-Chapter 30-

"It was this way," Sakura directed, cutting a path through the brush.

"Are you sure?" Tenten asked, nervously glancing around. "It looks pretty creepy over there..."

"Hinata-san said to look for the headband," Lee shrugged. "And Sakura-chan would have no reason to lie to us, would she?"

"Of course not." She huffed, slightly offended.

Kakashi glanced back over his shoulder. "Keep it moving," he called. "No getting separated."

As soon as they got to the branch, Gai hummed.

"Ah! I see how they have managed to evade notice!" He appreciatively exclaimed, grabbing it and pulling it up. As he peered underneath it, he nodded in approval. "Very stealthy."

"Unfortunately, it looks like they won't be hidden for much longer," Kakashi added, frowning as he ushered the kids inside.

Once everyone was under, Lee, Tenten, Gai, and Kakashi stared in awe at the massive waterfall in the small clearing.

"And you said there's a passage?" Tenten gaped, pointing at the mass. "Behind that?"

"Yes." Sakura nodded. "There's a whole other cave on the other side that we weren't able to explore yet."

"Shut. Up." The brunette shook her head in disbelief.

Karin and Sakura exchanged worried looks before they turned to Kakashi.

"Can you come with us?" Karin asked. "Since the boys aren't here, we'd feel safer with an adult."

"Of course." Kakashi nodded firmly. "I wouldn't dream of leaving you behind. Not when the one who poisoned Naruto and Sasuke is still out there."

He turned to Gai. "You and your campers stay behind to guard this place. We don't want any stragglers."

Gai nodded. "Got it."

"Aw man, I hate guard duty," Tenten grumbled under her breath. Regardless, she parked herself by some trees and stood there, kunai in hand.

Lee grasped Sakura's hands and gazed worriedly into her eyes. "Please be safe," he pleaded.

"Don't worry," she said, mirroring his expression. "We will."

"If y'all need anything, just holler and I'll come running!" Tenten called out.

Kakashi chuckled. "Always the spitfire," he commented. "Well, let's head inside."

The girls led him to the waterfall, where they found the stone path. Kakashi's eyebrows rose, but otherwise he kept silent. Sakura turned on her phone's flashlight and went in first, warning him about the walls.

It didn't take long for them to hurry through, and before they knew it, they were in the same grassy area they'd come to when Sasuke had collapsed.

"It's new territory from this point on," Karin said, pointing out the well-lit cave beyond.

Kakashi inspected the cave and frowned. "Hmm... it doesn't look very safe..."

"We can do it," Sakura implored. "You could... uh... keep watch?"

He shot her a look of disbelief. "You mean you want me, the only adult, to stay behind and-" He paused to add air quotes, "'keep watch' while you two traipse through an unknown cave." He said slowly.

Both girls paused.

"Well, when you say it like that," Karin sighed.

He shook his head. "Just yell if you need anything," he relented tiredly.

"Thank you, sensei." Sakura smiled gratefully as she hugged him. "I promise that we'll be careful!"

He merely waved them off and watched as they entered the cave.

-line-

It was damp and kind of weird-smelling in the cave.

Sakura held the collar of her shirt to her nose to try and get away from the smell, and Karin pulled out a handkerchief to do the same.

"What is this place?" The redhead asked, her voice slightly muffled by the fabric.

"I don't know," the pinkette replied with a shudder. "But it gives me the creeps."

As they walked, they came across a split in the path. One led to the right, the other to the left. The one to the right was a bit dimmer than the main path.

Both girls looked to each other for a moment.

"So... I guess we'll split up?" Karin sheepishly suggested.

"As much as my instincts are screaming at me not to, sure," Sakura slowly replied.

They gave each other a quick handshake and a muttered "good luck" before parting ways.

Sakura turned her phone's flashlight back on again, only this time to the dimmest setting. She glanced around at the narrow walls. They were fairly jagged, so they most likely weren't man-made. But then again, who knew just how long someone had been here for? If they'd found ways to mount torches onto the rocky walls, then perhaps they'd been here a bit too long.

After a few minutes of walking, she noticed that the path was growing lighter.

"The exit!" She whispered to herself, picking up her pace. She nearly jogged to the end of the hallway and turned a corner, out of which she stepped onto a dirt path.

"Whoa." Her jaw dropped at the scenery. She must have been looking at the very backside of the island, because the water seemed to go on for miles with no land in sight. The waves gently lapped at the sandy shores of a beach below, and the dirt path went past the cave to the left, where it abruptly stopped at a little wooden shack. Perhaps it was some kind of storage shack abandoned by whoever had been here before Tsunade.

She frowned when she saw it. It was inconspicuous enough, but something didn't feel right. For one thing, every window was boarded up, except for the skylight on the slanted roof. The second, even the door had a large beam of wood covering the bottom so that no one could get in.

It was odd. Odd and disturbing.

She shuddered, rubbing the goosebumps on her arms as she walked towards the shack. As she went, something flashed in her eye from her left, and she hissed, rubbing her eye.

She stepped backwards so that it wasn't beaming into her eye, and she looked down, only to find some underbrush, as if someone had deliberately cut away the forest floor to make a footpath.

She frowned, seeing something black near some rocks. She squatted down beside the green and slowly brushed away a couple of leaves.

She gasped and pulled out a cell phone. "No way!"

Although the screen was cracked in a couple of places, when she pressed the home button, it turned on just fine, revealing the familiar lock screen of Ino's cell.

She and Ino beamed at her from the screen, some photo from a band competition a couple of years ago or something.

She turned the phone over, seeing the familiar sheer purple case with a lavender bow at the top, with the name Yamanaka written in sparkly gel pen. It was the purple case she'd gotten for her birthday the year before.

"This must mean..." She looked up at the shack, her anger bubbling. "... whoever took Ino has her in there!"

She got to her feet and started to walk towards the shack, but at the last moment, something stopped her. She got a really uneasy feeling about it, almost as if something was waiting to jump out. She took out her own phone and snapped a panorama shot of the area and sent it to Ino's phone, just in case. She shivered again and turned, running back to the cave.

As soon as she got to the split in the path, she almost ran into Karin, who seemed to have the same idea.

"We need to get out of here, now," Karin said, her eyes wide. Something had spooked her, and Sakura didn't want to hang around long enough to find out what it was. "Something is horribly wrong here."

"Don't need to tell me twice, let's go." Sakura glanced back at the path before taking off with Karin.

-line-

As soon as they burst out of the cave, Kakashi looked over from where he was leaning against the rock face.

He smiled at them. "Oh, you're back. What did you find?"

"It was crazy, Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura burst before she could think. "It was this long pathway in there! And then-- and then--"

"All we got was a dead end," Karin sighed, subtly squeezing Sakura's shoulder in warning. "All that, for nothing."

"Gee, that's too bad." Kakashi sighed lightly, gently placing a hand on their shoulders to steer them away. "Well, we might as well get back to camp and check in on Sasuke."

For the briefest of moments, his eyes flashed with something that made Sakura glance up at him with concern.

She turned to look at Karin, who simply shook her head and mouthed, "Tell you later."