Loved Again - A KakaNaruSasu Fanfic

Chapter 2 - Past Events and New Feelings

The team of four had travelled for quite some time, they had left Konoha borders and were now somewhere in the middle of a forest - but Kakashi had said nothing about what this S-Rank mission was supposed to be. Throughout the road, Sakura and Naruto had bickered about one thing or the other and it usually ended up with Naruto receiving a punch.

Sasuke was rather quiet, still lost in his thoughts from earlier and Kakashi was engrossed in his Icha Icha as he walked. Sasuke would cast small, shy glances towards the boy and the jonin from time to time and feel his heart race.

It seemed like quite a blissful walk when Sasuke noticed water patches on the ground. His mind jumped to alert as he remembered their trip to the Land of Waves. Wasn't much of a pleasant one at the beginning if one would say. Two mist shinobis had sprang out of water patches like this and attacked Kakashi, whom they thought had been 'defeated' in the attack. Naruto was too scared to react at that moment, but Sasuke had jumped in front of Sakura and Tazuna with his kunai. But Kakashi returned from his dead and took them down in one move. Cool move he would say!

After that they had teased Naruto a lot for being a scaredy cat. Sasuke remembers the memory with a laugh.

Though he stabbed his hand to bleed out the poison he can been infected with in the earlier attack, the blond swore upon his pain that he will never freeze up and leave his friends. This, Sasuke recalls with admiration, and maybe respect.

Its ironical how one never values things they have until they are about to lose them. Or maybe he had always cherished these relations he made, but his trauma was too much to let him see it.

He snaps out of this thoughts and inches towards his shuriken, ready to retaliate should something emerge. Not that he really needed to get into action with Kakashi present but he really wanted to keep these people from any harm.

"It rained last night, the leaves look greener and the grass is still somewhat wet" Kakashi said. "Huh, what?" Naruto looked surprised as his Sensei gave a weather report out of the blue. But Sasuke understood. Even though he still had his head into his Icha Icha, Kakashi had looked right into his thoughts. It was like his silent, indirect comforts, telling him that they will be safe and Sasuke visibly relaxed.

They had always been taken care of by this man it seems. Though never acknowledged.

"Sensei we have already come so far, would you atleast tell us what our S-Rank mission is now" Sakura asked.

"Umm, about that....you guys see...hahaha..see.." Kakashi started to chuckle. "What is it Sensei, tell us please" Naruto groaned.

"Ma, its like this - you three have failed your Chunin exams for various reasons. You don't have an ounce of teamwork in y'all and seriously blowed up on the last misson that Naruto and Sakura went on with Yamato. So we aren't exactly on a S-rank anything."

"AHH...So you lied Sensei!! If we continue to do small C and D-Rank missions how will we ever learn anything, dattebayo!"

"I get you Naruto. So this time you see we are doing a B-rank mission. We will be looking for Tashimo-san of the neighbouring village. He has gone missing 3 days ago on his way back home from the market. This is his picture. The villagers say that they saw some shinobi take him."

"Was this man a shinobi?" Sasuke questioned.

"No, not that we know of. He was a simple villager. So we will start from the area of the village where he went missing. Split to teams of two and look for clues - Sasuke go with Naruto. Sakura with me. And remember you two - Teamwork."

With that they split and began looking around. Sasuke was kinda happy to be alone with Naruto, though he wanted Kakashi there as well. They seemed really coordinated in their work. Had it been the old times, they would definately be debating on who was being a hindrance for whom. Thinking back, Sasuke felt that they were really silly. He gazed ahead at the walking Naruto and smiled.

Meanwhile, the other team had landed the answer. Kakashi had climbed atop a tree to have an idea of the land ahead and at that very moment they saw a man sprint towards them and it turned out to be Tashimo-san. Just when the jonin had become all ready of going back to his Icha-Icha story, Tashimo-san fainted and he got struck in a sealing jutsu. He lost sight of Sakura, who got captured by the three mist shinobis that followed soon after. 

It took Kakashi quite some time to get out of the seal, it did not seem to be the work of an ordinary shinobi. He sought out the other two and they now started the expedition to find their teammate. The trail they found took them to a cave with quite some Mist Shinobis.