Ascending (Sequel to Rock Bottom)

Chapter 15 - Saved By The Kage

 Sakura held out a shaking hand to Kakashi's weapons, furrowing her brows as she willed the metal to move. More tears threatened to fall down her face when the metal didn't move, but then she felt it.

Naruto watched with wide eyes as the weapons began to move. It was only a small tremble at first, but soon, the blonde found himself staring at 30 or so floating kunai, shuriken, and senbon. The sight was both amazing and terrifying.

Next, Sakura willed the weapons to form several large disks. This process took a lot longer than she would have liked. And after 20 minutes, she had used up all of Kakashi's metal and only managed to make two disks.

Noticing the shortage of material, Naruto dug his hands in his pockets and pulled out several more kunai. He then elbowed Sasuke, making the ravenette sigh and pull out his shuriken as well.

Sakura could now make two more disks, and she did so with less difficulty than before. And after she formed the final disk, she wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep. But this wasn't the time, and Sasuke would blow a gasket if she asked to rest now.

Thus Sakura was faced with the even more grueling task of actually getting Team 7 across the bridge. She motioned for everyone to stand on a disk, and all of her teammates did without hesitation.

"Kakashi, where are we going?" Sakura asked,

"See that tall pillar? We need to get behind it."

"Hai, hold on tight," The disks beneath Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi began to move into the air and towards the direction that Kakashi specified. And they had only traveled about 50 feet when Naruto looked back in the direction they came from to see Sakura still on the wall.

"Sakura!" He yelled, "Why aren't you coming dattebayo?"

"I am!" She yelled back, "It's safer if you go without me!" Naruto was about to shout another question back but was stopped by Kakashi,

"It's probably easier for her to control three moving objects than four of them. So we'll wait for her when we get there," The jounin's eyes snapped back to Sakura's direction when he heard a shout.

"Hey! You! What do you think you're doing?" Shit, guards had found them. Or rather, they had found Sakura, and all Kakashi, Naruto, and Sasuke could do was watch anxiously as their unarmed teammate fended off four ninja.

Sakura sucked in a breath as the first nin advanced toward her. She quickly sidestepped to avoid a roundhouse kick aimed for her side, and then ducked as a barrage of shuriken flew overhead. However the pinkette did not see one of the other ninja as they crept behind her and kicked her feet out from under her, causing her to almost roll of the edge of the wall.

Naruto sucked in a breath as one of the nins managed to land a blow on Sakura, and all of their disks began to wobble. This was not good, Sakura's concentration was divided, and that would inevitably lead to all their deaths if they stood and watched.

"Sakura! Bring us back!" Kakashi yelled, but the pinkette merely shook her head and held a hand out.

"All of you hold on tight!" The trio was only given a moment to process what Sakura said before she flung her arm, in turn flinging the disks into the side of the pillar with Naruto, Kakashi, and Sasuke clinging on to them for dear life.

Before the three members of Team 7 had any time to react, the disks they were on made contact with a stone pillar. It was the same stone pillar that Kakashi had described from before, which was good. However that was the best thing about their situation. Sakura's disks, which were made of all their weapons, had shattered on impact, leaving the three nins completely unarmed save for one kunai that Sasuke "forgot" to contribute.

Kakashi placed a hand on Naruto's shoulder, gently directing the blonde's attention away from Sakura's distant figure. "There's nothing we can do to help her at the moment. Our best course of action would be to find Gaara." Kakashi tried to pull Naruto away once again, but he didn't move.

"I can make a shadow clone bridge 'ttebayo. I'll go back and help her,"

"No, Naruto. Sakura is more than capable of holding her own, her taijutsu is on a whole different level than those chunin, weapon or not.." Kakashi trailed off as about 10 more ninja advanced towards Sakura.

"She can't take on 15 armed chunin by herself with no weapons ''ttebayo!" This time, Naruto didn't wait for permission, and began to make a shadow clone bridge across. It took less time than he expected, which made him realize that it would've been easier to just use this method to begin with...

Oh well.

Naruto began to sprint across his bridge, and was almost at the other side when a kumo shinobi noticed him. And he watched in horror as the nin began to attack the clone anchoring him to the wall. He ran even faster, trying to get to Sakura before his bridge fell, but one horrible "poof" sound forced him to change his plans.

He was falling from the sky after all.

.

.

.

"What the hell is going on here?" Sasuke and Kakashi looked up in the direction of the voice and found Gaara, looking out of the raikage's tower. They then turned back to Sakura and Naruto's predicaments only to find both of them saved by the kazekage's sand.

"Kakashi is that you down there?" Shit shit shit shit. Beads of sweat formed on the jounin's face. Maybe if he stayed really still, Gaara wouldn't recognize him.

"Would you care to enlighten me as to what you four have been doing these past few hours?" Gaara's tone was light, but his facial expression said otherwise. 

In that moment, both Sasuke and Kakashi knew they were royally screwed.

_______________________________________

Oooh busted XDD

I wonder what will happen when Gaara finds out that Sasuke made Sakura cry....

RIP Duckbutt.

On an unrelated note:

We're almost at 10k reads!!!

- Do you want me to speed the story up? Or do you like how it is now? 

- More action? 

- Do you want me to follow the cannon plot a bit more?

(SasuNaru is coming I promise!! So are more Kurama and Shukaku moments XDD)

Input is always appreciated ;D

-Isabelle