Disclaimer: I claim only the misspellings in this story… you can claim the grammatical mistakes. Hehe…

On to the chapter…

Chapter 12 – Finding treasures…

Naruto shook his head as the group left the building. "Man, she was really weird… thanks for sticking up for me like that, Hinata-chan," Naruto said sweetly.

Hinata blushed and then took his hand. She then whispered into his ear, "I will always be there for you Naruto-kun."

Shizune and Ayane both smiled at the young couple. The team headed out of the village and to the southern tip of the island.

Several hours later Naruto was looking at Shizune like she was crazy. "That rock isn't going to hold," he said, as he looked down the limestone cliff side.

"Just use your chakra," Shizune said sternly.

Naruto looked again and shook his head. "Nope, watch… 'Shadow clone'," he said and a clone appeared next to him. "Go on…"

The clone shook his head and said, "That rock isn't stable enough."

"Just do it," Naruto told the clone.

The clone put on a cheesy grin and said, "Okay, it's my funeral." He focused his chakra and then moved over the edge of the cliff. He made it about three meters before his right foot took a piece of rock and he nearly fell.

"You need more control," Shizune said in a scolding tone.

"Oh yeah, oneesan? I don't see you down here," the clone said back in a derogatory tone. He then shook off the stone and placed his foot again, making sure it was secure. He then took several more steps. He then did a cartwheel to his right. Luckily he did, a piece about seven meters in diameter and two deep broke off from the wall and fell into the sea. "See, unstable. You would have known this if you read the geology book that Anko and Roushi forced me to read," he yelled back up to the others.

"Rope might be a better way," Naruto said, but then continued, "The salt air eats away at the limestone making it really brittle. There is some basalt and granite here, but they allow for the formation of caves in the cliff where the salt water and mist are the strongest." Everyone looked at Naruto in utter surprise. Naruto looked at them and asked, "What? Can't I know a few things?"

Hinata was the first to get over her shock and hugged the blonde, but then wore a worried look when she heard a crack and then a voice yelling, "Good bye cruel world!"

Everyone looked over the edge and saw the clone falling towards the sea with a large chunk of the limestone cliff. The clone poofed out of existence before he hit the water, but then everyone looked at Naruto, since he wore a look of utter dread, Naruto shook it off several seconds later and then moved around the cliff, apparently looking for something. Naruto was kicking off the grass in several locations on the top of the cliff and seemed to finally settle for one location.

"Naruto-kun… what are you doing?" Shizune asked.

Naruto pulled out a hammer-pick and some other tools. "I had an idea that we might need some climbing gear and so I bought some. Good thing I did," he replied, while he hammered in a piton and secured a rope to it. He then continued, "Now where is that cave we need?"

About ten minutes later he had a secure rope hanging over the ledge of the cliff above the cave. Shizune looked at him curiously and asked, "Why are you putting that cloth beneath the rope?"

Naruto chuckled and pulled off piece of the cliff and pointed to the edge of the rock. "It's sharp and would more than likely cut the rope, so I'm using the cloth to protect the rope," he explained.

He chuckled at the three 'oh's'. A few minutes later the team was down in the cave and noticed that it was larger than expected. Naruto pulled out a flashlight and examined the walls. "It's both man and naturally made. There are signs of weathering, jutsu use and actual tools being used here," he explained.

"Naruto-kun… how much time have you been spending in the library?" Shizune asked.

"As much as I can, also I left a couple clones in town to do some research on this area. There is only one left and it is doing the last of the research and should be done soon," Naruto said with a huge grin.

The team moved farther into the cave, but then Naruto stopped them. "Hinata-chan, can you take a look around?" Naruto asked.

Hinata activated her Byakugan and gasped. Naruto had stopped them just before they would be standing on a huge seal and under a second seal. Both were active and had chakra flowing through them. "Naruto-kun, there are two seals facing each other right in front of us. They are both active," she said, she then proceeded to explain the design of the seals to her team.

Naruto sent several clones into the seal and they all disappeared. The team waited for Naruto to respond, but he just sat down and began to draw on a piece of paper. Hinata recognized the drawing as a close facsimile of the one on the floor before the group. She then pointed out where his drawing was off and after several changes he had it and began to decipher it.

"Dang it I wish I understood all these seals," Naruto explained. He then began to mutter to himself about what each seal did, but couldn't piece it together. He finally said, "I have no clue what it does by just looking at the seals, but I do know that my clones were transported elsewhere and they have no idea where. As far as I can tell it isn't a trap, but a test for those who want the treasure."

Naruto not knowing what else to do walked directly onto the seal, Hinata not wanting to be away from Naruto followed quickly. Shizune and Ayane looked on in awe as both disappeared when the seals both lit up.

