It's been a while
I know I shouldn't have kept you waiting
But I'm here now

Sakura's stomach kept turning and turning. She could feel her heart beating inside of her head and hear the blood rushing in her ears. She couldn't even believe what had happened. It wasn't one single emotion that made her feel like she was about to hurl all of her breakfast on the neat grass, it was the combination of them, and they apparently decided to have a rave inside of her.

Anger.

Nervousness.

Anxiousness.

Embarrassment.

Fear.

Ambition.

The pinkette tried her best just to breathe and calm her mind. Yes, she would be on the same team as Sasuke. And Karin. Without her friends. That was probably the worst team she could've ever imagined. But she knew she had to do this, there was no way she was going go to Tsunade and complain about the selection. No, that would only show her mentor that she wasn't ready. She would have to just pull it together even though it took every last bit of her to stay calm and the race hadn't even begun yet.

After all of the students that were to take part in the hunt were divided into teams, Tsunade sent each team to a specific spot on the courtyard that had the number of their team on the ground. Naturally, Sakura and her team were to assemble in the spot that had the number 12 painted onto the grass. Sasuke was immediately jumped by Karin and the other girl that they were teamed up with, who the pinkette instantly recognized as one of Karin's friends.

'Now there's going to be two of them?!'

The team selection was really starting to get on her nerves.

The two other students from Appleton on the other hand Sakura did not recognize, but they seemed to recognize her based on the looks they were giving her. The treasure hunt just seemed to get worse and worse and it hadn't even started yet.

Oh boy, what a mess had Tsunade placed Sakura into?

The teams were placed in a large circle around the stage, with numbers running from 1 to 50, which would put the number of participants somewhere around a few hundred since the number of people in one team seemed to vary.

"You will be given six hours to search." Tsunade announced when everyone had found their place. Her voice had to be magically magnified so that everyone would be able to hear her.

"Just to give you a better start, you will be transported under the castle. There your main objective will be finding treasure, but remember that not all value comes from something's worth in money. Seems easy enough, but there's a catch. You will face puzzles, obstacles and even traps that will test your knowledge and skills as a student of the Luna Nova academy. These tests will be vital in your search, so brace yourselves. Do not just rely on yourself and your own skills, but depend on your teammates as well."

Sakura felt a tingling sensation run down her spine, and she couldn't tell if it was excitement or fear. The thought of going down in the dark and possibly dangerous tunnels was already intimidating enough for her and now they faced the possibility of getting caught in a trap? Yeah, this whole "magical and interesting test of courage and skills" that Kurenai had presented her had turned into something way different.

Sakura's thoughts were interrupted by Tsunade, who continued speaking. "If someone wishes to return before the given deadline, just look for stairs that lead up and you will eventually find your way back. But after you have returned, you may not go back into the tunnels. Remember that the tunnels haven't been searched for decades and the deeper levels not for hundreds of years. We don't know what waits for you down there so proceed with caution. Once you've been transported down, us teachers will not be able to bring you back before the deadline. Everyone left in the tunnels after the six hours have passed will be transported back here. Does anyone have any questions?"

The whole courtyard went silent after the headmistress spoke, her powerful and calm voice leaving everyone nearly breathless. Even if something was left unexplained, nobody had the guts to say anything. Tsunade seemed to have that kind of an effect on people.

After a moment of silence, she contently smiled. "In that case."

Then she pulled out of her wand and drew a large circle on light into the air in front of her. Sakura could see her mentor's mouth moving but couldn't hear a word she was saying, or more accurately, reciting. After Tsunade drew the circle, every circle surrounding a team started to glow yellow light.

Sakura was in awe of her mentor. Tsunade was so focused on what she was doing, it was tantalizing. She watched her mentor fill the circle with lines, as if making a pattern, leaving the golden lines sparkling in the air. Soon Tsunade finished her spell, leaving a circle with overlapping lines that from a far looked like she'd drawn a flower or a star into the air in front of her. She raised her wand and touched the circle, her brown eyes shining in the golden glow. Air around the courtyard started to whirl.

"Good luck, my dear students." She finally said, before every single circle team of students disappeared in a bright flash of golden light.

Tsunade sighed after everyone was gone, including her precious mentee. The courtyard that was filled with hundreds of students just a few seconds ago was now empty. Then she turned her brown eyes on Kurenai, who had turned herself towards the glass ball from which they would observe how the students were doing in the tunnels.

"Are you sure we made the right decision by sending them down there?" Kurenai asked, not moving her eyes from the glass. Her voice was strong, but Tsunade sensed that the young professor was worried. She couldn't help but confidently smile and walk closer to the glass ball, looking into it herself as well.

"They are ready, I know it."

"WE'RE NOT READY!" Karin, who was holding onto Sasuke's arm for dear life, screamed as the light surrounded them.

Sakura felt herself disappear in the flash of bright light that enveloped her whole body. Being transported was almost like walking through a portal.

Except it was way, way worse.

It was almost like her entire body was being turned inside out while cartwheeling in the air as she was uncontrollably falling down in the darkness. Soon the pinkette felt herself coming in contact with a hard and cold substance, which she expected to be the ground. How was this a nice way to travel? Sakura had experienced something like this only a few times and she'd never ended up on her feet. This time she'd flown forwards and hit the ground on her side first this time.

