Into the Abyss
He had advanced a air distance into the cave, when he felt a hand grab his shoulder.
"AGGHHHH! Shit!"
He turned, and it was only Naruto, bleeding from a cut on his right cheek. He had Kiba's limp arm draped over his shoulders.
"Hey, someone's jumpy today…" he remarked.
"Now help me carry this idiot."
Kenshin had shrugged off his previous anxiety, and took one of Kiba's arms, and draped it over his shoulders.
"Thanks." said Naruto.
It was quiet inside the cave.
Dead quiet.
Like a sealed tomb.
"So, who were you up against?" asked Kenshin, to break the silence.
"Konan, I expected her to go all out on me, but she just threw some shurikens at me, and told me to hurry up, said the door was open. Cut me up pretty bad too." He said as he gingerly touched the cut on his cheek.
It stung.
"Ah!" he grimaced.
"If it hurts quit touching it!" yelled Kenshin, his repeated by the cave walls.
"So, how 'bout you? Who'd you fight?"
Kenshin thought for a while, the name hovering somewhere in his head, and then, he had it.
"Some dick named Suigetsu Hozuki."
The name obviously held some significance to Naruto, as he suddenly stopped in his tracks, a look of shock on his face.
"Suigetsu, isn't that a member of Sa-uhm, Team Hawk?" muttered Naruto.
He almost said Sasuke's team, but he bit his tongue. He still wasn't sure whether Suigetsu was just acting alone, hell, what made him so sure that Sasuke was even here?
Kenshin knew that something weighed heavily on Naruto's mind.
Leave him be, he thought to himself.
I too, have things on my mind… he mused.
What things, however, he never got to think about, as something crashed straight through the ceiling above them.
"SHIT!"
A few seconds were left before whatever's coming straight at them.
Kenshin pushed the two of them forward, and steeled himself for the impact.
"Rasengan!!!" a yell erupted from behind him.
Naruto leapt into the air, and rammed his glowing palm, ball of chakra included, right into the attacker's abdomen.
The spinning motion that the Rasengan created cleared the dust, and it revealed Jugo in full cursed seal level 2. A large spiral was bored into his abdomen, his eyes were closed, but they were fluttering.
Good, he's still with us… he thought to himself.
"You go on." said Naruto, breaking his reverie.
"I'll take care of this dipshit when he wakes…"
Kenshin just nodded, and knew that the future he lived in once, before he died, would rest on the fate of this young lad…
He ran, not looking back, straight into the great black maw, and like a long-lost lover, covered him in its ink-black embrace.
End of Ch.10