Naruto found himself and Hinata both being held up by his clones. "Report…" he said.

"We don't seem to be able to leave the seal area," a clone said.

Hinata looked around and found a plaque that read:

To continue on you must leave a sacrifice, so that you might summon the treasure or else you will be trapped.

Naruto looked at the plaque and then shrugged. 'Hm… summons require blood sacrifice so…' he thought and then bit his thumb.

Hinata looked at Naruto in confusion, because she couldn't understand the possible meanings of the plaque. "What are you doing Naruto-kun?" she asked inquisitively.

Naruto smiled and said, "You need a blood sacrifice for summons, so just cut your finger and wipe it here, then add a little chakra."

Naruto wiped his thumb on a line on the plaque and found himself pulled out of the seal. Hinata followed suit by using a kunai to cut her thumb and was pushed out also, leaving several annoyed clones. Also the torches in the area lit along the passage way. After about ten minutes they came to a great chasm with an entrance on the other side. They saw that it was too far to jump and it would take a long time to get to the bottom and walk back up the other side. Naruto noticed a plaque just back inside the tunnel and read it out loud.

"If you have wings of the heart, you may pass, but do not stray from the path or your soul will plummet to the depths of the earth never to return. What does that mean?" he asked in confusion.

Hinata whispered, "Byakugan…" but then clutched her head in pain. "The walls are full of chakra and I keep on getting double images… it hurts, Naruto-kun," she exclaimed, as she sank to her knees.

Naruto quickly embraced her in a hug and then began to administer a pain relief jutsu. "Take it easy Hinata-chan, don't use your eyes again. This is a trap and thus they thought about how to deal with people who have doujutsu," he explained.

Hinata slumped into his arms and started to breathe more easily. Naruto sat back against the wall and pulled her onto his lap and continued to hug her. Eventually her breathing became rhythmic and steady. Naruto knew that they wouldn't be able to continue for a while, so he summoned a slug and told it to tell Shizune that they were alright and that they were continuing farther down the passage to find the treasure.

Naruto himself took a nap with Hinata still on his chest. He was awoken by a gentle kiss. He opened his eyes to see lavender eyes staring back at him. He smiled warmly at the girl on his lap and then asked, "How are you doing, Hinata-chan?"

She blushed, but said, "Thank you, Naruto-kun, much better now. Not that I wouldn't like to stay here for a LOT longer, but we need to figure out this clue and then continue on."

Naruto nodded and waited for Hinata to stand. He was not sure if he imagined it or not, but when Hinata helped him up, he could have sworn that she had both groped his butt and his crotch. Shaking off the sense that his girlfriend was becoming a pervert, he looked at the area around and then took a step out onto the abyss. He didn't know why he did it, but hey his luck had saved him before. Instead of falling to his doom his foot landed on something solid, but not visible. He took another step and was rewarded by a solid footing. He continued this pattern all the way across the chasm. Hinata followed closely behind, because if her Naruto either went to his doom or needed her help, she was going to be there for him.

They made it to the far side of the chasm and found another plaque that read:

I am a denizen of the night, but to get to the treasure you must walk how I sleep or suffer the consequences.

Naruto looked at an equally confused Hinata and asked, "What the hell does that mean?"

"I have no idea Naruto-kun. Why don't you send a clone forward?" she asked.

Naruto complied with a making a seal-less shadow clone, who looked at them like they were crazy, but just shrugged and then walked forward. About twenty feet in the clone noticed several horizontal grooves in the wall, all set about a foot apart. The clone suddenly felt a gust of wind and then felt four very sharp pains before dispersing.

Naruto squirmed from the memories from the clone and then explained what the clone had experienced to Hinata. She and he walked up to the area where the grooves started and noticed that the top eight feet of the hallway lacked the grooves. She thought of an idea. She focused chakra into her feet and then walked up the wall. Naruto followed suit, not wanting to be left behind. They walked to the ceiling of the hallway and walked along and got several dozen feet before they felt a breeze and then nothing. They continued on for another quarter mile and then found that there were stairs on the ceiling, as if someone had built it this way on purpose. They followed the stairs and found a moving wheel with pegs on it. There was also an anchored rope. Hinata took the rope and hooked it on one of the pegs, thus stopping the wheel. Naruto looked behind them and saw several circular blades come out of the wall and grind to a stop within the grooves.

Hinata was breathing hard, because of the excessive chakra use. While it was only enough to cause her to be mildly winded, Naruto was concerned, so he broke out the rations and had them both eat to regain their strength. They ate the meal and talked about nothing in general other than how they would deal with the next challenge.