But she couldn't focus on the pain that radiated from her side, because the next thing she knew was the overwhelming feeling of wanting to throw up. Her stomach was doing flips inside of her, this time not from being nervous. She had used teleportation magic once before to transfer her and her friends up into their room, but she didn't react the same way then. Well, she'd knocked herself out and had woken up on the floor. But still, no nausea.

She groaned and opened her eyes, trying to look around her in the darkness.

"Hm, am I going to keep finding you on your back?" The teasing voice made Sakura's eyes narrow as she focused on the figure standing right above her, looking at her with dark eyes and a smug smile curving his lips.

Sakura couldn't help but glare at him. "Bite me, Uchiha. Not even vaguely possible."

Sasuke smirked at the hostile pinkette and offered her his hand, which she reluctantly took. He pulled her to her feet and watched her dust off the clothes she had on. Her black leggings and hoodie had dust all over them, so she unzipped the hoodie and took it off, giving it a rather rough dusting before putting it back on.

"Is everyone okay?" She ignored Sasuke and called out to the dark figures moving, which she guessed were the rest of her team.

Sakura focused her eyes on their other teammates, which were slowly getting used to the low lighting. Karin hadn't been as lucky as she had. The redhead had obviously gotten separated from Sasuke and landed flat on her face a few meters from the pinkette. Sakura turned away from the redhead, not bothering to look at her get up and most likely get angry at her like she always did.

"Lunae lumen." She summoned her wand, the crystal on the end glowing familiar, comforting light that helped her see better.

"What is that?" Karin's sharp voice called out and made Sakura twitch. How could one person have such an irritating voice?

Sakura turned around to face her. "What?"

"Your wand." Karin hissed, pointing to the blue light. "Where did you get it?"

Sakura slid her hand across the uneven texture, knowing far too well that the redhead was bothered with her wand being different. "It has always belonged to me."

Well that wasn't totally a lie. The wand and the crystal shard she'd carried with her since she was an infant belonged together. The fact that she hadn't owned the wand for a long time didn't mean that it hadn't always belonged to her.

Or well, maybe it did, but Karin didn't know that.

Karin looked stunned by Sakura's words and the pinkette turned away from the redhead, not bothering with her I'm-all-that attitude and severe obsession of being the best. They needed to get moving and everyone seemed to be ready to go.

They were in a tunnel, the end of one apparently. There was a lit, flickering torch not far away from them that gave the tunnel a soft golden glow, but far enough that they didn't have proper lighting where they'd landed. The two other witches also pulled out their wands. They glowed green while Sakura's glowed blue, but she already knew why that was and didn't want to exactly come out with the whole 'special magic' thing.

"Let's go." The pinkette spoke and started walking towards the lit torch in front of them. It wasn't exactly bright, but it was enough light for her to manage not to stumble in the low lighting. When they got close enough to the torch, they already spotted another one lighting the ground slightly further down the tunnel. They worked their way out of the short tunnel and found a wider corridor with lit torches. It looked like they'd stumbled into an underground medieval castle, with decorative high ceilings, arched doorways and everything.

"Wow." Sakura breathed, her silent voice echoing in the silent corridors. "It's almost like an abandoned castle", Sakura breathed out. The hallways were dusty, the once shiny armours that lined the stone hallways were now in parts and messily spread on the floor.

"Not almost." She heard Sasuke speak behind her, the astonishment clear in his voice as well. "This is an abandoned castle."

She walked further down the corridor, making her way inside of the stone walls. Her curiosity had gotten the best of her, she wanted to see more.

Sakura was walking first and everyone else stayed behind her. Karin was at the back of the group, with Sasuke the pinkette presumed, but she didn't care. Now that they were out of the tunnel that they had been transported in, which was a just a small tunnel with ragged ragged walls dug in the bedrock, and in the actual corridors, there was more light and they didn't need the light of their wands. Sakura only kept her wand out because she needed the comfort it gave her.

"This way!" Karin abruptly ordered, speed-walking past her as if she had a problem walking behind the pinkette. Which she probably did. Without making an issue about it, Sakura rolled her eyes and settled with walking slightly behind Karin and her friend, who had rushed to the redhead's side. It was better to play nice with the hag from hell rather than start a fight when they'd only been in the tunnels for a few minutes.

She slowed her pace down and let Karin and her friend slip a little further. Creating distance was most likely the thing that was going to keep her sane throughout the next six hours. The two boys on her group that she didn't know passed her quite quickly and joined up with the two girls. She had heard their names being called out on the surface when their team was being assembled, but at the time she hadn't paid attention to them. She and Sasuke were both walking slightly behind the rest of their team, both apparently trying to get away from the redhead.

"Guess it's just you and me." Sakura joked, not receiving a response from Sasuke which she was completely okay with. It was actually better if he didn't want to talk to her. That meant that he probably had just forgotten about the hug or brushed it off as nothing and that she could just resume her plan of avoiding him after the treasure hunt was over.

The pinkette turned her attention away from Sasuke and back to the group walking in front of them. Karin and her friend had taken command of their team, which in a way didn't bother her. She wasn't interested in being the group leader. She would gladly let Karin lead the way if it meant that they had a solid chance of actually winning.

Because there was no way in hell she was going to let Ino win.

What bothered her about the situation was the fact that Karin had everyone except for Sasuke, who couldn't care less about the redhead, and her, who didn't care much for Karin either, strictly under her control. It wasn't that Sakura wanted the other two boys' or Karin's friend's attention on herself, on the contrary, but the fact that they were just blindly following Karin and Karin acting like they were her lapdogs rather than her teammates was just weird.

