When Sasuke next awoke, it had been to a yell that was cut off by an oddly liquid sounding gurgle. He did his best to pretend he was still unconscious as he heard the thud of a body hitting the floor and the faint footsteps of an approaching ninja. Just because one of his kidnappers had been killed, didn't mean that the person who had done the deed was friendly. Pretending to be unconscious however didn't stop him from tensing up when the stranger started cutting his bonds.

"I know you're awake Sasuke." the Uzumaki said as he unbound his hands.

"How?" he asked, wondering how the Uzumaki had managed to get loose and free them when he was barely able to move, much less remain conscious.

"I'm generally immune to most drugs and poisons, which is really lousy when I have a headache. If it's used on me once, it usually won't work again." The Uzumaki replied as he patted him down, checking him for injuries. "I came to on the way in, and they were forced knock me out manually when the crap they used on Saida didn't work on me again even though they used a concentrated dose. They wouldn't have been able to manage that if I hadn't still been a little groggy."

"But how did you...?" he asked, as the Uzumaki undid the blindfold.

"Caused a distraction and slipped out." the Uzumaki said as he displayed a storage seal that was inside the rolled up sleeve of his jacket. "Despite that nasty trick with the "civilians", not everyone here is one, and it seems that not all of the ninja of Yugakure were willing to slip into a peaceful lifestyle. After I saw what I was up against, I went for help."

"So Kakashi and Tetsuo are..." he started, wondering exactly how weak he was if he was in this condition and just about everyone else had already gotten better.

"Probably still back in Saida in roughly the same shape you are now." the Uzumaki replied as he sawed through Sakura's bonds with a kunai.

"Then who...?" he asked as he struggled to stand.

"A group that we will be paying with our services in exchange for the assistance they provided." the Uzumaki replied as he picked up Sakura who was still unconscious.

"Our services...?" he asked, wondering exactly what services the Uzumaki was referring to, as it wasn't unheard of for ninja to trade certain...favors in exchange for other favors. Usually, it was Kunoichi who did that sort of thing, but...

"They're going to raid these bastards' main base over in Hot Water Country, and they need a little back-up in case things go south." the Uzumaki replied as he offered him the hand that wasn't busy supporting Sakura who had been slung over his shoulders in a fireman's carry.

The Uzumaki helped him outside, seemingly unconcerned about the dead bodies that were strewn about the kidnappers' former hideout, and helped him over to a convenient nearby log where he could sit down. As soon as he was seated, the Uzumaki gently set Sakura down at his feet and moved over to the wall of the building that he and Sakura had been held in and started writing on it with a marker he had pulled out of a storage seal that had been stitched into the inside of one of his sandals.

"What are you doing?" he asked as he watched the Uzumaki cover the wall in graffiti.

"Leaving Tetsuo-sensei a note so he knows what's going on and not to attack the help." the Uzumaki replied.

As he started to wonder why their sensei would attack the people who had helped them, a stranger who was carrying a couple of unconscious children slid out of the shadows. Despite the fact that the man was a shinobi, he had never seen the man before in his life and, upon further examination, he knew why that was. The metal plate on the man's hitai-ate which glinted faintly in the light coming from the building they had just exited bore the symbol of Kirigakure.

"Is this the help you're offering?" the masked man, who was bare-chested except for a belt on which a massive sword had been hung, said. "They're just a couple of weak looking brats."

"Chill." the Uzumaki said. "Sasuke's a solid Chunin in everything but actual rank, and Sakura's a genius. Besides, we've got two Jounin on the way, and I might be able to secure you a bit of extra pay for rescuing that lardass' children."

"You walk yet Sasuke?" the Uzumaki turned and asked him after placating the stranger. "We need to get the hell out of here before these guys' buddies come around wondering why they haven't kept in contact."

He stood back up, and staggered in a rough circle. He was still a bit wobbly but, he could walk. He was apparently too slow though because, the masked man frowned and muttered something that he was reasonably certain was uncomplimentary before signing something to someone who was behind him. He didn't know what the sign was because it was in Kiri, but he quickly figured out the meaning when a stranger picked him up and slung him over his shoulder. As he tried to struggle out of the man's grip, a man in a cloak picked up Sakura.

"Don't struggle Sasuke." the Uzumaki said as he tried to get back to the ground. "It'll only waste time we don't have and increase our chances of getting killed when these guys' buddies show up and find out what we did to them."

Growling at the indignity of it all, and the fact that he was so weak that he had to be carried like a little baby, he stopped fighting the man who was carrying him. As soon as the man who was holding him was sure of his grip, the group departed, taking to the trees, and weaving through a circuitous route that frequently doubled back on itself.

