakura here!"

Sakura seemed to hear that for she then opened the door a crack and stared at them. They turned to the door when they heard her say, "Just go! I can't leave without any clothes on! I'll keep an eye on Naruto while you're gone." 'Yeah right!' inner Sakura shouted in anger. 'Once Naruto wakes up, I'm going to find out why he went crazy earlier!'

End flashback/explanation.

"… They've been gone for an hour and a half since then." Sakura finished after telling Naruto everything (except what Inner Sakura said).

The said orange-red fox just blinked a few times, a bit speechless at first. Then his expression changed to confusion and he scratched his head a few times. "Is that all?" he asked. At this, Sakura would have slapped him upside the head but didn't for he already seemed ignorant about what he did to the drill over an hour ago. 'I'll bug him about it later.' She thought. 'But still…' The image of Naruto's feral look surfaced in her mind. 'He looked very intimidating before… not to mention frightening!'

She sighed heavily and said, "Never mind. They just left to find a Chaos Emerald, that's all."

Naruto blinked once then he grinned. This freaked the pink kitty out a bit as she wondered what he was thinking.

"Then let's go find some ourselves!" the fox declared.

"Nya?" Sakura responded in surprise and confusion.

Naruto grabbed the cat's hand at that point. "C'mon Sakura-chan! This could be our chance to explore this world! See what it's like, what the buildings and landscape look like… I never noticed until now, this place looks pretty cool!"

Quick as a wink, Sakura pulled her furry hand away from his and gave the nine-tailed fox a cold glare. "Have you already forgotten what I said?" she exclaimed in all seriousness. "We still don't know a lot about these Emeralds and this 'world," She quoted 'world' with her fingers. "May very well be some kind of strong genjutsu… or the afterlife. We did fall down a hole after all- OUCH!" She gently rubbed her right arm right after Naruto pinched her there. He smirked almost the way Sonic smirked.

"See?" he said as if he were proving a point. "As long as we feel pain, that means we're alive!"

Even with Naruto's reassuring claim, Sakura still looked unsure. "I don't know Naruto…"

"Sakura-chaaaaann!" Naruto said, whining a little. "Come oooonn! You're smart… what if these Emerald things had the power to take us back to our world?"

No words came out of the pink cat's mouth at that statement. As much as she hated to admit it, Naruto did have a point. Now that she thought about it, Sonic and his little fox friend told them that there were seven of them and that they held unlimited power. But what were the odds of finding something like that? Sakura would have declined again if Naruto didn't add, "And what about Sasuke?"

That question caught the cat's attention the most. 'That's right. We were all separated after we ended up in this world…' she thought. 'But we don't know where he is or what he looks like right now… Or if he's even alive.' Tears came to her eyes at that thought. 'I guess… it'll be okay… if we explore this world. We might find Sasuke along the way!'

"Alright Naruto," Sakura said after much thought. "We'll explore."

Naruto grinned and 'Yahoo!'ed in victory.

"The train headed for Station Square will be departing soon!" a loud voice said. To the two genin, it sounded like it came from the air.

"Did it," said Naruto.

"Just say that the train is…" Sakura added.

"Departing?" They both asked simultaneously.

It took a while for that to register before finding out what it meant as they saw the said train about to leave. In a panicked rush, they wrote a quick note for Sonic and Tails when they got back, and took off towards the station.

"Wooooowww! This has got to be one of the tallest buildings I have ever seen before!" Naruto exclaimed as he looked up to see how far the building he was staring at went on for. Unfortunately, it was dark out, so he wouldn't be able to tell anyway.

Both furry shinobi had just arrived in Station Square around sunset and had spent most of their time exploring the city. While exploring, they learned several things:

One, people weren't accustomed to a couple of ninjas running along or attempting to climb up the buildings. Even though they didn't know what they meant, they were given a couple of pink slips by the police warning them not to do that on city grounds anymore.

Two, beware of holes in the ground regardless on whether or not they were covered by a metal circular plate.

Three, stay off of the black pavement known as a 'street' for they nearly got run over by five vehicles known as 'cars'.

And four, Naruto had just fallen in love with a food neither of them had ever tasted before in their world…. HAMBURGERS!

Right now, they had just gotten out of the burger joint and were walking back to the hotel they had been in yesterday. It recently came to their attention that they didn't know or have the currency that this world used; therefore they had to wash dishes just to pay off the large debt they owed the burger guy. They were sore all over, but they had to bear with it. The next ten minutes resulted in Naruto complaining about how much washing dishes sucked and how it was worse than doing D rank missions back home.

It would've gone on for hours had he not seen the tall office building. Sakura moaned in a cat-like manner and yanked at the back of the fox's jumpsuit. "Quit gawking!" she said in an annoyed tone. "We don't want to attract any more attention than we already have."