"This is so weird." Sakura quietly sighed to herself looking at the group of people in front of her.

"Mhm." Sasuke agreed, which caught the pinkette off guard. Wasn't he not talking her just a minute ago?

They walked a while without saying a word. Sakura wasn't sure if she should say something. She had decided that them not talking was actually a good thing. She could just forget all about before. But was them just walking in silence beside each other awkward? Sakura wasn't sure what to think.

Sasuke suddenly broke the silence. "Are you going to do something about it?"

Sakura looked directly in his eyes and for that small moment she didn't care one bit about what had happened between them before. What she said came from the lowest parts of her core.

"There is no way in hell I'm getting mixed up in that."

The further they got into the underground castle, the weirder their surroundings got. Slowly they started to encounter things like busted skeletons, armor, weapons, armor wearing weapon possessing skeletons just pushed away to the sides of the corridors and all sorts of stuff. Considering that Tsunade wouldn't have transported them anywhere really deep in the tunnels, they needed to find a way to get down somehow. They all knew that the best treasures were in the tunnels deep beneath them. But if this what the upper levels looked like, the lower levels probably weren't going to be a walk in the park.

'They're dead, they can't possibly hurt me.' Sakura reassured herself as she kept her fingers tightly wrapped around her wand and tried her best not to look down to the ground.

"Scared, Haruno?" Karin called out, her piercing red eyes staring at the pinkette.

To be quite honest she was very creeped out by the fact that there were skeletons just lying on the ground. Those skeletons didn't just appear out of thin air. They, as in when they were still alive, either couldn't find a way out, which was the less scary option, or there was something in the tunnels that killed them, which was the scarier option. Those skeletons were a very real and physical reminder that this treasure hunt wasn't going to be easy, which in fact did have her heart pound just a little bit harder.

But would she ever admit that? Nope. Sakura would never admit that she was even slightly scared, definitely not to Karin and never in front of Sasuke. That she was sure of.

"No." Sakura calmly responded. "If this was scary we'd have no chances in the lower tunnels."

She cocked her head towards the skeletons on the ground and narrowed her gaze to meet Karin's red eyes, twisting the corners of her mouth upwards. "Are you?"

Karin huffed and turned her gaze away from Sakura, who was clearly not having any of Karin's shit. "Of course not."

"Well good then." Sakura answered, stopping dead in her tracks.

Sasuke was the first one to notice the sudden stop and turned to face the smirking pinkette. He could see that there was something she was hiding, it was the excitement twinkling in her jade eyes. Something about those eyes made him want to explore them further.

"And why is that?" Karin asked, clearly annoyed by the overconfidence of her voice.

"Because I think I we need to go that way."

It hadn't been more than ten minutes before they found their first "obstacle" as Tsunade had put it. Sakura had spotted a large corridor with decorative swirls engraved to the wall, that looked different to the every other hallway they'd seen before.

All of the anxiety and nervousness she'd felt before in the courtyard was gone and now she was full of determination. And well, a small piece of her wanted to show Karin that she was not a witch to be messed with. Maybe then the narcissistic hag would leave her and her friends alone.

On the other side of the short hallway was an opening into another room. Sakura was the first one to step into the room, which was nothing more than an empty, medium sized room with a statue of a soldier holding a spear on each side of the entryway. Her eyes roamed around the dark room. There was nothing there and Sakura knew instantly that something wasn't right, but her thoughts were interrupted by a weirdly loud sound of rock grinding against rock.

Sakura jumped when she saw the way they'd entered close up, the two walls quickly closing the space between them. None of them had any time to react before they were trapped, only the dim lights of the tips of their wands lighting the now dark room.

"Well that I did not see that coming." Sakura stated, staring at the wall where just a few seconds before had been a doorway.

She quickly counted the people inside the room. Six people, which caused a feeling of relief to wash over Sakura. At least they were all together and in two groups separated by a thick stone wall that used to have a doorway in it. But that also meant that they were all trapped in there together.

"Well this is great!" Karin sarcastically exclaimed. "What are we supposed to do now?"

Sakura quickly exhaled. Suddenly a torch lit up in every corner of the room, filling the space with a pale, golden glow. The quiet crackling of the fire was both intriguing and absolutely terrifying, but what could they expect from a magic treasure hunt in ancient tunnels underneath their magic school. It actually reminded Sakura of the ridiculosity of the situation they were in. What kind of a school has a treasure hunt during the first week of school that took place in unsearched and most likely dangerous tunnels under a magical school with a bunch of teenagers as a test to assess their abilities?

Well apparently her new school does.

Sakura slowly drew in a breath and started to examine the room. There was no obvious way for them to leave since the way they came in wasn't going to be an option anymore. The two soldier statues were staring at them and even if they were inanimate, the pinkette could've sworn that their beady, stone eyes moved when she moved.

Karin scoffed. "You know what, this is creepy. I'm out of here."

The redhead confidently drew her wand and started stomping to the wall where the entryway had been in. Sakura's green eyes followed the girl's movements. Karin was just a few steps away from the wall when the two statues dropped their spears in a warning x-shape just in front of Karin's face. Sakura could've sworn she saw a lock of fire-red hair fall down to the ground.

