A/N: Yo. It's been a while. Back with another chapter. Yes, this story is going somewhere :P. Be warned there probably won't be another update for a while. I'm kinda sporadic what with school.

Naruto stood solemnly in clearing where five years back, Sasuke had died.

Three clicks to the east, the Sound Village lay, freed from the tyranny of Pein, but bloodthirsty nonetheless. Naruto and his team had had to be inserted clandestinely, but now their anonymous visage faded as they stood on the field where they had lost their comrade.

Beside him, a hooded figure lost its turban, revealing pink hair and pale skin. Sakura stared at the field with distant eyes. Naruto knew that she too was reliving the past. Behind them, elements of the original Rookie Nine stood, quietly permitting their comrades a few moments to reflect.

Shikamaru was the first to break the silence. He placed a hand on Naruto's shoulder.

"We all heard about the mission, but nobody knows what really happened. Care to…?" he let the question trail off.

"Yeah… It wasn't a big deal, actually. No melodramatic battle or anything like that. We were on our way to the Sound, attempting to assassinate Pein – this was before Jiraiya died – and we got ambushed. Sasuke stuck his head out from behind cover with his Sharingan on and some lucky Sound bastard saw him and managed to stick a kunai through his brains," Naruto sad, head shaking sadly.

There was nothing more to be said about it, so Shikamaru grunted softly before turning to give orders to the rest of the team to spread out and examine the battlefield. Five years would have erased any evidence of movement, but perhaps a secret passage or unobvious exit would help explain an unknown party retrieving Sasuke's body.

Satisfied with the orders Shikamaru had already given, Naruto left the group behind and took to the northernmost section of the clearing, where five years back he and his team and been preparing to take out Pein. Sakura followed him.

"What do you think?" she murmured.

"There's no way he could possibly be alive. We both saw the kunai go in. It was clean and it was instantly fatal," Naruto said, but it was without conviction.

They each took a step towards their respective bark, where they had each stood before. The trees were arranged diagonally, with Naruto's tree the farthest back followed by Sakura's tree a meter south-west, followed by Sasuke's tree a greater distance in the same direction. Naruto tried to recall the event.

They had spotted Pein on the eastern end of the field, apparently meditating with his back turned to them. Behind him, farther east, laid his traveling contingent. Naruto had whispered urgently to the other two to take up positions on the tree line. Then, as he ordered Sasuke to eyeball the edges of the clearing to find good cover, a random patrol of Sound ninja spotted them from the south, and without any fuss, flung half a dozen kunais. Five of them missed; the sixth managed to find its way into Sasuke'd head.

Just like that, the last of the Uchiha clan was dead.

Naruto once again shook his head sadly. Even legendary ninja could die from something as simple as a kunai. Sasuke had only been human.

Sakura spoke up.

"Hey… I know we killed the patrol, and the others never found the bodies… but is it possible that Pein himself retrieved the corpse?"

Naruto considered this before answering.

"It's possible, but I don't think it's likely. Pein was at least five hundred yards down that way," he said, jamming a thumb to the east. Sakura stared off into the distance, reimagining Pein's squatting figure.

"We should have come back for him…"

"Yeah. We should have."

Naruto left it at that. To this day he had always questioned his decision to leave behind Sasuke's corpse. It went against his every instinct, but at the time the priority had been survival. The ambush squad might have alerted the others, and with one comrade down, it was too dangerous to continue the assault. Naruto had pulled the plug and retreated, Sakura in tow. There hadn't even been enough time to grieve.

He sighed and shook off the past. Better to deal with the consequences of his actions than to dwell on what could have been different.

"Shikamaru!"

The young Jounin shifted his head towards Naruto and grunted an acknowledgement. He released the shadow jutsu he was using to probe the ground for any abysses or holes that might be telltale of an underground passage.

"What?" came the lazy reply.

"Anything?"

"What the hell do you think?"

"I'm thinking you might have found something"

"Well… Yeah. Sort of. I'm not sure. C'mere" Shikamaru gestured towards the patch of grass he had been combing.

Naruto took a moment to quickly observe the others before joining Shikamaru. They had divided the field up into quadrants and were each observing their own particular area. Nobody seemed to have found anything.

"What do we have here?"

Shikamaru shrugged.

"Like I said, not sure. The shadows around here feel a little deeper and denser. Not spectacularly so, but enough to merit digging, I'd say."

"Got it."

Rasengan!

When the dust cleared the pair found a sinkhole that just barely accommodated a short little hole going underground.

"Good work, Shika," Naruto said, nodding with satisfaction.

Shikamaru shrugged and peered into the sinkhole.

"Any idea where that leads?"

Naruto shook his head. Eyeing the sinkhole, he noticed something.

"Look at that."

He gestured at the sinkhole's haggard edges, obviously not constructed with normal tools but hastily made with ninja tools and techniques.

