Chapter 3:

As soon as she made it to the building this morning Ino was greeted with a Sakura that was nowhere near vigilant. She pulled the strap of her messenger bag, hearing it plop down onto the ground with a faint thud. Before she could even greet her friend however, Sakura was the first to speak,

"What a surprise, you're on time…?" she glanced forward from her usual post at the reception desk, taking in the image of Ino casually walking towards her.

Ino disregarded her sarcasm. "Gee Sakura you look a bit out of it. " Out of it indeed for a young woman who took a lot of effort in looking quite professional, Sakura appeared rather worn out. Her short rosy locks were a bit mussed with a few strands partially covering her face.

"Really?" Sakura cocked an eyebrow, exaggerating her question as she downright smirked at Ino. "Why I haven't noticed at all…"

Ino suppressed an eye roll and instead chose to sigh rather loudly. "Your sarcasm is most enjoyable, especially this early in the morning." She muttered in a tone loud enough for her friend to hear.

"You think this is easy?!" Sakura practically pounded her fist onto the counter. Then suddenly a playful look flickered passed her stare as she cocked her head to the side, perking up her posture. "Oh, right. I forgot. Naruto is under your care." Her smile matched her wicked gaze.

Ino flinched at that sudden turnabout in attitude. "What do you mean by that exactly?" she asked meekly.

-- --

Ino gritted her teeth hearing it grind in her head. Bright blue eyes darted from one end of the hall to the other. It has been over an hour strolling into random doors and halls in the enormous hospital and she had yet to find even a trace of Uzumaki.

Sakura, ever the thoughtful one, had implanted a task upon Ino. Not because Tsunade was out, oh no, only because in Sakura's wild perspective Naruto was solely Ino's responsibility. The fact that he had gone missing is not only a danger to all the patients currently residing in the hospital but most importantly if Ino couldn't get Naruto back to his bed before Tsunade checked in, well…

She shuddered, going rigid at the thought of Tsunade-sama's temper.

"Uzumaki, where are you?" she paused, feeling the ache in her ankles of all the pacing she's been doing for the past hour. She eyed the end of the hallway and found the Café sign to be rather appealing; it flickered in its neon lights in a teasing manner. Come hither, it beckoned. If that were not enough to convince her that she was hungry the low growl that erupted from the pit of her stomach only exemplified it.



Except, as she slowly fiddled with the change in her pocket and mentally counted the scrunched dollar bills in the midst of her pocket, she heard a faint sound of something being toppled over behind the closed stairway to her right. It was muffled and it definitely was something.

Uzumaki, the thought suddenly sprang into her mind. A frown formed on her face as she approached the heavy door, fingers clinging tightly around the door knob before she opened it with a swift twist and push of the handle. Upstairs lead to the hallways of rooms she has already checked while downstairs lead to the storage basement. She sighed as she went downstairs, finding it strange that the door to the basement at the end of the flight of steps was flung open and exposed a void of darkness.

There came another crash of noise followed by a muffled curse, though much clearer than before.

Honestly Naruto, how obvious can you be? There was another round of Ino gritting her teeth together as she stepped into the basement floor.

The room was dark, no doubt. But when her fingers felt for the light switch and turned the handle towards the ceiling she was surprised to find no changes. Figures, this is but my amazing luck!

The next step forward was definitely not as confident as the last. Ideas from every sort of direction came crashing into her intellect as she reached her hands out to scope her surroundings.

You're an idiot, why would you do this?

Do you even know if Naruto is here or not?

What if he's not?

What if it's someone else…or something else…?

She swallowed at the saliva that was beginning to tickle the back of her esophagus. Her legs felt light but the steps forward weren't as easy as before. The door was miles away, including that useless source of dim lighting the stairway had with it.

It certainly was not silly to think of all the ways she could die right about now. Because the dark void of evil was a calling she did not take. Oh boy, it sure was an enchanting idea to step inside this room, it made but perfect sense! Alas, she would find exactly who she was looking for—or, be eaten by an unknown giant. And her body would never be found.

