Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Flowers in the Sand ❯ Chapter 18

Chapter 18

 

“This is how we'll do this,” Naruto informed his friends as they gathered in his office a scant half hour after Safaia and Sakura had been abducted by Kabuto. He turned to Kiba. “You, Shino, Shikamaru, and Neji will immediately track Kabuto and make certain that the girls are with him at Orochimaru's hideout in the Sound village. Neji will be taking Hinata's place, as she will stay behind with the children. Scout around and make sure there are no enemies or ambushes set for the rest of us.”

 

As they nodded, he then turned to Temari. “I'd like you to take Chouji, Ino, and Sasuke and follow Gaara and me. Your strategic mind is as good as your husband's, so you can deal with any unexpected problems from the rear.”

 

“One problem,” Temari commented. “Sasuke isn't here.”

 

Naruto looked around. “I lost track of him at the party. Maybe he's still there…”

 

“Wait! Let us help as well to return Sakura and the lovely Safaia to Konoha!”

 

Everyone turned to see Lee and Tenten standing in the doorway, ready to work. Naruto nodded with a grim smile. “Good to see you two. We'll need all of us to save them.”

 

Gaara crossed his arms. “This changes things a bit. Are you certain that we will only need those here to get Safaia and Sakura back? What about Kakashi, or even some of the other Jounins?”

 

Naruto shook his head. “I have the most faith in my friends. They are the most willing to do whatever it takes to get both of them back. The other Jounins would look upon this as just another mission. I need outstanding Jounins who view Sakura as more than just a hostage- as a friend and loved one.”

 

Kankuro shook his head. “That might just mess up the mission,” he pointed out.

 

“Not for us,” Lee spoke out. “Because of our resolve, we will certainly prevail! It is a matter of honor!”

 

Tenten looked embarrassed. “Enough, Lee. Gui-sensei isn't around to impress right now.”

 

“My apologies…”

 

“Enough,” Naruto interrupted. He fixed a stern look on Kankuro. “Kakashi and the others need to stay here and protect Konoha while we are off in the Sound village. I will not have my orders questioned when it comes to my wife and my child's safety. Understood?”

 

Kankuro nodded. Naruto was actually acting like Hokage now. He could respect that. “Completely. If you wish, I'll stay here with Niira and we'll help Konoha's remaining shinobi guard the village.”

 

“Gaara?” Naruto looked to his fellow Kage for his opinion.

 

“Good idea,” the Kazekage told his brother. Then he turned to Naruto again. “However, I think your teams will have to be rethought, now that we have different members.”

 

“Yeah…” Naruto sat on the edge of his desk, thinking. “We've got eleven of us, including me. In order to make balanced teams, we'll need to break up into two groups of four and one group of three.”

 

“I think Naruto's first team is well-conceived,” Shino spoke up from within the confines of his hood and nose-high collar. “It allows for three superb trackers and a strategist in case of difficulty.”

 

Shikamaru nodded. “I agree. That team is best.”

 

“Okay,” Naruto decided. “Then Team 2 should be Chouji, Ino, Tenten, and Temari. Temari will be their tactician, and the other three are well-balanced with both genjutsu and ninjutsu.”

 

The four nodded. Naruto turned to Lee. “That leaves you with me and Gaara, Fuzzy-brow.”

 

“It will be an honor to fight alongside you once again, Kazekage Gaara, sir,” Lee bowed.

 

“Will you stop that?” Naruto grunted, hitting Lee on top of his head. “It might have been funny as hell when we were kids, but for God's sake, you're an adult now! Act like it!”

 

“I thought I had been,” Lee huffed, brushing off his green Chuunin vest. Luckily, Sakura had managed to convince him a few years ago to quit wearing Gui's trademark green jumpsuit, but he still tended to act like he was a Genin under Gui's weird sense of training. Now Lee was an instructor at the Academy, teaching the students taijutsu, and he was content with the fact that he would never become a Jounin- his lack of ability with genjutsu and ninjutsu prevented it. So he taught the next generation, showing them that taijutsu was just as important, if not more so, than genjutsu or ninjutsu to a shinobi. In everyone's heart, though, he was a Jounin with the rest of them.

 

“Now's not the time for fooling around,” Naruto told him, more gently this time. “You want us to get Sakura back, don't you?”

 

Lee flushed slightly. “Of course. She is important to all of us.”

 

Naruto nodded to the group as a whole. “Let's go then.”

 

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Safaia opened her eyes slowly. It was dark- pitch black, to be exact, and she couldn't see anything. However, her years of living in darkness had adapted her to exist in that environment, so she did not panic. She sniffed lightly, wishing for Gobi's more sensitive sense of smell.

 

Her eyes flew open, even though in the darkness it didn't matter. A familiar scent tickled her nose- Sakura's. Her shampoo's scent was nearby- perhaps a few meters to her left.

 

Noting that she was not restrained by any binding, Safaia scurried toward Sakura's scent. “Sakura? Sakura! Are you okay?”

 

A muffled groan and the sound of rustling indicated that Sakura had shifted. Safaia felt around carefully and discovered an ankle not her own. The owner yelped in surprise.

 

“Sakura, relax! It's me, Safaia!”

 

Immediately Sakura let out a sigh of relief. “Don't do that!”

 

“I am sorry, but I cannot see. I had to see if I could find you by touch.” A stifled grunt reached Safaia's ears. “Sakura? What's wrong? Are you injured?”