"I'm guessing this wasn't here when Sakura and I left. Whoever recovered the body must stored it in there to hide it from Pein quickly."

Shikamaru nodded.

"Kind of a stretch to say that that confirms Pein didn't recover the body himself… but it makes sense. If Pein had retrieved it he wouldn't have left it around here – it would have been taken back to the village."

Naruto agreed with Shikamaru's conclusion. There was still the matter of exploring the sinkhole entrance. Naruto called Sakura over and quickly informed her of his and Shikamaru's guesswork.

"So I'm guessing you want to explore?" Sakura said with a raised eyebrow.

"It's worth taking a look at. It seems to much of a coincidence that this little foxhole was placed here, only a few yards away from where we lost Sasuke."

"Alright. We'll be out here – give a shout if you need help." Sakura said.

She smiled and squeezed Naruto's hand lightly.

Naruto smiled back, joined Shikamaru down in the sinkhole and then trudged into the earth's bowels.

It was dark, but Naruto's fox-eyes allowed him to see well enough. He didn't know how Shika was managing, but he was a shadow user – darkness was no hindrance to him. The tunnel was short, requiring Naruto to stoop his tall shoulders over and dip his head slightly.

"Ugh. Smell that?"

Shikamaru sniffed the air tepidly.

"Nah. What is it?"

Naruto's nose scrunched at the bad odor.

"It's nasty. Like when Chouji farts."

Shikamaru chuckled.

"Can't be that bad. I can't smell it. Maybe it's further down the tunnel?"

Naruto assented and they continued walking. Soon the earth turned slightly soft and squelchy, a notable change from the previous dusty and packed. Their sandals stuck in the mud slightly as they labored through the passage. The narrow tunnel twisted once and then plunged down, into the earth.

"What kind of technique d'you think made this?" Naruto asked.

Shikamaru shrugged.

"It's a super random passage. See the walls? They're round but filled with grooves all over the place" he said, gesturing towards strange tracks in the walls.

"My guess," he offered, "is some sort of rolling or spinning technique, sort of like Kiba's twin fang. But with some kind of earth-element chakra to it. He was spinning fast and the earth must have been parting instantly for him."

Naruto nodded silently.

Spinning huh.

He was reminded of a certain attacker in the Konoha forest. Sure, maybe it was a stretch, but that would link Sasuke, the spinning little creature and this tunnel all together.

The tunnel soon widened into a large chasm. Naruto whistled.

The altar that lay before them had obviously not seen any use at all in the previous years, but the rotting corpse that was on top of it indicated that at some point somebody had been here.

"How are you not puking at that smell?"

Shika had evidently finally noticed the stench. Naruto shrugged.

"Would be kind of a handicap if I couldn't tone down the sensitivity, wouldn't it?"

Shikamaru moved forward to examine the body. He was not disturbed by the putrefying corpse. He was a ninja after all.

"Well. This has been here a while. He's a guy."

He took a step back to appraise the altar. It was a wide stone structure, wide enough to easily accommodate two bodies. The corpse was on the right side of the surface while the left side lay bare.

"What do you think Naruto? Sacrifice of some sort?"

Naruto grunted in assertion and checked the body for any sign of a protector.

"Clean, no headband or protector anywhere on the body. This guy was either a nukenin or his killer removed the headband. I'm guessing it was the first one. Not even Akatsuki removed protectors."

Shikamaru nodded.

"Only one question remains though. What was the sacrifice for? I can't think of any techniques off the top of my head that require a full body sacrifice and an altar to perform. You can manage most with offerings or just killing a guy," he pondered.

"I can't think of any either," Naruto responded. "But I'm thinking we should take this back to the village. Maybe the medics can get his identity somehow? Pass me a scroll would you?"

Shikamaru handed Naruto a sealing scroll, and with a few flips of his hands Naruto stored the body safely within the sealing paper.

"Aand of course it still reeks."

Naruto chuckled at his friend's complaints. He was about to give the order to start the trek back upwards when he suddenly remembered the obvious question that neither of the two had asked.

"What the fuck does this have to do with Sasuke?"

"Oh, right," Shikamaru answered sheepishly. "The first answer that comes to mind is that this is some sort of technique to revive the dead. I'm guessing that's why a full body sacrifice was required. But… I don't know of any techniques like that."

Naruto nodded thoughtfully. His own train of thought was running in a similar direction.

"All right then. Let's wrap it up. You take the lea-"

An muffled explosion rocked the underground chasm and sent plumes of dust cascading from the ceiling.

"The fuck?"

"Naruto! The others!"

Sakura!

Naruto was already half way down the tunnel by the time Shikamaru blinked.

A/N: And that's that. Stick around, read, review, whatevs. Go ahead and touch that dial, the commercial break might be long.