"You know," the Uzumaki said after a while. "I know a little trick that'll get trackers off our tail and hurry this along."

The masked man snorted at this.

Though he couldn't see it, he could hear a number of the Uzumaki's shadow clones burst into existence, shadow clones which the Uzumaki was famous for throughout Konoha for some strange reason. He didn't know what the big deal about them was. He'd had a cousin who could make five of the things but, was otherwise unremarkable. Based on the noise the man who was carrying him made, the Uzumaki had done something that he considered to be amazingly impressive.

Their route became a bit more straightforward after that, with occasional pauses for the Uzumaki to summon even more shadow clones, before it eventually ended in a seaside cave whose entrance had been disguised. As soon as they had entered the cave that was much larger inside than its low and narrow opening seemed to suggest, the man who had been carrying him had set him down. As he struggled to rise, the masked man and the man who had been carrying Sakura, who was wearing a rebreather like the one the man who had carried him was wearing, gently set their charges down by a small fire that had been set in an area of the cave that had an exceedingly high ceiling.

After stretching to work out kinks in muscles that had begun to cramp after his being carried for hours after being stuck in an uncomfortable position for who knew how long, he made his way over to the fire. As he sat down, Sakura awoke and began to panic. The Uzumaki quickly went over to her and began to calm her down.

"Chill out Sakura, you're safe." the Uzumaki said. "These guys are...allies."

The girl calmed down after that. Her panicked breathing eased and, rather than pulling further away from the fire, she claimed a spot next to the Uzumaki who then turned to a rather effeminate looking boy who was examining the small children that they had brought with them, having set his bound burden against a far wall of the cave where it would have to get past all of them in order to escape.

"Are the kids going to be okay Haku?" the Uzumaki asked, looking concerned.

"Their breathing is regular, which is a good sign." the boy who could easily be mistaken for a girl replied. "I do not know when they'll regain consciousness however."

"So, how did we get here?" Sakura asked, having taken comfort in the Uzumaki's presence and regained her courage.

"After I escaped, I ran into Zabuza and his buddies who were sneaking up on our kidnappers in hopes of capturing one of them in order to get information on their group's main base. I thought that they might've been in on it until Haku convinced me otherwise. I exchanged our services for your rescue, and here we are." the Uzumaki replied.

"Our boss for the time being is Momochi Zabuza." the Uzumaki continued as he pointed to the bare-chested masked man who wore grey pants and some rather ugly arm and leg warmers who was tending to his massive sword. "That boy there is Haku, that's Gozu, and that's Meizu. I don't know who the other two are because they weren't with us when Zabuza went on his little raid."

"I'm Tokai Renji." the blond man with warm brown eyes who also wore a Kiri hitai-ate said.

"I'm Tokai Mai." the woman whose white hair carried a faint bluish tint who was seated at Renji's side said.

"It's nice to meet you." Sakura said relaxing some more.

He himself wasn't nearly as happy about meeting this group, and he sure as hell wasn't going to relax around them. Right now, he knew very little about them aside from the fact that they were presumably from Kiri, and that there was nothing to stop them from overpowering the Uzumaki and selling him like his previous captors had been talking about doing. That and, if they were on the up and up about their motives regarding him and his team, the situation seemed somewhat shady. On a mission like this, they should be able to call home for reinforcements, and should have already done so.

Just what had the Uzumaki gotten him involved in?

As the sun rose over the horizon, Kakashi did a quick kata in order to gauge his current speed and reflexes. He was currently a little slow due to the drug which hadn't yet been flushed entirely from his system but, he couldn't afford to wait around until he recovered. Just about anything could be happening to Naruto right now if he wasn't already dead. If his current condition was all he had to work with, it was all he had to work with. He just hoped that it would be enough.

"You up to summoning your dogs?" Shimura asked from where he too was checking his condition.

"Yes." he replied before summoning his best and swiftest trackers, and pulling one of Naruto's undershirts from his bag.

"You know." Shimura said gesturing at the shirt. "If I didn't know about the dogs, I'd think that that was kinda creepy."

He didn't deign to give that a response as he set the dogs on Minato-sensei's son's trail, hoping and praying that he hadn't failed him just like he had failed Obito, Rin, and Minato-sensei. Eventually, after about an hour, he came upon a clearing that contained a couple buildings and a number of corpses, shinobi and civilian alike. As he bent to examine one of the corpses which was barely recognizable as such as it had been ripped apart, Shimura, who had gone to investigate the buildings, started laughing.

"I hope you've got something of Sasuke's or Sakura's as well because, Naruto'll have used one of his favorite tricks to confound trackers, and he's going to need us to help him pay off a rather steep bill for services rendered." Shimura said when he came over to see what was so funny.

Edited 10-6-12