Rock Bottom - A Team 7 Story [Completed]

Chapter 21 - Why Tsunade Shouldn't Win Bets

 "Can someone please tell me what the hell just happened?" Sasuke asked, looking at his sensei for answers. Kakashi had shunshin-ed the three Genin and Sannin out of the arena, and into a random forest.

The masked jounin let out a shaky breath. There was no time to go into detail. "Danzo's life force was linked to the Root Headquarters, and Minato, the real Minato, is being held prisoner there."

"Kakashi-sensei, what's Root?" Sakura asked, following the white haired ninja. Tsunade answered for him though.

"In a nutshell, Danzo had his own personal branch of ANBU called Root. Their headquarters is a labyrinth that only Danzo and Root members knew."

"We could force a member to show us. Now that Danzo's dead we shouldn't have a problem with that." Jiraiya pointed out, only for Kakashi to smile sheepishly.

"Maa, that could have worked. But due to circumstances all Root members have met the same fate as Danzo." Team 7 sweatdropped at this, they were used to Kakashi's antics. Tsunade, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru however, were not.

"You what!"

"Jiraiya-san, with all due respect this isn't the time, Minato is inside Root and unless we get him out of there, he will die in three days." Kakashi then stood up and started walking, motioning for the rest to follow him.

He led the group deeper into the woods, almost no light reached them through the thick branches. "Oi Kakashi! Should you really be allowing genin to accompany us?" Jiraiya asked, earning a painful whack on the head from Tsunade.

"Baka, so far they've proved to be anything but Genin." Kakashi ignored the two bickering Sannin and turned to his students.

"When we get to the entrance, Sakura, I want you to go first. Check the infrastructure to make sure it can still support our weight. Sasuke, if Sakura gives the ok you'll go next, then Naruto."

The three genin nodded in understanding and Kakashi smiled slightly.

.

.

.

"We're here." Kakashi said as he suddenly stopped walking. Sasuke stopped walking and stood next to his sensei, and Naruto walked into Sasuke's back.

"Gomen," The blonde said while blushing, totally out of character for him. But for some reason it made the corners of Sasuke's mouth twitch upwards.

"It's fine," Sakura watched the entire exchange from a few feet away with a huge grin plastered on her face. She had to slap herself to prevent her giggles, making everyone look at her like she was crazy. The pinkette merely ignored them and turned to the tree Kakashi had led them to.

"This is it?" Her sensei hummed in confirmation and placed his hand on the trunk. Revealing a hole in the ground to the right of the tree. Sakura took in a sharp breath as she stared into the black abyss, there was no way she could tell how far down it went.

The pink haired kunoichi willed the tungsten to form a disk for her to sit on. This way she could safely descend into the pitch black Root HQ. Feeling her way around as she entered the dark chute, she deduced that the hole was about four feet in diameter, and about 20 feet deep, but it was connected to a large chamber that the pinkette was wary to explore on her own.

Sakura landed at the bottom of the chute, freezing up when she felt the floor creak under her weight. She took a shuddering breath and spoke. "I'm at the bottom, it seems to be holding up." No response.

The pinkette told herself not to panic, they were probably trying to get her teammates to stop arguing. She forced herself to take deep breaths. In, out, in, out in, "Ow!" Something fell on top of the pinkette without warning. The ground creaked in protest as she pushed the body off of her. Then she saw a small flame light up the room and reveal the person who fell on her.

"Sasuke? Is that you?" The ravenette wordlessly nodded and encased his entire right hand in fire, covering the large room with an orange glow. Then both of them looked up to see the other two members of their team, and the Sannin, free falling directly above them. Reacting instinctively, Sakura kept them suspended in the air, not trusting the floor to support their combined weight in one spot.

"Are you all stupid? If I didn't catch you all in time we would have been dead!" Sasuke said nothing, still gathering his bearings from the near heart attack he just had.

"Gomen," Was all the pinkette received in reply. She scoffed and rolled her eyes, turning to examine the room they were in.

It was a barren room that easily accommodated the seven of them, with three doors leading out of it. "We got in, now what dattebayo?" Kurama appeared on the blonde's shoulder with a poof. As expected, the Sannin were surprised and demanded an explanation. And as usual, Team 7 had to clarify the situation.

Once that was cleared up, Kurama started talking. "We will split up into groups. Two groups of two and one group of three. The groups will be as follows: Tsunade, Jiraiya, and Kakashi, Orochimaru and Sasuke, and Naruto and Sakura."

"Why don't we just split Team 7 in half and have us three Sannin as a team?" Orochimaru asked, the fox demon chuckled in response.

"The teams were created based on weight. I paired Kakashi with Tsunade and Jiraiya because despite how heavy he may seem, once you get rid of all the Icha-Icha stashed in his pockets Kakashi's actually quite light." Kakashi blushed slightly, although nobody noticed because of his mask and the dim lighting. "As for Naruto and Sakura...well let's just say all that ramen he ate had to go somewhere." Naruto flashed a grin and pushed back his sleeve, flexing his bicep.

"I got muscle dattebayo!" Sakura smirked as she saw the Sasuke shift uncomfortably and stare at Naruto's feet.

"Anyway, you all have one and a half days to find Minato. If you don't find him in that time, return here anyway. We can't risk staying any longer in here" Kurama jumped, making the floor shake to prove his point. Everyone nodded in understanding.

"What if we do find Minato? How will we let everyone know?"

"You won't be able to, just get the Yondaime and get your ass out of here and wait. The rest of us will hopefully return in one piece." Jiraiya then glared half-heartedly at Tsunade.

"This is what happens when you win bets Tsunade. Minato is going to die in three days, and we're forced to work with demons to find him." Kurama huffed, his snout stuck in the air proudly (but everyone ignored him anyway).

"I have no regrets," The blonde kunoichi said with a grin.

"You know, what if Danzo was lying? What if instead of three days, we have three hours? What if Minato isn't even in Root and he was just trying to get us killed?" Orochimaru pointed out. Naruto turned to him with a fire in his eyes.

"What if he is in there? What if we do have three days? I am so close to meeting my real father dattebayo! I'll be damned if I give up now!" Naruto turned back to the three doors and walked to the one in the middle. "We have three days to find him, and we'll need all the seconds we can get." Naruto pushed open the door, and Sakura followed him as he went further into the labyrinth of hallways.

.

.

.

"Ne, Naruto?" Sakura asked. They had been walking for a while now.

"Hm?"

"Were those markings on the wall there before?"

_______________________________________

I seriously can't believe this had 4.1k reads!! Like what??? XD

I know I say this a lot but I really mean it: Thank you all so much for reading this ;D

_izoy_