"Captain Yamato, what did your clone find?"
He didn't have time to answer Ino's question when she suddenly sped forwards leaving the rest in the dust.
Hinata activated her Byakugan as she tried to track her down when she saw what or rather who her friend sensed.
"I-it's Sai."
And in no time Naruto was gone leaving only a small line of smoke to follow.
The moment he arrived, he saw Ino pulling him out of the river.
She quickly began to heal him. The wounded boy was unconscious, in addition his clothes we're teared alongside multiple cuts on his body, which soon disappeared as the green medical chakra went over it.
"Troublesome is whatever happened to him." The lazy boy commented as he walked into the clearing soon followed by the rest of his teammates.
'Whatever happened to him. To him. Him.' Shikamaru's words kept repeating in Naruto's mind till it finally went blank 'Whatever happened to them.'
Ino stood up as she was done healing the unconscious boy before she was pushed aside by a worried idiot. He stood above him tightening his hands around Sai's shoulders before he began to shake him like a building during a earthquake.
"Tell me what happened!" He demanded or rather screamed "Where are they! Wake up you bastard! Where's…"
His captain quickly restrained him before he good worsen the boy's situation. But the soft whispers of him never ended "Where are you, Sakura-chan?"
"Naruto, you idiot!" Ino said as she got up "He won't wake up if you don't let him rest."
"S-s-she's right Naruto-kun. We need to set up camp so Sai can recover." Hinata said.
Naruto tried to calm down and walked towards the woods while saying that he was getting some firewood. He walked away from his problems
After they set up camp, a fire was started as they sat down under the stars. Their friend was recovering in their tent -or rather wooden house- while Hinata kept an eye on him, as the rest prepared diner.
"Ino, when do you think he will wake up?" Yamato asked.
Ino's head snapped up as she was put out of trance "It might be any moment now or it could be tomorrow morning."
Shikamaru sighted as he stirred the stew. "Ino, Naruto, would you like to tell us what's wrong. You two have been spacing out this whole afternoon."
Naruto tripped as he mentioned his name, letting all the wood he was carrying fall. He bent to pick them back up while he answered: "I've just been thinking a lot."
"Same." Ino answered while she was throwing some vegetables into the stew.
Shikamaru muttered something out that sounded like 'troublesome' as he gave up on interrogating them. 'Clearly they don't want to talk about it' he concluded.
"Dinner is done!" He screamed after a while. Seconds later Naruto, Hinata and Yamato walked out of the house as they set down beside him and Ino.
Giving each of them a bowl, they sat silently as they ate their diner.
As some of them took a second a soft grunt was heart from the house. They turned around as they saw a bandaged Sai walking out of the door. Clearly still sore from the hyperthermia he moved rather stiff. Hinata quickly ran up to him to support him by letting him rest on her shoulder "A-a-are you alright."
He smiled at her, either because he was grateful or because he was an emotional retard. "I'm fine, just a bit sore and hungry."
Hinata put him down beside the fire and handed him over a bowl. He eagerly took it as his stomach growled. Soon he began to eat but while eating he felt eyes staring at him. He looked up from his dinner and saw the rest of the team staring at him. "Is there something wrong? Do I've something on my face?"
"No there's nothing wrong but we…"
"I had like to know what happened." Naruto said as he cut off Yamato.
Sai put his dinner down and looked gazed as he tried to remember.
"It started when we arrived at Suna three days after we left the village…
Flashback
A small dot appeared on the horizon as we saw The village hidden in the sand appearing, like a sun rise.
"Almost there guys." Shizune called.
Sooner or later we arrived at their gate. Two man walked up to us, one of them recognized Sakura as the person who saved the Kazekage's brother.
He complimented her a few times causing her to turn red. I quickly stopped the man for advancing any further as she was clearly getting a cold from him.
The man winked an eyebrow at me when I stopped him. I believed he got my attentions. He escorted us towards the Kazekage tower. On our way he was the whole time talking about the infamous art of puppetry.
The whole trip I was observing my teammates. Shizune was looking rather interested, while Sakura was smiling awkwardly. Not knowing what to do, I smiled interesting.
When we finally reached the tower, we said goodbye and walked up the stairs. We arrived at his office and knocked on the door till he let us in.
"Greetings Kazekage-sama." We greeted in symphony.
"Shizune, Sai and Sakura," he looked at us one by one "it's good to see you again."
After a quick chat the older medic started to ask about the mission. "Could you tell us where to start?"
Gaara looked at us before he picked up a document from his table.
"I'm sorry to mention this, but yesterday we got the message that some of Chiyo's old notes were found."
"What do you mean?" My other teammate asked.