For a second Karin was frozen and didn't move. Hell, even Sakura had held her breath when the loud noise of metal crashing against metal overpowered every other sound in the quiet room. But then a second passed. And another. And finally the pinkette took a breath. Karin was still frozen in place, but apparently they weren't going to get out that way.

"Guess that option is ruled out." Sakura knew she was being obnoxious, but for some reason she didn't care.

Karin turned around, she looked stunned and pissed at the same time with a hint of rage colouring her already red eyes.

"What are we going to do now?" One of the guys asked. Even if Sakura couldn't see him clearly, she knew that he was nervous.

"Well", Sakura turned to face the walls and took a deep breath, "we try and figure out this puzzle. This is probably one of the tests Tsunade was speaking of so all we need to do is find a way out."

There was nothing to go on, really. Apart from the four torches and the two statues, there was nothing in the room. The statues seemed too easy of an option, and to be honest she didn't want to take another step towards the spear-wielding stone men. That meant that the solution to this puzzle would be somewhere else.

The walls.

Sakura approached the wall directly across from the two statues and started to feel the stones the walls were built out of.

The walls were made of the same stone and had the same decorative engravings as the hallway that lead the into the room. In the soft glow of the fire the engravings almost looked like someone had painted them directly onto the wall. The design looked somewhat familiar, but again didn't every swirly pattern have kind of the same look to it? Sakura gently slid her fingertips along the engravings, following the intricate design with her hand. The only thing she could think of was that the workmanship that went into carving the beautiful pattern was on a whole other level.

Karin wasn't nearly as calm as her. "What do you mean figure out? We're trapped you idiot, this is all your fault."

Sakura rolled her eyes at the unneeded shrieking, but before she could even turn around and say anything, she was interrupted by Sasuke.

"Give it up, Karin. You have nothing better to do."

Karin let out a frustrated groan and glanced at the wall nearest to her. "How do you know if this is even going to work?"

Sakura smugly smiled in the darkness. Sasuke and the others moved to the other walls and followed her lead, examining the walls for a way out. "It works in every movie." She responded.

The pinkette could almost imagine the face Karin was making behind her back. "Movie? You're basing this off of MOVIES?!"

The poor girl was about to explode.

"What do you mean 'MOVIES'?" Sakura mocked Karin and continued to run her left hand over the different shaped stones while her right held he wand up for the small amount of light it produced.

Karin bitterly muttered something that resembled a few nasty curses. "This is bullshit. We're never getting out of here with that. I bet we're stuck here now and it's all your-"

Click.

Sakura's eyes widened in awe as she watched the small, crescent shaped stone give in as she placed her hand over it. The second she touched the stone she felt a familiar sizzle of energy flow through her body. A blue light started to spread from the stone along the engravings in the walls, casting a blue glow over the whole room.

Sakura followed the glowing swirls with her eyes, amazed by the beauty of them. How could something so beautiful just be hidden away? But there was something not quite right about the room. She noticed that the glowing engravings didn't quite wrap around the whole room. There were still engravings that didn't glow at all, which was quite odd.

Sakura furrowed her brows. "They don't wrap around the room."

Sakura wanted to go see the other side of the room, but the moment she lifted her hand off of the stone, the blue glow slowly withdrew from the pattern back into the crescent shaped stone before completely disappearing. Surprised by the blue light disappearing, Sakura quickly placed her palm back over the stone, and the blue light quickly spread back along the engravings.

A shudder went through her entire body as she felt something unlocking in her mind. In that moment she knew that she'd found a way to solve the puzzle, but what made the moment even more important was that she'd also figured out what exactly they were supposed to do.

"This. This has to be the way to solving this." Sakura whispered to herself. She quickly turned her head to repeat it to her teammates, who to her surprise, were standing right behind her.

"Try and find another stone shaped like a crescent moon or something. Just press all the stones you can! I think if we can get all of the engravings to light up, we'll get out of here!"

Everyone nodded in response and got to work. Sakura was definitely surprised by everyone actually listening to her. Even Karin was working her way across the walls, trying to find a solution to the puzzle. They were all working as a team, which was the first time they'd done it since they'd started the whole thing.

Click.

Sakura turned to look at Sasuke, who was standing on the other side of the room, staring at the blue light spreading from underneath his hand. The sapphire light spread out through every swirl, every design and quickly the whole room was wrapped in the blue designs that were almost hypnotising. Sasuke turned to meet Sakura's gaze and the pinkette could feel a small, barely there smile curve her lips. Sasuke didn't say anything, but their eyes didn't leave each others. They had solved the puzzle together, they had accomplished this together. For a second she could feel like their energies were connecting through the stones they had their hands on, After noticing that they were basically just staring at each other, and even though it didn't feel weird (but probably seemed that way), she quickly turned away from the black haired boy and was back to facing the wall.

"It's beautiful." the pinkette breathed out, moving her hand to slide her fingers along the glowing engravings. This time the glowing didn't stop when she moved her hand away from the stone. She heard Karin and her friend compliment Sasuke on solving the puzzle, which caused Sakura to shake her head.

Of course he got all the credit.

Suddenly they heard loud rumbling and crackling, like the ceiling was going to give out any second. Even the walls and the ground they stood on started shaking. Sakura's eyes filled with panic.

Had she just killed them all?

Karin had flown all the way across the room and was now tightly attached to Sasuke's side, eyes tightly closed. If Sakura hadn't been scared for her life, she might've rolled her eyes once or twice.

