I'm back! work and school took up a lot of time, but that is a terrible excuse. Sorry! More chapters to come soon.

Life is good for me. I have my condition under control and I feel better, and I started to rp on tumblr! Super fun!

Read, Review, and Enjoy, as always!

disclaimer: I'm too tired to care about not owning stuff, so guess what? I DO own Naruto. U mad?

Naruto looked out to the street from his balcony early in the morning. He'd never felt this way before. On the inside he could feel that same strange swirl of emotions as before, but today was the day he was finally going to act on it. Once Sakura was ready, the both of them would go to Tsunade and request a mission to find and rescue Sasuke Uchiha.

It was not sunny the way it usually was in Konoha. The clouds hovered overhead in such a way that it made the sky look close enough to touch. They alternated in shade; some merely lightly colored and harmless looking, and others dark and foreboding. Naruto took a glance at the calendar pinned to his board and squinted to read the tiny words printed on today's date. Land of Fire's Rain Season Begins, it said. Naruto wasn't too particularly fond of the rainy season, and the fact had just ruined what good things there were to this day. Naruto walked off his balcony and back into his apartment and over to his closet. He reached up for the ratty old box on the top shelf inside. He grimaced at the shoddy handwriting done in black permanent marker on the side. How hard was it to write "Naruto's rainy season clothes" on the side of a box?

It had been a while since his last dream of Sasuke's past. He chalked it up to having been too busy to work any further on the compound. He felt lost. Sasuke had once told him that he would never understand what it felt like to lose family the way he had; that he had been alone his whole life and didn't know any better. Naruto shook his head. Sasuke never did see that he was Naruto's family. He was the closest thing he'd ever had to a brother, or would ever have. Naruto's parents were dead, whoever they may be, and he was an only child. Sakura, Sai, Kakashi, Iruka, Sasuke… these were Naruto's family. While they were all still alive, Naruto couldn't help but sometimes imagine them dying and being unable to save them. Those were the worst kind of nightmares.

Naruto zipped up his jacket and snuggled deeper into the interior fabric. The morning chill had become more intense over the weeks. It was no longer the nippy air with the promise of a warm day. By now, it had morphed into a bone chilling cold that settled deep into his flesh. The seasons were definitely changing. It was only a matter of time before it would be too late to head out; too cold for a rescue mission.

Naruto lifted his head as he felt Sakura's fingertips land on his shoulder gently. He turned to face her, seeing that she had taken out her rainy season clothing, too.

"You're early," Naruto said surprised.

"I figured you'd be up by now," she shrugged. "You've been waking up earlier and earlier as time goes on. That might be a symptom of reading the chakra. We should have Lady Tsunade give you a quick checkup before we head out."

"What for? So she can tell me to stop because I'm wasting my life like you did?"

"No, so that you don't collapse from exhaustion halfway to the Sound Village," Sakura snapped back.

"You know that's exactly what Granny Tsunade will say," Naruto mumbled. "She'll tell me it isn't worth it."

"Are you even sure that it is?" Sakura asked.

"Why is this even still a question?" Naruto asked. "I'm not going to stop no matter what either of you say. This is important. Jiraiya gave up on Orochimaru, and look what happened to him. I'm not giving up on Sasuke."

Sakura sighed and lowered her head. It simply didn't seem fair to her. Risk Naruto's health and life and get Sasuke back, or have Naruto's life guaranteed safe and give up on reuniting their team? It wasn't something she thought any person should have to decide, and yet Naruto's decision to read the chakra forced her to make it. She'd agreed to it in order to keep Naruto quiet, but she was still against it in every way inside her heart.

"Can we just go?" she snapped. She huffed and lowered her head in anger, careful not to let Naruto see. Her anger was her problem, and it was better to hide it than keep fighting. It wasn't a healthy thing to do, but she'd do it, nonetheless. If Naruto was to suffer, than so would she.

The walk to the office was uneventful and silent, both Naruto and sakura still inwardly fuming with built up anger and resentment over their morning argument. The tension was very thick, and even the receptionist noticed it, and instead of greeting the two of them, opted to stay silent. As the two of them stood in front of Tsunade's desk waiting for her to return, they took side glances at each other, daring one another to speak of what happened earlier with Tsunade. The silent agreement was that they wouldn't.

"Any new memories since we last met?" Tsunade asked, stretching her arms up and yawning.

"A few, but they weren't very important," he shrugged.

"Don't just wash over everything like that," Sakura muttered. "Tell her everything or else. A doctor isn't any good if they don't have any specifics."

"So I got knocked out a couple of times," Naruto muttered back. "So what? I get knocked out all the time."

"If you go unconscious from now on, for any reason, you are to share it with me. Understand?" Tsunade said angrily from between her gritted teeth.

"Is it really that bad?" Naruto asked.

"That's the dangerous part," Tsunade said. "I don't have anything to compare it too, so I don't know if it's dangerous or not. Yours is a unique case that we all must handle with care. Everything that happens to you; every single little thing, must be shared. If we have a guideline for what happens, we can help not only you, but anyone else that has issues with it, too. It would be irresponsible to run around without some idea of what's happening."

Naruto looked up at Tsunade and groaned. He supposed she was right, but having to go to either her or Sakura was time consuming, and he had better things to do, and more important things to worry about.

"I'm sending Sai with you on your mission, but Yamato and Kakashi will not be accompanying you. The more people that go, the easier it will be to be spotted or thwarted, and Sai is more than qualified to lead you both in times of dire emergency," Tsunade said.

"You think we can pull it off with just three people?" Sakura asked.