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Sakura stood before Jiraiya with a downtrodden look on her face. Jiraiya was livid, but also not sure how to deal with this situation. She was a victim to a degree, but she still needed to be punished, but the report from the ANBU had him worried, so he had her examined. The report stated that she had had sexual activity within the last 48 hours and she might be pregnant.

He sighed heavily and then asked, "So what do you have to say for yourself, genin?"

Sakura winced at his emphasis on her title instead of her name. She allowed a tear to fall from her face and hit the floor, but said, "I have no excuse, Hokage-sama. I left the village to be with Sasuke-kun."

"You do realize that he did everything, so as to make his escape easier this time. He killed a couple chuunin while escaping prison. What gets me is that he used you and knew that he could use you to get away," Jiraiya said in an annoyed tone.

"I'm sorry, Hokage-sama. He knew about my love for him and thus he used it to get what he wanted… he promised he would be with me forever… and that he would always love me…" she replied in halting sobs.

Jiraiya sighed heavily and knew he had a problem. 'I just hope that she is over her love for the boy,' he thought to himself. "I have to put out an order to capture or kill order on the Uchiha. How do you feel about it?" he asked warmly.

She continued to sob, but didn't offer any words to the confused man. He looked at the female ANBU, who just shrugged her shoulders.

"Jeez Haruno, you do know that you're in a whole bunch of trouble, right?" he asked pointedly.

She nodded meekly and replied, "Yes Hokage-sama."

"I'm remanding you to the ANBU light security division and are to be watched twenty-four seven. Your rank as genin is hereby revoked and you will serve no less than six months in prison. Dismissed," he said, as Sakura was lead out of the room by her ANBU guard. He then said to no one in particular, "Do you think I did the right thing?"

The man nodded and said, "I think you did the right thing. Kakashi-sempai didn't do right by them, but she will have a long road ahead of her. Allowing her to be a shinobi or not is up to you, but since she betrayed the village, it is up to you as Hokage to determine what her punishment should be. What I find odd is that she might be pregnant. The doctor said that she is in the middle of ovulating and thus could become pregnant. If so, we must keep this quiet, so that enemies of Konoha and the Uchiha don't find out, especially Sasuke."

Jiraiya nodded and said, "Agreed."

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Several shadowy figures were standing in a cave, several appeared to just be illusions, but all wore black cloaks with red clouds. "We have a problem. Most of the jinchuuriki are in one place, but trying to obtain them would cause a problem, we might kill one or more in the attempt to capture just one of them let alone all of them," the man with concentric rings in his eyes said.

"Fuck that! Let's just grab them all and we can show them at that art is a blast," a blonde said happily.

"Shut up Diedera. Even though I hate to wait, but we must find a way to isolate them and pick them off one or two at a time," a man hunched over explained.

"Enough, we will wait and watch to see what they are up too," the man with rings in his eyes ordered.

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Orochimaru was smiling at the sight before him. Sasuke had left the confines of the Hidden Leaf village and was now here in front of him. While it did annoy him that Kabuto and Sasuke weren't playing nice, it was of little concern to him. "Sasuke-kun… you will rest for today and then tomorrow we shall start your training," Orochimaru said, as he got up and left the room.

"This way Sasuke-kun," Kabuto said, as he led the young Uchiha to what would be his room until they moved to the next base of operations. "By the way how did you get away from Konoha this time and be able to make it to us without being followed this time?"

Sasuke smirked and replied, "I used a stupid girl to throw them off my trail."

Kabuto frowned, but then smiled and said, "I commend you Sasuke-kun on your resourcefulness."

Sasuke just grunted and entered his new room.

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Haku, Gaara, Akemi and Yugito all were at the border between Fire country and Lightning country. "So we are supposed to go to the rendezvous point and wait for Naruto and his team?" Gaara asked in a monotone voice.

"Those were the orders," Yugito replied.

"Aren't we worried that we might run into either Konoha or Kumo shinobi?" Akemi asked.

Yugito shook her head and said, "Kumo shinobi will be easy to deal with and once we cross the border we won't have to worry about Konoha shinobi. Now let's go."

The team then moved out and crossed the border, but Gaara and Yugito shared a look that both agreed that they were not alone and were being followed.

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Jiraiya finally had some time to check over how the village was doing financially and he was not happy. While he was happy that the village was feeling some comeuppance for how they had treated his favorite gaki. They were having trouble now with the embargos from several other smaller countries, while this was disturbing, what was more disturbing were the countries that pulled their support, Wave and Snow being the big names, but he found it odd that a small country was calling for the Hokage to have a summit and that country was Uzu. This didn't bode well, especially after it was nearly destroyed, at least the shinobi portion of the country had been nearly absorbed by Stone.

