According to my stats, more people have read Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 than Chapter 3. Read Chapter 3!!!! Okay sorry. I'm done. This chapter is a little more non-Naruto-likebut you'd better get used to it since a lot of the rest of the story is less Naruto-like. As always, read and review!! Thanks!!

--MC

SIX

A Discovery

The next few days are blurry in my mind.

Near evening that day, we slowed down for a break. The rag around Kiba's leg was entirely saturated with crimson blood. Though the wound hadn't clotted over yet, but when we unwrapped it, it wasn't bleeding as much. I think we all knew it would need medical attention; it wasn't going to heal correctly on its own. Kiba was weak, and we had to help him take every step. Tenten found a stick that Kiba could use as a crutch, and that helped a little, though I could tell he was in tremendous pain. As the sun started setting, we picked up speed again. It was like we were running from the darkness and towards it all at once. Only when the sky was completely black did we stop for dinner. Everything was done in a silent hurry, and none of us slept deeply that night.

The next morning was the same—running at top speeds, with Lee infusing his chakra with Kiba's. By the end of that day, we were in the desert, the sand stretching around us in every direction.

It had taken us five days to cross the desert last time. Now we were at the other end in three exhausting, filthy days. When we reached the forest, my body was weak with fatigue, and I should have been annoyed with our dirtiness. But somehow the desperateness of the situation made me feel like we had to keep pressing on.

Kiba's wound had clotted, but it was red and swollen, and he was in a lot of pain. We kept on, exerting ourselves to the greatest of our capability and concentrating on speed. Through the trees we raced, barely glancing at each of them, hoping that we would make it back to Konoha in time, before the infection took him over.

It was the fourth day since the skirmish with the bear, but I felt like we had just left the huge forest, and I could only remember going through the desert if I tried really hard. I wondered vaguely if I was having brain problems, but somehow it was tiring to think. Somewhere inside I felt broken at not being able to keep going and find my mother, but mostly I was just numb. The only thing on my mind was finding help for Kiba, who was slowly getting worse.

While we ate lunch that day, the world suddenly started coming back to me. I don't know what had been going on before, but now I was finally registering my emotions, and there were two that were the most eminent in my mind.

First was the worry for Kiba, who had fallen asleep next to us, Akamaru curled up at his side. Tenten was afraid that his wound was too badly infected and that he would develop a fever. We had been pushing ourselves to our limits trying to travel as quickly as possible. But it all might have been in futility if Kiba worsened any more.

The other emotion was my crestfallenness at not being able to keep going and not being able to find my mother. I had told myself at the beginning of our mission not to set my sights too high, but some time during our travels, probably that night at the top of the tree in the super-sized forest, that had changed. My heart burned with the desire to find my mother. I had had some kind of feeling that I was going to meet her. And now that was all shattered.

My heart was still burning, but now it was with frustration. Somewhere deep in my mind, I thought about directing my anger at that contemptible, vehement bear, but I couldn't. I could only blame myself for letting my hopes get so high. Hadn't I learned that life was made just to not go your way? Why was I even trying?

It had been hopeless since the beginning. I was usually a person who thought things through, weighed her options, and made a decision. I usually played it safe. But somehow I had thrown myself into this whole thing about finding my mother. The only person I could blame was myself, for getting us all into this ordeal. I was filled with regret. I should never have started this mission. How was I, a pessimistic, cynical thirteen-year-old girl, even with help from three jonin and a ninja dog, going to find a woman who had been missing for thirteen years and had left out of her own will?

My mother had left because she thought she was dangerous. She had made that decision for the good of everyone. Why couldn't I make a better decision and just find my father, instead? Lee and Tenten wouldn't have had to almost kill themselves trying to move quickly to save Kiba, who wouldn't be in a life-threatening state had it not been for this mission. And now he was going to die.

No, I told myself. If I wasn't going to find my mother and was going to stay a hopeless pessimist for the rest of my life, there was at least one thing I had to do. I couldn't let Kiba die. After all, I was the one who heard that voice, the one who told me to go back north. I was not going to let our efforts be in vain.

Now I began to ruminate about what that voice was, but I couldn't come up with a plausible solution.

Kiba slept through our lunch, and when we woke him up to start moving again, he seemed feverish and even weaker than before. Akamaru was whimpering helplessly, trying to lick his master' s face. A heavy stone settled in the pit of my stomach. Kiba's wound was swollen with infection. He was definitely in big trouble if we didn't find a healer soon.

Just as we hoisted him up to start running again, I felt the world pause for the second time. The same voice said, Get in the trees!

"Everyone in the trees!" I said. One look at me, and, for some reason, they obeyed.

I was on a branch of one of the lower trees, trying to stay quiet. Why I felt compelled not to make a sound, I didn't know. Then I saw something on the trail under us.

I paused, holding my breath, and everyone else, having seen it, too, remained silent and still on their branches. It was a horse and its rider, and they were doing nothing to hide themselves. The horse was outfitted in gaudy tapestry-blanket type cloths, and the rider clad entirely in plates of armor. They were trotting complacently along, seeming not to have noticed us at all.

Lee, who was in a tree close to mine, whispered, "Should we follow them?"

I thought about it for a moment. The horse and rider certainly didn't come from Konoha. Perhaps they were from the civilization my mother had been heading for…

I nodded at Lee, who signaled Tenten and Akamaru to follow. Lee was still helping Kiba, who was barely conscious. We silently pursued the animal and armor-clad man. They weren't moving very quickly, so we had to slow down to stay on their trail. After a few meters, they turned off the main road onto a clandestine path, leading deeper into the forest. We followed them closely.

