Ascending (Sequel to Rock Bottom)

Chapter 3 - Strange Hymns and Tangled Limbs

The trip to Suna was pretty uneventful, mostly because the four of them were sprinting, and made it to the Sand Village in less than an hour. (Even Sasuke had to admit that moving so fast was pretty awesome)

But they were in for a shock when they arrived in Suna, or rather what was left of it. The several craters and broken buildings were a horrific sight. None of them were a stranger to wreckage, and Suna's current situation was definitely not the worst they had seen.

But that didn't make the emotional pain any better.

"Naruto..." Naruto's eyes darted from side to side, trying to pinpoint that persistent voice. It never seemed to leave him alone. "Naruto...turn back...go back to Whirlpool"

"Shut up dattebayo." The blonde mumbled to himself, shaking his head a bit, before checking to make sure his teammates hadn't noticed him. Thankfully they didn't, both were too preoccupied examining the wreckage.

"What caused this?" Sakura asked, mostly to herself.

"The Akatsuki." Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura turned around to face their sensei. And despite the fact that Sakura was overjoyed to see Kakashi in so long, she decided to save the greetings for later.

"And they took Gaara?" Naruto snickered, of course Sakura would ask about Gaara first.

Kakashi hummed in confirmation and then began, "They couldn't have gotten too far though. Gaara really did a number on both of them, the only reason they managed to knock him out was because he jumped in the way of a bomb headed for some civilians." Team 7 nodded wordlessly, still taking in everything.

"Well why're we just standing here? We need to go after them!" Sasuke looked at Sakura with a questioning expression.

"Wait, now?"

"Yes now!"

"Oh..." The ravenette trailed off and silently followed the agitated kunoichi as she stomped out of Suna.

.

.

.

"So where exactly are we going dattebayo?"

"The Land of Rivers, where the Akatsuki Hideout is." Sasuke replied, making all three of his teammates look at him questioningly.

"And how would you know that?" Kakashi asked, raising his one visible eyebrow. Sasuke then realized his slip up, but played it off coolly.

"Hn, I did my research, didn't you?" The masked jounin looked at Naruto and Sakura with an Are-You-Seeing-This look.

"We've been trying to find their location for days, how did you find it so fast?"

"You've been looking in the wrong places." Naruto decided to intervene, realizing that Sasuke wouldn't be giving them an outright answer anytime soon. Though he didn't like how the ex-Uchiha was keeping secrets from them.

"Well since Sasuke obviously knows more than all of us combined, I say we follow him dattebayo!" Sakura and Kakashi nodded, with the slightest bit of reluctance coming from their sensei.

"Alright, where to O-Wise-One?" Sakura mocked playfully.

"Follow me," Sasuke said while activating his sharingan and running past Naruto, barely brushing the blonde's shoulder. But Naruto noticed it and his cheeks turned the lightest shade of pink, but he didn't know why.

.

.

.

"Hey, Naruto watch out for that root-Oof!" Of course, Naruto didn't notice the protruding vegetation until it was too late and landed ungracefully on Sasuke.

Sakura and Kakashi stopped running to wait for (watch) their two teammates to untangle their limbs.

"Owowow! Sasuke that hurts 'ttebayo!"

"Stop moving. Your leg is in the way."

"I'll do it myself! You stay still dattebayo!"

"Hn, stop talking. It'll be uncomfortable for one second and then I'm done. Just relax and don't move."

Sakura tore her eyes away from her tangled teammates to give a sideways glance to their sensei, who had an apparent blush on his face. Looking back to her teammates, she sighed. Naruto and Sasuke looked like a human pretzel.

Then the kunoichi had an idea, "Naruto, did you know that Sasuke hasn't had a shower in 6 months? He told me." Hearing this, Naruto ripped his body away from Sasuke with a yelp.

"Ew Teme, I did not need to know that....that's disgusting,"

"And completely untrue, for your information, I bathed yesterday."

"And did we need to know that either? No." Sakura said after letting out a snort. Sasuke wanted to retort with a 'Naruto did,' but decided against it. And instead, he wordlessly turned around and began running to the Akatsuki hideout.

The rest of the trip was pretty boring in Naruto's opinion. Nobody was really talking, and then there was that one time he was desperate enough to try to start an argument with Sasuke. But it was quickly shot down with one simple "Hn,"

And that was basically the most interesting thing that happened during the trip. Oh wait, that's not right. The four of them had just found a creepy man with grey hair mumbling incoherent things while doing this dance that reminded the blonde jinchuuriki of a possessed chicken.

This kind of goes without saying, but the spectacle really freaked Naruto out.

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This is a random thought but would you guys prefer that I change the title of this story to 

"Rising Up"? 

Just wondering, and if nobody responds then I'll keep the current title.

-Isabelle ;D