From the far end of the basement there came another thud of an object toppling over, followed by a murmur. "Naruto, I know it's you, what the hell you're doing here?!" she suddenly cried out, wary at the echo of her own fearful voice.

The footsteps she heard had ceased and that thought alone had her slightly trembling with fear. Indeed, this was just the time to dwell in the thoughts of her complete abhor for the dark.

She stepped forward again, swearing that she was getting closer. But it was funny how different the world was once a primary sense was taken, such as vision. With that ounce of irritation and a gallon of 

fear she shouted, "Hey! You're an idiot by the way; I'm only here to help! Why don't you just tell me you're here—? "

A brief pressure on her shoulder practically had her in mid gasp. She was but too frightened to scream. There was nothing like being startled when you're already scared because at this point Ino was close to fainting. Her body went rigid followed by that sick warm twinge of fear igniting her senses.

"Hey," It was that guy of course, the fear that she once had was now loaded with anger.

"Don't sneak up on me like that!!" She turned and pushed at the source of the voice she heard, happy to note that she was met with a broad chest to release all of her proper rage on.

There was a laugh as she felt him approach her once again. "I guess I deserve that." Even in the dark she could illustrate that smile of satisfaction on his face and oh how she wanted to beat him over the head for it.

"What the hell are you doing—"

"Alright, don't yell so loud, I'm right here!" There was a clasp of her arm and she flinched at the feeling of warm hands. "I just needed to get up and do something besides lay in the hospital bed."

"Oh, right!" she laughed, before scowling, "because this right here, in this dark, is the finest place to be. I should have known better than to search for hours on end in all the other rooms, what was I thinking?"

"Not exactly, I was exploring and I ended up here before the lights went out- which was not very long ago." She heard him chuckle.

"Everyone's been looking for you, y'know, even Sakura."

"Oh but she's already used to me wandering off, I think I'm just giving her actual work to do." He snickered. She actually found herself amused from that joke of his. "I'm sorry if I caused you any trouble."

There was another warm twinge that coiled in her stomach, but it was only the after effect of fear. Nothing else.

Right?

"But y'know, I heard something while I was down here-" there was an actual explanation following this statement but that went entirely ignored. And no, Ino did not intentionally grab onto Naruto's palm, she simply did not reach his arm the way she had calculated. It was dark, okay? Still, there was another escalation of fear that overlooked any sense of what she did as she said,

"Let's get the hell out of here, okay?"

Again, it was as though she could feel that stupid aloof smile of his spreading on his face. Bastard.



It was only right that at this point she thought of all the sick horror movies she let herself endure in the past month. Fucking movies, she cursed, and Sakura for letting me put up with the late night movie-fests and feeding into this fear. Why in the world would anyone watch a scary movie she thought madly as she let Naruto lead her forwards with the hold of a hand, who in the right mind enjoys those things? Blood, guts, people dying, people being eaten, it made no sense, especially now when the basement was the perfect scene for death…

Naruto took note of the way she pressed her fingers onto his knuckles and the way that pressure seemed to be squeezed with much force every so often. But he didn't mind, actually he thought it was nice to find that her hand wasn't as cold as the day before.

As soon as he figured his way out of the basement, after a medley of bumping into random surfaces, of having Ino smack into him from behind, of having to deal with her cusses and rants he finally made it out of the basement.

And if the light at the end of the tunnel scenario wasn't enticing enough, he found that as soon as they reached the stair Ino swiftly released her grip of their linked hands. It was a wordless gesture.

Strangely, the sudden feel of cool air passing through his fingers had him a bit taken a back, maybe just because she so easily pulled away and he couldn't figure why. He couldn't figure why he wanted to question it, but like something that was to starting to become a dirty habit, he didn't and followed her up the stairs anyway.