Sakura watched the wall right in front of her slowly move to the side, creating an opening for them to slip through. As soon the loud noises and the shaking stopped, the opening stopped growing and the teenagers were left in a pressing silence.

She'd figured it out.

Sakura damn Haruno had figured a way through their first obstacle.

'Was it really that easy?' She thought to herself, doubting that this wasn't nearly as hard as the obstacles and tests they were going to face.

It was an odd test, now that she really thought about it. It didn't require any knowledge or skill. No magic whatsoever. All it took was some luck and logical thinking.

Sasuke brushed past Sakura, snapping her out of her thoughts. She watched him carefully examine the new route. He'd shaken off Karin, who was left standing with her friend behind Sakura's back.

"So who wants to go first?" Sasuke asked, motioning his hand towards the new opening in the wall. Sakura instantly noticed that he was looking at her, emerald once again clashing with onyx. He was challenging her and there was no way she would back down from this challenge. With a glint in her eyes she took a step towards him.

"I'll go."

Sakura easily slipped through the rather narrow gap the opening wall had provided them, which lead into a narrow stairwell. The opening was most likely supposed to open up as wide as the stairwell itself, but apparently not being used for decades or even centuries had its effects mechanisms (magic or not), so the gap she'd slipped through was roughly half of the width of the stairwell.

"There's a stairwell!" Sakura said back to her teammates on the other side of the gap, but continued to stare at the newly opened up path in front of her. A stairwell meant that they'd found a way to get to the lower levels of the labyrinth. The further down they'd go, the more valuable treasures they'd be able to find.

But Sakura knew well that the further down they went, the more dangerous it would become.

So naturally the only choice was to go down.

The stairwell overall was dark if you didn't count the few glowing blue carvings that went the down the whole length of the stairwell, almost inviting Sakura to follow them. At the bottom of the stairwell was more light and another opening, which was probably where they were supposed to go next.

Sakura placed her right palm against the cool stone wall and hesitantly took one step down. Nothing happened. Another. Nothing happened. Soon Sakura had descended down the whole stairwell and without giving it another thought, she stepped out of the dimly lit stairwell through the doorway into a new room.

The room she ended up in was slightly bigger than the one she came from. It had a higher ceiling, which gave the room a much more open feel.

At first when Sakura entered the room, she was disappointed by not finding anything. She didn't know what she was expecting, but in the low light she didn't see anything worthwhile. But just as she was about to yell back at her team that there was nothing in the room, her vision was suddenly blinded by a pillar of glittering light impaling the center of the room. Sakura lifted her hand up to shield her eyes from the excessive light, her getting near to the centre of the room must've triggered something.

"I think I found something." Sakura yelled over her shoulder, watching the holographic light glimmering in the air from between her fingers. She was more than curious to see what the light was all about, but heard steps behind her. For just a millisecond she glanced behind her.

It was Sasuke, followed by the rest of her team. Sakura quickly turned her eyes back to the light.

"Yes! It's our first treasure." Karin's friend exclaimed, enthusiastically clapping her hands.

Sakura smiled, feeling proud of herself. Maybe they really could make it to the end and possibly win the whole thing.

"Yes it is."

Not thinking about anything, Sakura reached her hand out. She felt tantalized by the glimmering rainbow-colored light flowing through the air, protecting an obscure looking object. Her curiosity was getting the best of her and she knew what she was doing was reckless, but she couldn't help herself. Somehow her want to get closer had overpowered any rationality in her.

"Are you an idiot?"

Karin's nasal, irritating did nothing to snap Sakura out of the trance that excluded everything from around her.

"What?" The pinkette whipped her head back.

"I knew you were dumb but I didn't know you were this idiotic." Karin was almost delighted. "Stop. Unless you want to lose a finger or two, because in that case be my guest."

Sakura was confused by Karin's words. "What do you mean?"

This time it was the redhead who was baffled. "What do you mean 'what do you mean'? Are you seriously the headmistress' mentee and you can't even spot a blatantly obvious magical shield?"

Sakura slowly swallowed as she saw the light twinkling in the corner of her eye, forgetting every single bit of courage she had before. "A magical shield?"

Any respectability she'd gained before had now vanished. She'd been entranced by the twinkling lights as if the magic swirling through it had pulled her closer.

"Yes, a magical shield, god. You don't know anything." Karin exclaimed and walked to one of the corners of the room to grab a small piece of the wall that had crumbled off as it moved to side. She picked it up and threw it right at the magical shield. Sakura didn't think much of Karin until the piece of stone came in contact with the glittering light and shattered into a thousand pieces, the iridescent light turning red and menacing with the entire energy of the room shifting.

Sakura looked horrified. She was going to put her hand through that?!

It took a couple of seconds for the pinkette to get over the fact that she had nearly lost a hand and to calm herself down. Of course she was a student in a school for witches so the school nurses most likely had seen every possible injury there was and knew the cure for everything, but Sakura really doubted that they could grow back limbs. Or maybe they could, who knows.

After the initial shock had passed, Sakura felt like they should just move on. They really didn't a lot of time in general and they most definitely didn't have time to just stand around. Or worry about her hand.

"So what do we do then?" Sakura asked. "Do we try and break the shield or just leave it behind and try and find another treasure? Preferably one without a protection that can shatter things into a million pieces."