"It means that your assistance isn't necessary anymore. You three can leave early, but I don't want to make this journey a waste of time. So we have some medical stuff to hand over. You can pick them up at the gate."
I nodded and walked through the door as I saw both women looking either frustrated or trying to do a failing duck face.
I walked through the village till we reached the gate with a 'frustrated duck'.
I was never that good at naming.
We picked up our cargo as we left for the desert again. 500 meters away from the gate my teammate finally snapped.
"Argh, why couldn't he have send a messenger bird or something?!"
"Sakura, you know that he just recently knew about this. Bedsides he did give us a little present." My other teammate said.
"Yes, giving us three boxes for us to carry after we just arrived and now we need to head back through the desert without any rest, that's really nice." She said that with such a smile that I even could see the fakeness radiating from it.
"Just be happy that we can go home earlier."
"Good point, beside don't you…"
I cancelled them out as they continued on with their chitchat.
I looked up toward the clear blue sky as I thought about the things I've learned in the past few months. Sooner or later we exchanged the sand with an endless amount of trees till the sun started to switch places with the moon.
We decided to set up camp near a river. After the tents were set, me and Sakura prepared the dinner.
"Sai, don't you think that the river isn't a bit too wild to dive and fish."
I smiled at her and took my ink out "I can reassure you that I won't be diving into it." I began to pour my ink into the water, as it started to come alive. Soon it started to slither around in the stream as it was searching for our dinner.
"A snake?"
"No, a basilisk." I corrected her. She nodded and walked away to gather some water for the fish stew.
It was already pretty late as we started to eat. Stew was passed on till we all began to eat. There was a comfortable silence as we ate when I heart a stick snapping behind me.
I turned around and saw a shadow sneaking away into the bushes. I placed my bowl down and grabbed for a kunai. "Come on out whoever you are." I commanded.
A masked man walked out of the bushes as he observed our camp.
"What do you want?" Shizune asked while she too grabbed for her kunai.
The man began to laugh as he watched us "What I want is the content of those boxes."
"Why would you want it? It's nothing more than a few medical chemicals." Sakura argued.
"We will see about that." He snapped his fingers and out of nowhere 29 bandits came out of the bushes.
And the fight started.
We were outnumbered 1:10 but we were able to keep most of them at bay. Most.
I turned around as I saw Shizune getting knocked into the fast streaming river. The power of the stream was fast enough to drag her away. My attention shivered as I called out for her, and a small mistake could lead to one's end.
While I screamed out for her. I never noticed my opponent calling out 'Landslide jutsu'
I turned around and saw a huge wall of earth coming towards me. It was like seeing a gigantic brick fist coming closure to you. I closed my eyes and embraced the coming impact.
But the impact came from the right. I snapped my eyes open as I landed on my back. Crawling up in time I got to see my other teammate get it by it.
It was like a real landslide everything that was on its path it dragged with him, including the camp and Sakura.
I tried to draw a bird to save her but the rest of the bandits soon jumped on top of me.
I saw her unconscious form getting pushed into the river alongside our whole camp.
"You idiot!" One of the masked man screamed "You literally just flushed our loot away."
Using the distraction to my advantage I pushed the men of me and started to run down stream. I desperately tried to safe the rest of my teammates, but luck wasn't on my side as the bandits soon caught up on me. Outnumbered 1:30 I had no chance to leave this fight unwounded and wounded I did.
The fight didn't last for long as the didn't need to watch out for the boxes anymore, they fired out a combined jutsu. I got hit and launched into the waters.
Flashback end
Sai's story was answered with silence as he picked up his dinner again.
Naruto suddenly jumped up and hysterically screamed: "Then where the hell is the rest of you guys?!"
"Naruto, calm down." Yamato commanded "Don't you see that he doesn't know, besides let him rest he needs to recover his strength."
The loud boy sat down with a grunt as he began to stare into his stew.
"Could you guys tell me why you are here?" The new boy asked.
The team began to explain their story, except Naruto who was the whole time staring in his food.
"Could you give me that piece of textile?" Sai asked as they finished their story.
Shikamaru unsealed it and handed it over to him. The boy took it in his hand while he took a scroll out with his other hand.
He quickly began to paint a drawing on the scroll. It became alive and popped from the paper. It was a dog.
He handed the piece of clothing to the ink dog to sniffle on it, before the dog ran away.
"What did you just do?" Ino asked.
"I just gave him a scent to follow, he probably will be back in the morning."
"But that's an ink…" She tried to argue.
"Why would you think they don't have the same properties as a real one?"
I know this one isn't really that great, but it's hard to write this guy :(
But nevertheless some info about the other team.
Alright then, next chapter: Sai joins the team and the ink dog leads them to new discoveries.
When: next week.
Please tell me your opinions.