Naruto was beginning to think himself stupid. He had to be out of his mind to do what he was about to do, and yet, there he was, doing it. Tenten and Sai stood behind him, ready to catch him if he fell, Lee was in front, and Laurie, the poor girl, had gotten dragged into it too, and was beside him, holding his arm to support him.
"I don't suppose you have a plan?" Naruto asked, looking around for any signs of pursuers. "Maybe you should have waited till I was recovered before you planned all this."
"We were going to," Sai said, shaking his head. "But Tobi was planning something, and we didn't want to wait to find out what it was."
"But we could very well die because of me," Naruto said with a groan. "You couldn't have waited any longer?"
"Did you want to see what he planned? Stay locked up there any longer?" Sai returned. "And don't worry. We'll leave you by yourself before we get caught."
"Great," Naruto said sarcastically with a roll of his eyes. "How long till they find we're gone, would you say?"
"Maybe a few more minutes," Tenten said with a sigh. "We have a good hour on them, but that means nothing with the pace we're going."
Naruto walked in silence for a few more minutes. They hadn't said where they were going, but he assumed the location to be Konoha. Maybe Suna. It didn't really matter where they went. Tobi would track him down and kill him, and hurt whoever he cared about wherever it was. But, Naruto thought with a sigh, it never would hurt to see Hinata and Sasuke again.
"Naruto?" Laurie said quietly. He turned to her and saw worry on her face. "Are you okay? You're sweating and looked flushed. Do we need to stop?"
Naruto couldn't say anything. He was robbed of breath, and felt quite stupid. He was already tired and weak, and they'd only been walking for an hour or so. He knew the recovery process was important, and that he needed rest, but that didn't stop him from feeling ridiculous. He'd trained for years to get his stamina up.
"Let's stop for a moment," Tenten said quietly, having overheard Laurie. Sai agreed, but was always alert and looking to hear something. Naruto too, was alert and worried. He knew how easily they could be caught, especially when Tobi got serious. He had this special guy on his side that...well, no one actually knew what he did. They just knew he could play mind games on his victims, and they never failed to make Naruto sorry for them. He remembered seeing them fall to their knees in front of the guy, then start screaming, and soon, they were shouting nonsense. He wasn't a man you wanted to cross or make angry.
"When can you continue?" Sai asked quietly. "Better yet, can you send a clone for me?" Naruto looked at Sai, knowing what he was thinking.
"I can send the clone, but it'll take most of my energy," he said. "You'll probably have to carry me if we're to continue."
"That's fine," Sai said. "But your clone needs to hurry. If we can't go to Suna, we'll have to go to Konoha." Naruto nodded, and within seconds, one of his clones was off to inquire if Gaara was there, and able to hide them.
It came back an hour later with news that Gaara had gone to Konoha for a meeting of the Kages. The clone couldn't say what it was about, but that it was a serious matter.
"Konoha it is, then," Sai said with fake cheerfulness. "Get on my shoulders, Naruto. We need to move. Now. We can't stay still for much longer."
Naruto didn't resist. With Laurie's help, he was on Sai's back, and before he knew it, asleep.

My dearest readers, I'm sorry, I know I'm the most awful person that ever lived. I say I'm gonna update regularly, and guess what I don't do. I'm afraid I've been awful busy, along with the nuisances of computer issues, wattpad issues, and brain issues. Sometimes my brain is just like, nope, you're not gonna be able to connect two sentences today. So, all, I'm very sorry that my updates have been so slow. I will, I promise, update as much as I can, when I can. There just might be 10 or so days between.

And hey, this story is getting close to ending! I don't know exactly how many more parts I'm going to do, but it will be done soon. Then I'll start on the second. That one'll probably be a bit shorter...It won't get to 30 parts. Anywho, I haven't forgotten about the other fanfics I said I would write. I'm working on those, I just haven't had time to actually finish them, so sorry bout that. Thanks again for being patient with me. Much appreciated. Love you all, and thanks so much for reading!