For once, Karin was actually quiet, which was a new experience for Sakura. Karin instinctively brought her hand underneath her jaw and examined the shield, slowly walking around it without saying a word. If Sakura hadn't been still rattled by almost losing her hand, she would've probably been more shocked. Who knew she was capable of being quiet for more than a minute at a time while actually concentrating on finding a solve for the problem they had.

"Since whatever is inside is guided by a shield this strong, it should be valuable enough for us to try and take it." Karin muttered to herself, before taking a few steps back.

"How can we take whatever is inside of the shield if it blows up anything that touches it?" The shorter one of the two Appleton students on her team asked.

Sakura was glad someone else asked the question, because she was wondering the exact same thing.

"Easy. We just blow it up!" Karin's friend confidently exclaimed and pulled out her wand.

Before anyone could do or say anything, she pulled out her wand and pointed it straight at the shield. Sakura only saw her lips move and then with a flick of her wand she conjured up a large sphere of white light and using her wand shot it straight to the direction of the shield.

Deep inside of herself Sakura knew something was going to be terribly wrong as the sphere dangerously crackled as it flew through the air. When the sphere hit the shield only a rough second after it was conjured, the collision of the two caused a major energy outburst that lit up the whole room in blinding white light. Sakura could distantly Karin scream before being hit by a wave of energy that threw her back a few meters.

"Not again." the pinkette grumbled as she found herself on the cold stone floor for the second time today. Her whole body ached from being thrown back by the explosion, which was oddly similar to the feeling after Tsunade's transportation spell.

Sakura lifted her head to see if the explosion did anything to the shield, but the pillar of glittering light was still there, as if nothing had even happened. Her vision was blurry and her ears were ringing, but other than that she didn't feel anything majorly wrong with her body.

"Everyone okay?" She tried speaking and assessing the seriousness of the situation, but wasn't sure if anyone heard her since she couldn't even hear herself over the ringing in her ears. Her vision was still blurry, but as time passed by she could feel it getting clearer and clearer and the ringing in her ears disappear.

"Aya you idiot!" Sakura heard Karin angrily yell from the other side of the room. "How could you be so stupid?!"

'If she can scream like that, she's just fine.' Sakura thought and turned her attention away from the pair.

Sakura didn't care enough to pay attention to the rest of their conversation, which mostly consisted of Karin yelling. Instead, she pulled herself back on her feet and after a quick check-up diagnosed herself with no broken bones. That was good. Apart from a few scratches and bruises on her body and ego, she was fine.

Everyone on their team was now up on

"What are we supposed to do now? Can't we just-"

"Elliot, just, shut up for a second." Karin spoke in response and Elliot obeyed.

Sakura turned to look at the boy whose name he now knew He was tall, but not as tall as Sasuke and the other boy, and had dark brown hair that was effortlessly pushed back away from his face. He looked fine in Sakura's opinion, but she also hadn't seen one unattractive student from Appleton, which made sense. Appleton was for the male offspring of the rich and beautiful, which explained the explosion of hotness that had suddenly taken over the academy.

Sakura turned back to the shield which Karin was still staring at. She tried to remember if she'd read anything about magical shields or anything of the sort the night before, but she had focused more on the treasure aspect of the treasure hunt.

"It doesn't have anything generating power." Sasuke suddenly said, which caused Sakura to jump. He was standing right next her and she hadn't noticed, which had caught her off guard. But when she thought about it, the explosion had messed up her senses for a while, which would explain why she hadn't noticed him.

Yeah, that was the story she was sticking with.

"What do you mean?" Sakura finally asked.

Sasuke shrugged. "A shield powerful enough to withstand an attack like that should have some sort of a powersource, otherwise Aya's attack should've shattered it."

Sakura looked at the shield more closely and understood what Sasuke was saying. It didn't have anything under it or it didn't come from anything, it just shot up straight from the floor to the ceiling.

"That's right, that's why it feels weird in here." Karin suddenly stated. "Which means that it has a power source somewhere close by."

Sakura had no clue what she was talking about, but to her relief, neither did anyone else.

The redhead started to examine the room around her. There were a few stone benches resting against the walls, a few statues, bookshelves and paintings on the wall. Sakura she hadn't paid much attention to the actual room after discovering the magical shield.

"There!" Karin exclaimed and pointed at one of the statues in the room. It was a small bust of a woman sitting on top of one of the bookshelves, which Sakura most likely wouldn't have even noticed if the redhead wouldn't have pointed it out.

Sakura didn't quite understand how Karin could point out one object in the whole room and suddenly decide that it was the power source of the shield. But before the pinkette could object, she saw a shade of deep red flash in the statues eyes. It was slight, almost impossible to notice unless you were looking straight into the eyes of the statue and it was gone before she was able to say anything about it. Karin had been right. Maybe she was more than just a hateful hag with a pole up her ass.

"I'm ending this now." Karin said and pointed her wand towards the statue, eyes glowing with power that caused Sakura to take a step back. "Excidio."

Sakura only saw a flash of red and the statue shattered into a million pieces and left a burning smell into the room. With the statue destroyed, the flashing glow of the shield slowly faded and then disappeared completely.

Sakura saw for the first time what had been inside of the shield. Suspended in air was a small, hand-held mirror. Slowly she inched towards it and wrapped her hand around the handle before pulling it closer for inspection.

"So we found a mirror?" Aya sounded confused and disappointed at the same time.

The mirror looked old. It was made from some kind of metal that had a golden tint to it, but was covered in dirt and dust. It had some sort of metal thread with weird bumps decorating it's outer rim and language carved on the backside that she didn't recognize.