Soon, we reached the edge of a very large clearing, and, ahead of us, we could see a massive structure made entirely of stone. It was a…wall…? Sure enough, a gray stone wall enclosed something that we couldn't see at this angle. Four towers stood at the corners of the square that the wall made, and a stagnant river surrounded the entire thing.

We all exchanged glances and stayed in the trees as the man and his horse exited the forest and went on trotting towards the river. There was a huge wooden slab on the wall directly on the other side of the river, and a window above that. I think there was someone sitting in the room with the window, and the man in armor drew a sword from a sheath at his side and raised it in the air above his head.

After a moment, the man lowered his sword, sheathed it, and sat on his horse in silence. Then the huge slab of wood began to move. The top corners began to move down towards the ground, and I realized that it was a drawbridge. Whoever was in the room above it must have seen the man's signal and was lowering the bridge.

When the bridge touched down on our side of the river, the man rode onto it and crossed it quickly. With the bridge down, I could see an iron grate on the other side that was starting to rise. When the man and his horse entered the wall's protection, the grate was lowered and the drawbridge was pulled up again.

I thought all the opening and closing and letting down the bridge and taking it up again was a bit superfluous just for letting in one man on a horse, but maybe that was the way people lived here.

When the bridge was all the way up, I jumped to the ground. Soon, we were all standing on the narrow trail, Kiba leaning on Lee and Akamaru whining softly.

"What should we do?" Tenten asked.

Rock Lee said, "Do you think this is the civilization Raevynn sought out? It sure isn't across the desert."

"Raevynn wrote the note before she left. There's no way she could have been sure she had to cross the desert," Tenten pointed out.

I looked at the wall again and thought about how far we had gone, only to come running—like cowards—back to this forest. Suddenly I felt a wave of selfishness wash over me, washing away the hopelessness of my previous regretful thoughts. I had come into this, and I was not going to give up. What happened to finding my mother? Here was a civilization right in front of me. "We can walk across the water and scale those walls easily enough," I said determinedly. "I think we should go in and ask around about my mother. Maybe we could get some help for Kiba, too."

The others nodded and followed me as I headed for the river. One look inside and I felt a qualm in my stomach. The water was completely, absolutely, repulsively filthy! It was brown and muddy-looking, with little white squirmy things swimming around in it. It was about fifteen feet wide, but I couldn't tell how deep it was for the cloudiness.

Tenten was looking into the water, too, and said, apprehensively, "I would not want to fall into that."

"How are we going to walk across if we don't know how deep it is?" Rock Lee asked.

Walking on water wasn't a very difficult skill if you knew how it worked. All you had to do was emit a flow of chakra from the soles of your feet, regulating it to match the movement of the water so that you stayed on top of it. But you wanted to know where the bottom was, so you'd know when to stop the flow of your chakra—or you could release too much or too little and fall in the water.

Tenten had a solution to find out how deep the repugnant river was. "Make sure I don't fall in," she commanded, making me hold on to her arm. She placed one foot on the water, and I think she was sending chakra down to see if she could feel the bottom.

After about a minute, she reported, "The bottom is only about two meters down; I thought it would be much deeper."

"All that filth is tricking us with its disgusting darkness," I said derisively. I still didn't want to let even the bottoms of my shoes touch that.

"I'll go first," Tenten offered. We nodded, and she slowly eased her weight onto the foot that was on the water. I let go of her arm, and she set her other foot on the water's surface, as well. With slow, steady strides, she made her way to the middle, where she wobbled a little. Thankfully, she recovered and progressed to the other side.

"Watch out, it gets deeper in the middle," Tenten called out.

"You go next," Rock Lee told me. "And Akamaru."

"Okay…" I said, looking at the dog. He blinked at me as if to say he could do it by himself. I gave him a curt nod.

The water was still disgusting.

I cautiously extended my right leg over the water and put my foot on the surface. First I allowed my chakra to probe down into the dark water and find the bottom. Tenten was right—the river was only about two meters deep.

Just as carefully, I placed my other foot on the water and made sure my chakra was distributed evenly so that I was sure not to fall in. Placing each foot precariously every time I took a step, I made it to the other side, trying not to think about what might be in the water.

"See, Raechylle," Tenten said when Akamaru and I were safely standing on the other shore. "It wasn't that bad."

Kiba and Rock Lee crossed together, Kiba leaning heavily on his comrade's shoulder. I hoped we could find a healer in this place.

Once they made it across, we were staring at the forty-foot wall looming above us, cooling us with its shadow. Running up a wall is pretty much the same as walking on water. You have to release a stream of chakra from the soles of your feet so that you stay connected to the wall. In fact, the technique is quite a bit easier than walking on water because a wall never moves.

Tenten started up, and once she was a few feet up, I ran at the wall, and Akamaru started up after me. With Lee helping Kiba again, we were soon all at the top, and we hopped through one of the gaps in the battlements onto a wooden walkway attached to the wall. These people must be pretty ignorant not to have noticed us.

But the thought came too soon. The moment Tenten touched down on the walkway, four men in armor were pointing pikes at our necks.

Yes, I know, medieval castles will never find a place in Naruto, so sorry. But I just had to do it, since that's how my story goes. Wait, now that I think of it, in that Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow Naruto movie, wasn't there a castle?? Well that's not part of the actual Naruto plot…Idk…anyways, thanks for reading!! Please review!!

--MC