Naruto moaned a little, then decided not to make Sakura any angrier than she already was and let her drag him to the hotel.

Upon arrival, the hotel manager greeted them. "Welcome back!" he said with a customer friendly smile. "Would you like a room for the night?"

"After all we had to endure today?" Sakura asked with an annoyed look on her face. "Yes!"

"Great!" said the manager as he got a key off of the wall and handed it to the pink kitty. "Your room is on the second floor room-"

"Hold on! We don't have any money for this…" Sakura explained.

The manager just chuckled a bit. "True, but you two are new friends of Sonic, am I right?"

At this, both cat and fox muttered, "What makes him so important?"

"Sonic is a world renowned hero." The manager explained after hearing what they had said. "He's saved the world so many times that I have lost count!"

This sparked their interest somewhat… but then again, they also didn't seem very surprised. After what the furry genin learned about Sonic, almost nothing seemed to surprise them. With a bored shrug they decided to search for the elevator… which they also had no idea what the heck an 'elevator' was. After about several minutes of looking around, the manager said, "Speaking of Sonic, I saw one of his friends pass by here not too long ago. He also had someone tagging along with him. I didn't make out who he was but he somehow reminds me of you two."

Naruto and Sakura stopped looking for a moment to listen.

"This person had blue and white clothes and a headband similar to yours-"

"Where did they go?" Sakura exclaimed, showing full interest in this. Naruto just looked irritated. They knew who the manager was talking about even if they didn't know all the details. Their missing teammate was just here and alive, but where did he go was the question.

The manager pointed to a large door next to the two elevators after hearing the question. "They went that way, towards the casino." He said. "Don't worry, the casino area opens around nighttime." The two furries didn't care about the casino, they needed to find Sasuke there and that was all that mattered right now. Without so much as a 'thank you', they both ran out the door to find this 'casino'.

After about thirty minutes of searching for the casino, Naruto and Sakura finally found it courtesy of the directions a boy and his mother gave them… which wasn't very far. The two furries walked up to the casino door and proceeded attempts to open it.

"Pull harder Naruto!" Sakura shouted to the blonde fox, tugging at the handle to said door to no avail. Naruto was doing the same thing; the only difference was that one of his feet was planted on the wall as he pulled.

"I'm… trying!" he said in a strained voice as he kept pulling as hard as he could.

At some point, the cat and fox let go, the latter tumbling backwards to the ground. Naruto groaned before standing right back up, glared angrily at the door, and tried pulling at it until he was exhausted. His pink furred teammate only sighed at his failed attempts. "Forget it Naruto!" she said. "It won't open."

Naruto didn't listen and started pushing the door to try to get it open. All Sakura did was watch as he drove himself to the point of exhaustion once again. She sighed heavily and decided to examine her surroundings out of boredom. She couldn't understand why Naruto wouldn't give up. His determination was incredible, she'd give him that, but that was when they were in combat, training, or dire situations. This was neither combat, training, nor a dire situation, so why the heck was he so determined to open a stupid door?

Better yet, why did she even care? Sakura just sighed inaudibly at that. 'He's an idiot.' She thought. With that, she walked off to a safe distance from the orange-red fox to start training. As long as they stuck in this world, it didn't hurt to do some ninja training; she didn't want to be out of practice after all! She reached into her pouch and pulled out the two remaining sticks she had left.

Looking around for a target, the pink cat caught a glimpse of the neon lights from the casino's exterior, focusing on a round shape she thought was perfect for target practice. She threw the twigs as if they were shuriken or the acupuncture needles she remembered from the last mission, aiming for said circle.

They missed several times and since they were wooden, they didn't go really far the first few attempts. After adjusting to the weight of the sticks and altering her throwing speed, Sakura managed to get one of the sticks to hit the circle. A musical fanfare suddenly reached the cat's ears followed by a 'THUD!' and Naruto groaning in a humorous fashion. She looked up after picking up the stick and saw that the door was now open with the said fox fallen over on his side.

"… The door's open…" he muttered before rolling onto his back, spirals in his eyes.

Sakura was surprised to say the very least. She had unknowingly found a way to access the casino despite her lack of knowledge on this world's technology. Inner Sakura did a victory pose and kept cheering for herself, 'Oh yeah! I opened the friggin' door! I rock! Cha!'

After her mental cheering ended, Sakura straightened herself then pulled Naruto up before saying, "Come on Naruto! Let's go in and find Sasuke."

As much as Naruto hated the idea of searching for Sasuke, he forced himself to agree and walked in the casino with Sakura.

Like I said before, Sasuke will make an appearance in the next chapter. I won't tell you how, though.

So until then! ^^

Ja-ne!