"Yup, I guess we found a mirror." Sakura shrugged. In a way she was excited and disappointed. Excited that they'd managed to find their first treasure, but disappointed that she had no idea what it was. She didn't recognize the mirror from any of the books she'd read on magical objects and the writing on the back was another mystery. Karin quickly snatched the mirror from her hands and started examining it herself.

"Whatever it is, we found it. Could be the magical mirror that shows who's fairest of them all." Karin said and smugly lifted it up so that she could look at her reflexion.

But when she lifted it up, the mirror didn't show a reflexion. It didn't show anything. Karin's smug smile was wiped away from her face and replaced by annoyance.

"Or not, but it must be worth something to have such a protection around it. We'll take it."

Nobody disagreed with Karin. It would be stupid to just leave the mirror behind, so Karin stuffed it into the bag she'd made Aya carry for her.

"So where do we go now?" Elliot, one of the two teammates Sakura didn't really know, said after a while of just standing around.

Suddenly they heard the same rumbling sound as before, like the ceiling was going to collapse on them. The back wall of the room split in two and opened up into a doorway.

After a few confused glances and a few more seconds wasted, Sakura pointed to the newly opened doorway.

"I guess that way."

The tunnels were nothing like what Sakura had expected. All she'd known of the tunnels prior to the treasure hunt was that they were hundreds of years old, directly under the castle and potentially very dangerous. Ino and Hinata had told her stories about the underground tunnels, how they'd been used as a hideout during the burning times, how parts of them had been used as dungeons and even though the tunnels were abandoned and closed off after Luna Nova was built, a lot of ancient history was left behind underground.

At the time Sakura hadn't really understood what Hinata had meant by that, but now that she was actually walking inside the corridors of an underground castle, she understood. The architecture, how the rooms were furnished and decorated - at one time this place had been the center of witch society. The pinkette started to imagine what the tunnels had looked like when they were actually still full of life and used, hundreds of years ago.

Sakura's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a very bored and frustrated Aya.

"We've been walking for HOURS!" Aya groaned. "My feet hurt and we've found absolutely nothing."

Sakura could feel a vein pumping at the side of her forehead. It hadn't been more than thirty minutes since Aya almost blew up their whole team, but the girl had no problems forgetting all about that.

"Aya", Sasuke suddenly spoke out.

Aya's eyes went wide as she turned to face the black haired boy, a surprised smile curving a lips. "Yes, Sasuke?"

"Shut the hell up."

Sakura used all of her willpower not to drop down on to the floor right there and start rolling on the floor hysterically cry-laughing. Sasuke, as emotionless as ever, was staring back at the now completely silent, slightly horrified looking Aya. Having Sasuke on her team was far from ideal, but as it seems, it came with some pretty nice perks.

"We should keep going." Sakura interrupted, trying to keep a straight face. "Can't win a treasure hunt with a dirty mirror."

But Aya did have a point. They'd been walking for quite some time now. Sakura had spent a few days at Luna Nova already, which she had thought would've given her a pretty good idea of how far the tunnels were to reach. Even though Luna Nova was a huge castle, Sakura had reasoned that the tunnels still wouldn't reach that far and that they would easily go through most of them in six hours. Oh boy had she been wrong.

The "tunnels", which had turned out to be more like corridors or hallways of an underground castle than the the caves dug into stone that they'd first ended up in, seemed to just continue without an end. At some point their group had walked so far horizontally that Sakura was convinced that they were definitely not under Luna Nova anymore. The tunnels had to continue for miles without any sort of a pattern to them, which made them almost impossible to navigate in. Sakura had started to wonder if the tunnels even had an end. To top that off, there were MULTIPLE levels of tunnels just stacked on top of each other, which made the whole system of tunnels enormous. How had anyone been able to navigate here?

It started to make sense that they hadn't run into any of the other teams. After an hour or so of wandering around the corridors of the castle, they hadn't seen a glimpse of anyone. The tunnels seemed completely deserted with no signs that there were dozens of teams full of students currently roaming around and trying to find anything of value to take back to the surface. The more they explored the tunnels, the chance of running into someone seemed to just get smaller and smaller.

After a dozen hallways with nothing but dust and spiderwebs, they had decided to split up into two groups so that they would have more of a chance of finding treasures or anything for that matter. They had decided that one group would continue walking forward and the other would go into a different hallway that they had just passed. Karin and Aya grabbed a hold of Sasuke and were on their merry way before Sakura could even say a word, so she agreed to go with the two boys.

"Don't go too far so that we can still hear each other!" Sakura tried yelling after the group walking away from them.

"Yeah yeah." Aya's distant voice called out, her voice echoing in the hallways.

"C'mon Chris, let's go!" Elliot threw his arm around the other boy's neck and started jogging to the opposite direction of where Sasuke, Karin and Aya had walked to. The boy, who he'd referred to as Chris, who wasn't too happy about Elliot's pace since the brunette was basically dragging him by his neck.

Sakura couldn't help but smile a little at the two boys and walked after them. Chris struggled to get out of Elliot's grip for a while but eventually succeeded and glared at the other boy. Elliot just smirked and kept walking.

The echoing sounds of their steps filled the halls. The hallways really resembled the insides of an old medieval castle. The walls of the hallways were made up of neat blocks of light gray stone with a very high, decorative ceiling. Large torches lined the walls and lit up the whole maze of hallways in bright golden light, making Sakura every now and then momentarily forget that they were in fact deep underground.

