Rock Bottom - A Team 7 Story [Completed]

Chapter 17 - Where'd Temari Go?

Sakura heaved tiredly. When she started training with Gaara she had no idea how ruthless he was. The pinkette had just finished running laps around Konoha...while wearing 10-pound weights on each limb and dodging Gaara's sand attacks. She sat down only to jump back up to avoid Gaara's sand once again.

"What was that for? I thought you were giving me a break!"

"Tsunade won't be giving you a break while fighting, why should I?"

"There won't be a need to fight Tsunade if you work me to death!"

"I'm just making sure that you won't die during the third stage. You'll thank me in a month."

"Assuming I live that long.." The pinkette mumbled with an irritated scowl.

Gaara paused for a moment, staring at the tired kunoichi in front of him. He was becoming very lenient around her, but he didn't know why...

"Fine, we'll work on your Kekkei Genkai." Sakura sighed with relief and smiled thankfully when the redhead motioned for her to sit down across from him. Gaara then made a small pile of sand in between the two of them. "Focus your chakra to move the sand." Sakura did as she was told, and willed the sand to move with her chakra.

"Agh!" Before anyone could react, the sand had started floating and collided with Gaara's face.

"I'm so sorry! Are you okay Gaara?" The redhead nodded and rubbed the grains of sand out of his eye.

"Stupid kunoichi, stupid jinchuuriki, stupid humans! You're both going about this wrong." Both Sakura and Gaara glared at their uninvited guest. Shukaku made a know-it-all's face and smirked at them. "The Haruno Kekkei Genkai is about changing the shape of something while keeping the structural integrity of the original object intact. Not slicing things like deli meat...no matter how delicious that human-food is." Shukaku mumbled the last part and then waved his paw.

Suddenly a block of metal appeared, it was about the size of Gaara's gourd. "Sakura, this block of tungsten. It will be your go-to weapon from now on. Once you master your Kekkei Genkai you will be able to make swords and kunai out of it along with anything around you. But for now, you can just use it as a wrecking ball!"

Sakura's eye twitched. Shukaku may have been more helpful than Kurama, but he more than made up for that with his rude remarks.

"How did he make that metal block anyway?"

"He stole it from the blacksmith down the road," Gaara said with a sigh.

"That's right! Now chop chop Sakura! Or Tsunade will go chop chop...to your head!" Shukaku said with an overly cheerful grin. Sakura smiled an I'm-secretly-planning-several-ways-to-kill-you smile and said,

"So I can use this as a wrecking ball right?" The metal block started moving. It was barely noticeable at first, but then it started picking up speed. The tungsten then started levitating and gravitated towards the raccoon demon.

"Hey hey! What're you doing?" Shukaku yelled as the flying metal block nearly decapitated him.

"Training," Sakura said simply. Gaara smirked slightly as he watched the exchange between Sakura and Shukaku.

"Jinchuuriki! Help your resident demon here!"

"No thanks, I don't particularly want to get on Sakura's bad side. And even if I did I don't really want to help you either.

"Stupid humans!"

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"Kurama! I did it dattebayo! I made a bijuu bomb!" Naruto stood proudly over the swimming pool-sized crater he made. The fox demon chortled.

"You call that a bijuu bomb? It's more like a bijuu party popper!" Kurama stood up and started yelling. "I want more power! More chakra! More energy! Focus Naruto!"

"I am dattebayo! You need to shut up!" Naruto huffed and held his hands out. He made the necessary hand seals and focused his chakra. A purple orb formed and started growing between his outstretched hands, but it faltered when Kurama started screeching into his ear.

"More chakra gaki! I know my jinchuuriki isn't this wimpy!" Naruto let out an animalistic growl, his bijuu bomb started growing rapidly.

"Shut up you damn fox!" The blonde jumped away from Kurama and chucked the bijuu bomb at the Kyuubi. Looking back, that may not have been the best idea. You see, the moment the bomb made contact with Kurama, it (obviously) exploded. The result: a smoldering tailed beast in the middle of a crater that was so big it nearly took out the Hokage monument.

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" Kurama grinned as he lifted himself to his feet and walked to Naruto. Completely unfazed from the catastrophic attack that had just hit him head-on.

"Kurama! I almost destroyed the Hokage monument 'ttebayo! They're gonna come after us!"

"Don't worry gaki, there's no way they could trace the explosion back to us" At that moment, several ANBU came out of the surrounding forest, forming a circle around the Kyuubi and his jinchuuriki. Naruto glared at Kurama in irritation.

"Unless of course, we were standing right next to the crater dattebayo!" The blonde huffed and glared in annoyance at the ANBU surrounding the two of them. "I bet Sakura-chan and Sasuke-teme are having a much easier time than us.."

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"Are you kidding me? Not you too!" Sasuke shouted as he gave a murderous glare to the puppet user standing next to him. Kankuro smirked and said.

"Okay then, we'll do some simple training since you're obviously not advanced-enough for the Sharingan stuff." Sasuke glared at the puppet user. Kankuro knew exactly how to push his buttons and did it at every possible moment.

Sasuke's glare intensified.

Kankuro's grin grew in response.

"Fine,"

"Yay! Come on ex-Uchiha! Let's go raid your old compound!" The sand shinobi cheered as he dragged the protesting ravenette back to the village.

.

.

"Oi, Sasuke! Why does the Uchiha compound have so much goddamn security?" Kankuro whisper yelled, only to receive a harsh glare from Sasuke.

"They're the head of the Konoha police force. I'd be surprised if they didn't have any security." The leaf-nin roughly pushed Kankuro to the ground as a guard walked by. The two of them poked their heads over the bush in front of them, "Ok listen. The library is in that building over there," Sasuke pointed to a small, run-down, shack-like structure.

"Why's the library on the outskirts of the compound? Shouldn't it be protected?" The puppet user looked to the ex-Uchiha.

"It is, I mean, who would expect all the valuables to be stored in a shabby building like that? And even if someone was dumb enough to go looking for the Uchiha scrolls, that shack would be the last place they would look,"

Kankuro stared at Sasuke, waiting for him to realize he just insulted himself. But he gave up when it became apparent that it would get them nowhere. The sand shinobi rolled his eyes. 

"Yeah okay, here's the plan. We go in, take the scrolls, and get out. Nice and simple ok?" Sasuke nodded and turned back to face the compound just as another patrolling guard walked by.

"Now's our chance."

The two boys quickly ducked under the fence and into the Uchiha compound. They hurriedly made their way to the run-down building, but when they got there, all of their minimal planning went out the window.

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I swear I thought I was seeing things this morning! 1.4k reads and 118 votes?!?! You guys are too nice! Thank you again! I really appreciate you all taking the time to read this hunk of junk XD