"There's no other choice. Any more than three will cause suspicion, and if that happens, you're all doomed to fail." Tsunade said.

"And when will Sai be ready to leave?" Naruto asked.

"He'll meet you at the village gate whenever you two are ready. And please prepare carefully for anything. The journey to the Sound Village is a treacherous one." Tsunade said.

They left, bowing deeply as Tsunade turned to face her windows, the expression on her face unreadable.

"I'll get my pack, you'll get yours, and I'll meet you by the Gate in thirty minutes," Sakura told Naruto.

Naruto nodded. Now that they had the green light to go, he didn't want to waste any time.

. . .

Sasuke stood in his room all morning, pacing back and forth anxiously. He was going to get out, even if he had to bring that stupid prisoner with him. Yet, he had a sinking suspicion that he would fail. The clock on the wall began to chime, and the buzzing rang out in a quiet and dull tone. Sasuke would've made a note to replace the batteries if his desire to never see it again wasn't so strong. Time to go to the lab. He opened the door as quietly as he could, balancing his makeshift bundle on his back and toting a spool of explosive tags in his arms, placing one on the walls every few steps and connecting them all with a small thread of steel wire.

Sasuke looked up from his papers and wires to see he was at the lab door, the chains clinking quietly as he brushed past them.

"What do you have there?" The prisoner boy asked, pointing to the explosive tags.

"This is so we can get out quicker," Sasuke whispered. "I'm bitter; I admit it. I'm going to create an exit for us so big it'll destroy Orochimaru's precious lab."

"If you do something that flashy, they'll know that something has happened and that someone is probably gone," The boy mentioned.

"Not if I spill chemicals on the lab floor to make it look like an accident," Sasuke said quietly. "Speaking of that, did you remember the key…"

"Eiji," The boy said. "My name is Eiji."

"Eiji, did you remember the key?"

Eiji reached into his patched tunic, pulling out the string around his neck holding they key.

"Hold onto the chains while I unlock them so that they don't fall and make a huge noise," Eiji whispered as he moved to the door.

Sasuke placed his hands onto the thick chains on the door and felt the clinking they made as Eiji undid the lock holding them in place. As the chains fell away into his arms, he lowered them to the ground as quietly as possible and pushed the door open.

Vials and test tubes littered the tabletops, keeping jars of preserved animals company in the darkness. The only light he had was the light shining into the room through the crack in the door from the hallway.

"Get in, get what you wanted, and get out," Eiji muttered.

Sasuke nodded curtly and inched his way into the room. The tank was stashed in a cupboard in the back of the room. Sasuke groped around in the dark and felt his hand connect with the cold metal doorknob. He pulled it open and reached in for the tank. The cylinder of the thick metal tank felt strange in his arms, and he could hear the liquid sloshing around inside. It made him sick, but he didn't have the time to gag.

"I think someone heard us," Eiji said panicked. "We have to get out NOW."

"But this tank doesn't feel right-," Sasuke grumped.

"There's no time! I can hear the alarm from here! Another prisoner saw me standing here and told Kabuto! They think I'm escaping so the whole place is going into lockdown!"

Sasuke sighed and ran back out the door, grabbing Eiji's sleeve and wandering through the maze of halls to the edge of a wall.

"I'm going to pull this wire," Sasuke said as calmly as he could. "And when I do, every explosive tag that I placed here will go off. Then we run and won't look back. Got it?"

"Yes," Eiji gulped.

Sasuke tugged at the wire, and as the rumbling of explosions from deeper into the lair went off, Sasuke and Eiji made a dash to tone of the holes made by the explosions. The tremors became stronger the farther in they went, and every other step, Sasuke felt himself being pelted with stray rubble going loose from above him. The loud bang as all the rest of his tags went off rung in his ears, and he leaped up through the huge crater left by the tags, ignoring the screams and cries of the other prisoners below him as they were all buried in the rubble created from the falling rock.

Sasuke and Eiji watched as they walked away into the surrounding forest, seeing the smoke billowing up from the wreckage that was surely coming from the newly formed crater.

"They won't be looking for us right away," Eiji said. "That explosion was too big. Orochimaru will be checking on his lab first, then he'll concern himself with prisoner counts."

Sasuke nodded silently, holding onto the tank with both hands. It still didn't feel right. He knew the weight of a preserving tank, he'd worked with them for the past three years of his life. This one felt unusually light…

Sasuke stopped walking and rested the tank on the ground, unscrewing the top off the canister.

"Does this have anything to do with what you said earlier about it not feeling right to you?" Eiji asked nervously.

"It's too light," Sasuke muttered, dumping the fluid onto the ground around his feet and watching the dirt absorb the mess.

Empty.

The tank was empty. Sasuke had been preparing himself for the gruesome sight of his sister's body, but it hadn't come. The tank was empty and all his efforts wasted. If the tank was empty, then Orochimaru had surely already implanted the baby without his knowledge. Sasuke felt his anger rising as he clenched his fists near his side. He felt the pain and heat of his seal activating and did his best to keep it away. He wasn't going to run away with a prisoner and his sister to a new country and start over, he was running away with a prisoner on a mad chase to find his sister.

"Son of a bitch!" Sasuke muttered through clenched teeth.

"Is something wrong?" Eiji asked.

"Yes, something is wrong!" Sasuke yelled. "We aren't escaping. We are going to all the other hideouts and we are going to find my sister in them if it's the last damn thing I do."

She was in another hideout in this country, probably alone and scared. The thought of not being there for her pissed Sasuke off. Of course, things never went the way he'd planned them.