Elliot almost seemed like a toned down version of Naruto in the sense that he was very cheerful and smiled a lot when talking to the other boy, Chris, who seemed much more calmer. Elliot had light brown hair while Chris' hair was a very dark brown shade that looked almost black in certain lighting. Elliot was slightly shorter than Chris but overall they were both tall and made Sakura feel very short now that her fellow not-as-tall people (Karin and Aya) weren't around.

"You think we're going to win?" Elliot asked.

"I think we have a chance, yes." Chris responded, and the pair went on to have a full conversation about people Sakura didn't know or at least recognize by name and how they were going to do in the treasure hunt with their teams.

Sakura felt herself enjoying the conversation even if she didn't know exactly who they were talking about. It was fun to listen to just normal talk for a while, something that didn't involve her having to think about Karin or Sasuke or the bet she had with Ino.

She'd had her doubts about her teammates before, but now that she got to see Elliot and Chris interact with each other without Karin's presence, she couldn't sense any of the weirdness from before.

"It's Sakura, right?"

Sakura was snapped out of her thoughts by Elliot calling out her name. "Huh?"

"Your name, it's Sakura isn't it?" Elliot repeated and smiled.

"Oh yeah." Sakura quickly said, trying to smile in return. "I'm Sakura."

"Elliot." He introduced himself and pointed to Chris who was walking beside him. "And this is Chris."

Chris was silent but nodded a hello to Sakura, which she responded with a smile. Guess not all of her teammates were psychopaths after all.

"Over here!"

Sakura perked up from the distant voice echoing in the empty hallways. She instantly recognized who the voice belonged to. It was Karin's voice, which basically meant that the other group had found something.

"Well that was quick." Sakura said.

Elliot responded with an excited smile. "Let's go then."

Elliot took a few running steps and settled to lead their group to the direction where Karin's voice had came from. Sakura settled to walk next Chris, who didn't feel like jogging to keep up with Elliot's fast pace either. After a while Sakura noticed that Chris was quietly holding his hand over his other wrist. He'd been walking like that for a while now, which got Sakura thinking. He hadn't held his wrist like that when they were transported into the tunnels. Or had he?

"Hey, you're Chris right?" Sakura asked the boy, who quickly turned his attention to the pinkette. He looked almost surprised that she was speaking to him.

"Yeah. Or my name is Christopher, but Chris is totally fine." He smiled a little and Sakura nodded in response.

"Could I take a look at your other hand?" Sakura asked, maybe a little too out of the blue considering the situation.

Chris seemed surprised by Sakura's question and even a little bit embarrassed that she had noticed. He glanced down at the hand he'd been holding but offered it to Sakura. "You noticed, huh?"

Sakura immediately saw that his wrist wasn't okay. The lower part of his palm had started to bruise and the wrist looked slightly swollen. It wasn't as bad as it could've been but it sure as hell was far from fine.

"I think I fell on it after the explosion." Chris explained as Sakura examined the hand while they were walking after Elliot down the hallway. She vividly remembered being thrown to the ground by the explosion caused by Aya. It was a miracle none of them had gotten badly injured. She'd ended up with only a few bruises, but Chris had definitely not been as lucky.

"Can you move it?" She asked, very carefully turning the hand around to look at the extent of the bruising. Elliot had disappeared through a large pair of open door but Sakura was too focused on Chris' hand to keep walking so they stayed outside.

"Yeah, a little." Chris answered and she nodded in response.

"Well, you're lucky. It's not broken." Sakura smiled, surprised that the boy wasn't in more pain and let go of the hand. "But it is sprained. It should be fine until we get back to the surface, but you should take it easy for the rest of the hunt."

"Will do, doctor." Chris joked and Sakura laughed. "And thanks."

"You're very welcome." Sakura smiled and entered the room that Elliot had led them to a few minutes earlier. "I just wish I had something to tie it with."

Sakura got her first glimpse of the room. She wasn't sure what they had really stumbled upon, but to put it shortly, it was a mess. The room was shaped like an octagon and looked almost like a large, abandoned storage room with piles of random things, large furniture with white sheets thrown on top and dusty paintings. Some of the walls were decorated with maroon colored fabric with loose ribbons on both sides hanging from metal bars that had been bolted almost to the ceiling, which Sakura guessed were supposed to look like curtains. There were metal goblets, books, pieces of wrinkled up paper and other miscellaneous things scattered on the floor thoughout the room. If the room wouldn't have had such a high ceiling, it probably would've felt very claustrophobic.

The rest of their team had formed a circle in the middle of the room. From what the pinkette could understand, they were discussing what they should do next.

"This is just a bunch of crap." Karin said and threw a book she'd been holding in her hand to a nearby pile of random objects.

"This is the only place we've been able to find in the past hour." Sasuke said, trying to reason with the red head. "It can't be a coincidence that we found this door pushed open. Someone else was here."

"How do we know they didn't already take everything valuable?" Aya joined in.

"What took you guys so long?" Elliot asked once Sakura and Chris joined the group, interrupting the conversation they were having.

"Ugh, who cares." Karin huffed, waving her hand dismissively at the pinkette. "Let's just search the room for anything important."

Sakura rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. It was back to this, huh? She probably would've done anything to be able to switch to her friends' team.

This was going to be a long day.

❧ Goddess of Glam