Short, belated... I know and I am sorry. (bows, hoping for forgiveness) I've recently moved back to Canada for school and everything has been major hectic. Getting everything together and I sat down today and said to myself. Let's finish something! And I did. I hope you all like and don't forget to review! =)

Disclaimer: Not mine, sadly

Day 1462

Mismatched eyes watched as the small group of people walked through the underground caverns. He had been planning a trap, a confrontation, but now they were easily walking into his clutches. Slowly, he let himself fall from the ceiling. His feet made no noise as he landed.

He listened carefully and cursed under his breath. The only problem was the direction they were taking was the exact opposite way he would have wanted them to go. Nonetheless, the rest would know what to do.

-SN-

Sasuke had found the others with ease. All he had to do was follow their obnoxiously, loud voices. He greeted Neji with a nod, as he stayed by the back of the group as they wandered through the underground caves. Even though he was fairly certain that they were the only people in the cave at the moment, he couldn't help but feel watched.

His black eyes became the crimson color of the Sharingan when he was fed up with the feeling of being stared at. He turned around and looked down the path they had just walked. There wasn't anything that his Sharingan could detect and he couldn't feel other chakra then his and the others he was travelling with. Kiba's voice calling for him made him turn around and continue down the path.

The caves were starting to get darker as they walked deeper towards its heart. Sakura had lit a small torch and used it to lead their way through the darkness. Shion was walking close to her, not really feeling comfortable in the darkness. Ino was up front as she lead them the way.

"Ino-pig, you said you knew which way was the exit!" Sakura grumbled, glaring at the back of the blonde shinobi. Ino turned around with a red face and seemed to puff up in anger.

"I'm sure this was the way I used last time! It just seems that somehow…" Ino faltered as she grabbed the end of her ponytail and gave it a nervous tug. "…somehow, it seems like everything has shifted."

The pink haired girl only scoffed at Ino's explanation. "Ino. Caves do not shift."

Ino stomped towards Sakura, stopping right in front of her and placing her hands on her hips. The two girls glared at each other, getting ready for another one of their useless arguments.

A shushing sound stopped them before they could throw hateful words at each other. Shion held a finger against her lip as she listened to her surroundings. Both Ino and Sakura stayed still as they listened along with her before Shion took the torch from Sakura and started walking further down the path. It wasn't until the area that they were staying in turned dark that the shinobi hurried after the priestess.

Shion followed her ears as she softly walked along the path. She stopped when she reached a dead end. A small stream of water came out of the ceiling of the cave and landed in a small pool under it, no doubt eroded because of the constant water dripping on the rock.

Sasuke had been trudging behind his companions when Shion screamed. In a split second he came into action, speeding forward past the others as he followed her scream. He came up and grabbed her shoulders, hiding her behind him as he looked around for any threats. When his vision landed on the reason why she screamed, he could have sworn that he felt his eye twitch again.

Six small fox kits tumbled over each other as they played with their litter mates.

By then Sakura and Ino had reached them as well and let out loud, piercing squeals of the cuteness of the kits.

"Oh my goodness! They're so cute!" Ino exclaimed as she stepped forward to go pet them.

She let out a soft gasp when Kiba held out his arm to stop her. Akamaru was next to him, sniffing in the direction of the young kits to see if there was anything wrong with them. Kiba waited as Akamaru judged the situation. It wasn't that he was freaked out by the kits, but more of the fact that they were so deep inside a cave, plus the fact that they were all alone. It would be bad if their mother came to see unexpected visitors with her offspring. After a minute Akamaru let out a soft whine and sat down next to Kiba.

"Alright, you can go. But be careful! They might be carrying some pathogens!" Kiba shouted after Ino and the other two girls as they slowly approached the small creatures.

Holding in her breath, Shion got onto her knees and timidly held out her hand and waited to see if one of the kits would come close enough for her to touch one of them. A small head popped up from the mass of orange, its brown eyes focused on Shion's hand.

It let out a soft yip as it jumped out of the fox pile and took a few steps forward, sniffing at Shion's hand. She waited in anticipation as the kit inched forward, she was surprised by the size of him though, he had seemed much smaller from a distance. The kit stopped a few inches from her hand and seemed hesitant of what to do next. It looked as if it were going to take the last few steps when a larger kit jumped out of the pile and pushed it aside, growling at Shion its green eyes filled with malice.

Shion fell backwards, landing on her backside in surprise. This kit had to be at least three times the size of the other one. She nodded to Ino and Sakura to indicate that she was okay. "It's so big; the other one must be a runt." She mused.

"Their size is too much of a difference for them to be from the same litter." Kiba noticed as he stepped closer, stopping behind the three girls.

Once he approached the four kits that were still wrestling with each other stopped their antics and got up to race next to their litters mates. There they sat neatly in a row, their different colored eyes gleaming from the light cast by the torch.

Lee came up beside them and grinned widely. "Look at them! So neatly in a row, they must have learned great discipline from their mother!"

"Speaking of their mother, where is she?" Neji wondered out loud and he looked around for any sign of said parent.

They all looked around, but the mother wasn't anywhere in sight.

"They're fed well; the parents are probably hunting for food." Kiba said. He stood up straight again, keeping his eyes on the kits, there was something peculiar about them. "That being said, we should probably leave."

At that the three girls and Lee let out disappointed groans. "But Kiba!"

"No buts. It'll be getting darker soon. We have to get Shion back to Konoha."

Ino grumbled, but decided that Kiba was right. She stood up and tapped Sakura's and Shion's shoulders to get them to stand up as well. They were about to when a low, menacing growl came from the other side of the dead end.