The note said that they would be there in a month, but it was dated twenty days ago and had been sitting in the piles of paperwork. He quickly created a couple Shadow clones and quickly went through the paperwork to see if any other documents should have had his eye much quicker than before. He found several, including an intelligence report on Kumo having a blonde visitor and that Akatsuki was going to back off for a while. He double checked this information and then went about reorganizing the documents, so that they were in priority. He then spent the next hour talking to Iruka and the others that brought documents to him, so that they would now follow strict guidelines to streamline the paperwork. He showed the chuunin several mission requests that were nearly a month old, one that was time sensitive. This mission had four days left on it and so he put several people who were on his shit list on this mission, Kakashi being one of them. He also gave them three days to complete the mission.

The mission while only a C rank carried with it a large bonus, so he put three jounin on the job. Kakashi took the lead in the mission and left with Genma and Raido to perform the mission. While Genma wasn't on his shit list his skills would more than likely be need to speed up the mission completion.

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Naruto and Hinata finally walked into a room filled with treasure, but it felt off. Naruto heightened his senses and smelled something funny and made sure to avoid the piles of coins and walked towards a large scroll. Hinata looked at him funny, but would follow his instincts, since they had been right so far about the traps they had to avoid.

Naruto examined the scroll and then grabbed it off the pedestal. He then felt the room begin to shake. He turned to see a hole open it the wall and light coming from the hole. Also all the piles of gold changed into cages with scorpions in them. The cages opened and the scorpions started towards the teens. Naruto quickly grabbed Hinata's hand and said, "Let's get out of here!"

They quickly jumped to the doorway only to find that it was beginning to close. They began to run down the hallway and jumped over a small deadfall pit trap. They finally ran up an inclined passageway and headed towards the light. They then noticed that the light was getting smaller as they approached. Both turned on the speed and jumped through the closing opening just before it closed and shut the tunnel off from the world.

It took another twenty minutes to find the cliff face where they had repelled down to the cave entrance. Naruto had send a slug ahead and told them to meet them there. Shizune and Ayane both climbed up to meet with a very tired, but happy Hinata and Naruto. Naruto opened the scroll and found that it was a summoning scroll for bats. Naruto shrugged and signed the scroll in the next available place. He then went through the hand seals to summon and gathered enough chakra to summon a medium slug or toad. Suddenly there was a cloud of smoke and when it cleared it revealed a large erect standing mammal with leathery wings and a face that looked like a fox, of all things.

"How can I help you sir? You are not of the Koumori clan, so why do you have the contract for their family summons?" the bat asked pointedly.

Naruto opened the note he had and showed it to the bat.

The bat nodded and said, "Very well, you are an honorary member and as such shall be treated as such. I will talk to our leader and then return to let you know about your other summons."

Kakashi was very annoyed that he was now doing a C-ranked mission wasn't the problem. It was the client that was the problem. Sure they were able to safeguard the 'treasure', but the man just kept grating on his nerves. 'This would have been a great assignment for Naruto,' he thought to himself, only to catch himself and remember that he had been banished and that Jiraiya was pissed at him for not doing his job as sensei the way 'it should be done'. 'If we can last one more day, we can get this done and have the mission completed. The bandits are more of an annoyance than truly being any trouble. It was just that they couldn't seem to either chase the bandits off or kill them. They seemed to have near impossible luck at avoiding any type of death blow.

Naruto, Hinata, Shizune and Ayane all boarded a ship headed for Lightning country. They would reach the coast in a day or so. Now Naruto had to mill over the conditions of his new summons. He knew that the Koumori clan suffered from anemia, but it seemed that the head of the Bat clan wanted different things for their summons. He wanted either insects, fruits or blood, depending on which was summoned. This was almost as bad as the Toads with their affliction for either candy or chips. He decided that he would get some of each and seal them in a scroll for when he would need the summons, including the toads.

Hinata was now sleeping on Naruto's lap, with a smile across her face. Naruto knew why too. She had asked for them to share a bath when they had a chance. Him being who he was didn't think about and agreed to it before it registered what he had agreed too. Shizune thought about scolding him for it, but thought it in itself would be a fitting punishment for the boy.

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A/N: Another chapter for the books. I hope this cleared up some of the confusion, but also brought some more to my good readers. Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed this chapter… Next time: Adventure in the Alps or better known as Lightning country… lol…

Notgonnasay09: I agree and will say that so far as the relationships go, they will work themselves out. Thanks for noticing all the Bijuu and their containers are here. Now for Kirabi (Killerbee), he is hard for a guy who really and I mean really hates rap to write. I know it is mostly rhymes, but I also don't have rhythm, so shoot me. I'm also glad I rate an OK in your book…