 

“Just a cramp,” Sakura assured her. “Probably from lying on this hard floor.”

 

“Indeed. My back is not pleased with me either.”

 

“Where are we?”

 

A clanking sound echoed throughout the room and a beam of light appeared and shone down upon the two women. They squinted and blinked rapidly in the sudden brightness.

 

“Orochimaru's palace,” replied a familiar voice.

 

Sakura immediately brightened. “Oh, thank God! We're saved!”

 

Safaia looked at the pink-haired woman curiously. “We are?”

 

“I'm afraid not,” the figure silhouetted by the light answered her. “You are both still needed here- the Jinchuriki for the Five-tails that sleeps within her, and you, Sakura, to lure Naruto here.”

 

“You… you're not here… to help us?” Sakura began to look confused, but then a growing horror spread across her pretty face as understanding dawned. “Oh, no… oh, dear God… why? Why?”

 

The figure moved so that his face was revealed in the light. He gave her a cold, calculated half-smirk. “I have my reasons,” he said simply.

 

It was Sasuke.

 

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“Something disturbs me, Naruto,” Gaara murmured as they ran through the trees towards the Sound Country.

 

“Everything about this disturbs me,” Naruto replied with a frown, “but tell me anyway.”

 

“Why did Sasuke not follow the others when they left the party? He does not seem the type to become deeply involved with social chatter.”

 

“This is true,” Lee added, coming up on Naruto's other side. “When Tenten and I had arrived, the party had disbanded, with all available shinobi on high alert. Sasuke should have come to your office with the rest of us.”

 

Naruto was silent for a while. “You suspect something?”

 

“I hesitate to mention it only because of all that he has gone through in the last few years. But it is possible that he is still in league with Kabuto and was sent back as a spy.”

 

Instead of exploding as he would have done years ago, Naruto remained quiet. Finally, he spoke. “I was already aware of this.”

 

Gaara and Lee both looked at Naruto in surprise. “You did?” Lee asked incredulously. “Why did you not inform the rest of us? He's still a threat to Konoha!”

 

The Hokage looked grim. “I believed that having his friends around him would give him cause to hope for a normal life, to start anew. I guess his ties to Orochimaru are stronger than everyone realized.”

 

“That still does not explain why you didn't tell anyone,” Gaara protested. “And now he has taken your wife and Safaia!”

 

“I trust Sasuke,” Naruto replied. “He won't harm Sakura.”

 

“But what about Safaia?” Gaara said, his voice growing more upset. “They'll kill her if they manage to extract Gobi from her!”

 

“We'll just have to get there before that happens,” was all the Hokage would say.

 

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“Okay, this is getting ridiculous.”

 

Safaia looked at her friend worriedly. Those awkward little pains Sakura had been having seemed to be increasing. Surely this was more than aches from lying on a cold, hard floor for too long. “Are you sure you're okay?”

 

“I'll be fine when I can take a long, hot bath!” Sakura grumped, rubbing her swollen belly absentmindedly. “My back is killing me.” She winced again, curling up her body slightly.

 

“Again?” Safaia asked, now becoming quite concerned.

 

When Sakura relaxed, a look of extreme worry was evident on her face. “Dammit. I was hoping…”

 

“Hoping what?”

 

The pregnant woman sighed, obviously severely upset. “I'm in labor. I was hoping I wasn't- that these were just false alarm contractions, but there's no doubt now. There's a definite pattern, and they're getting stronger.”

 

“You… you're in… labor?” Safaia squeaked.

 

“Dammit!” Sakura yelled. She balled up her hand and smashed the side of her fist against the wall behind her. The stone wall crumbled as if it had been made of graham crackers. Safaia yelped and pulled Sakura away from the falling rubble.

 

“Are you insane??” Safaia hollered. “You could've killed yourself and your baby!”

 

Sakura had the nerve to look embarrassed. “Sorry… it hurts…” Then she looked at the fallen wall. “Hey… a hallway. Maybe we can find a way out.”

 

“Baka!” Safaia grunted as she helped Sakura to her feet. “You're about to have a baby, and you're still focusing on getting out of here?”

 

“I'm a shinobi,” Sakura explained with a grin. “It's all part of the training.”

 

“That confirms it,” Safaia grumbled under her breath as she helped the pregnant woman over the stones to the newly-revealed hallway. “All shinobi are idiots.”

 

“Not all,” Sasuke remarked from behind them.

 

“Sasuke!” Sakura exclaimed, wincing as another contraction hit. “You've got to help me- the baby's coming. I need a bed, hot water, towels… anything! Please!”

 

Sasuke merely regarded her with emotionless black eyes. “I suppose if I leave you to give birth here in the hallway, Naruto will be most displeased. Although it might be entertaining, it will prove to be a problem later.”

 

He walked away from them and opened a door further down the hallway. “In here.”

 

With Safaia's help, Sakura managed to make it to the room with little difficulty. She gazed in relief at the pallet on the floor, with a bathroom nearby. A bucket and several blankets were piled in the corner. The two women looked at him curiously.

 

Sasuke shrugged as if it didn't matter. “Kabuto mentioned that with Sakura so close to her time, it might be best to prepare in case something happened.” He fixed Sakura with a level stare. “Regardless of what you think, you and your child are not to be harmed, unless Naruto decides not to come. Then, your fate is up to us.”