Immediately Sasuke and Neji grabbed their weapons, everyone's eyes trained on the pool of water. It seemed to come out of nowhere seeing as the back of the cave was completely sealed off. Nonetheless, a few seconds later a large, orange-red fox came from behind the small stream of water and it had its fangs bared at the intruders. Kiba grabbed Shion's shoulders and slowly pulled her up, Akamaru growling beside him.

"No sudden movements." He said his voice slightly on edge.

The fox's lips were curl up as it snarled loudly, its blood red eyes trained on the humans who had violated the cave and tried to take the kits away from their safe haven. The demeanor of the kits changed almost immediately, their hairs stood on end as they hissed at the humans in front of them, imitating the fox that had entered.

Kiba urged them all to back up slowly as the large fox came walking their way. He slowly pushed Shion into Neji's arms and stayed his ground as he let his comrades back up further, forming a wall of defense together with Akamaru. Shion passed the torch to Sasuke who started stepping side-ways to navigate them back the way they came.

The large fox let out a large bark before it lunged towards Kiba and Akamaru. Immediately Akamaru jumped in front of his owner to defend him, taking the blow of the fox's weight as it crashed onto him.

"Run!" Kiba shouted as the kits ran forward as well, nipping at his ankles and at Akamaru as the large fox wrestled him into submission.

Sasuke didn't hesitate a second before taking off, the others in tow. They couldn't afford to wait for Kiba; he could handle himself fine while they brought Shion back to safety. Even though they had already put a great distance between them and the foxes Sasuke could hear their barking getting closer. Apperantly even Kiba and Akamaru couldn't hold back ravenous foxes.

He screeched to a halt when they arrived at a splitting in the cave pathways. Sakura bumped into him, a bit frantic at being hunted. She inspected both of the pathways. "I don't know. I don't remember anything like this." She said with sorrow evident in her voice.

"We'll go left." Neji insisted and was about to pull Shion along when she tugged him the other way.

"No, let's go right."

"Shion-sama, we are your guardians and I insist that you follow my directions." Neji said. There wasn't any time for some female stubbornness.

Shion huffed at him, ripping her arm out of his grip and ran down the right path. Something in her told her that this was the way out of there.

-NS-

His plan was working out perfectly. He chuckled under his breath, baring his fangs to the darkness of the caverns. The fear that was echoing through the pathways made it even better. With a smirk he let out another low whistle to alert the others. The barking in the distance ceased and footsteps were hurrying his way. Quickly he stepped out into the open air, setting himself down for the next phase.

-SN-

"Shion-sama!" Neji shouted after the blonde priestess as she ran in front of them. The woman ignored him to his spite and he picked up his pace to catch up to her. She let out a happy giggle as she felt wind blow from further down the way. "I told you!"

The Hyuuga slowed down when he spotted Shion standing in an opening of the caverns. She turned around with a triumphant smile. Sasuke, Ino, Sakura and Lee came out a few seconds later. Sakura leaned against the outer wall of the caverns and sighed.

"Fresh air… Thank Kami we made it out in one piece. I hope that Kiba's okay."

The others relaxed a bit at the fact that they were out, but Sasuke only tensed more when he noticed where they were standing. He stepped forward, cautiously. Impossible, there was simply no way that the caverns could lead out here. A few hours ago, they had been going in the completely opposite direction. Shivers crawled up his spine.

"The Valley of the End."

Neji came up behind him and placed a hand on Sasuke's shoulder. He knew that the place held many dark memories for the Uchiha. His white eyes looked around to see if there was anything suspicious in the area.

It was then that Kiba joined them; he was panting heavily and would have fallen to the ground if he hadn't been supporting his weight by leaning against the cave walls. Sakura quickly made her way over to him and inspected his wounds. Most of them were simply shallow cuts and he was full of bruises, but that was it.

Sakura looked up at Kiba with a worried look and he waved it off. "We'll be alright. I don't get it though… They were all over us one second and the next they just disappeared."

"Foxes don't disappear, Kiba." Sakura said as she started healing his wounds. "They must've fled through whatever opening the larger fox came through earlier."

Kiba shook his head determined. "No. I'm being serious here Sakura. The big one was on Akamaru and I was about to kick it off and it really just disappeared!"

The pink-haired medic shook her head at Kiba and didn't comment on him anymore as she finished healing his wounds. She got up, turning her head towards Sasuke. He still hadn't moved, or made a sound since he had found out where they were. Neji was still standing next to him, although his hand had already slid off of his shoulder and they stood side by side, watching the river flow by.

Somehow the demon priestess noticed Sasuke's distress and silently walked over to him. She studied him for a second and looked at her surroundings. There wasn't particularly anything special about the Valley of the End as she saw it. The only abnormality being a large dry spot in the middle of the river.

In the back of her mind she remembered the stories Naruto had told her before in his letters about this place. She knew the significance of the location to Naruto, but it seemed that even Sasuke had some kind of emotional connection to it as well.

Her hand came up, seemingly to grasp Sasuke's shoulder, but at the last second she changed her mind and slapped him on the back of his head.

Immediately Sasuke turned his head to glare at her as his hand came up to rub the stinging spot on the back of his head.

Shion placed her hands on her hips and puffed up her cheeks in annoyance. "So, mister I-Am-A-Genius. Are you gonna get up out of here and back to the village soon or are you gonna stand around like a statue?"

Black eyes narrowed and Sasuke was about to retort when a rough, low voice interrupted them.

"Yes Sasuke. Why don't you enlighten us and bring us back to the village?"

The group stared at the figure standing on the other side of the river.

"Naruto." Sasuke said.

Dun, duun duuun! Hehehe, what would Naruto want? Review!