Three days into her journey, Kurenai gradually began to feel a swell of warm feeling for Kakashi. The stoic ninja must have a secret weakness for girls. Of the four adults, he had surely sent her and her team on the safest route. They hadn't met a single enemy ninja. That was something to be immensely grateful for. The interminable running she'd had to do, plus continuously carrying one or two of the children so that they could rest, definitely took its toll on her body. But she ignored the pain, and when she came to the foot of a mountain range, she smiled with anticipation. This was the last thing that stood between them and home.
The children didn't share her optimism. Sakura was already shivering from the cold. Choji bit his lip, and Shikamaru gawked openly at the towering mountains. "You're telling me we have to climb those?" he asked incredulously.
"I hate climbing," Sakura whimpered.
"This is the last climb we have to make," Kurenai promised them. "After that, it's not far to the Leaf Village at all." She patted their heads. "Come on, we can do it! We're ninja!" She tied four kunai knives with line and threw them several meters upward. They lodged in a crack in the rock high above the team's heads. Kurenai tied one line around each person's waist. "All right, let's go!" she ordered. Shikamaru groaned but began to pull himself up. Kurenai lifted first Choji, then Sakura, as high up as she could to give them a head start. Once the children were above her, she began climbing after them.
Digging their toes and fingers into any crevices they could, pulling themselves laboriously up with the drag lines, they made slow but sure progress. For the next hour, Kurenai concentrated on nothing but the assent—and survival. Their ragged breathing filled the still, cold air, and no one said anything except when Kurenai shouted instructions. After struggling far more than the rest of them for countless meters, Sakura began to cry quietly. Her gasps of exertion mingled with her sobs.
"Come on, Sakura, it's not that hard," Shikamaru grunted with impatience. She was always the first one to give in to tears at the Academy. If the girls called her Billboard Brow, the boys called her Crybaby. "Stop crying—it's just a waste of time."
Sakura flinched at his behest, but Kurenai was more gentle. "It's not so easy for us girls," she explained softly as she stopped on the ledge next to her smallest charge. "Boys are stronger, aren't they?" she said to Sakura with a pained smile. "So we have to be strong here." She patted Sakura's chest. "You can do it, Sakura. You're a kunoichi." The pink-haired girl nodded haltingly.
"Yes, Master," she squeaked, and began climbing again, her arms shaking from fatigue. Tears still coursed down her cheeks.
Over the next two hours, Kurenai longed to help the children, but she couldn't provide much beyond encouragement. It was impossible for her to carry any of them without putting them in danger. Climbers made their climb alone. As they got more and more exhausted, as they moved more and more slowly, Kurenai pushed them to go faster. Her heart was heavy with all she was making them do. This task belonged to the chunin of Konoha. But there was no alternative. She consoled herself with the fact that it would soon be over.
Despite being notorious as the laziest young student at the Academy, Shikamaru made it to the top first. He collapsed at the entrance of a shallow cave where Kurenai had decided they would spend the night. Seeing his friend finally getting a rest, Choji was spurred on and eagerly pulled himself up the last few decimeters of line. He heaved his chubby body over the ledge and sprawled next to Shikamaru. "Get away from the edge!" Kurenai told them sharply. She shoved Sakura from behind to help her over the top, and the three children, their sides heaving, crawled into the cave. Kurenai came after them, untying the lines and stowing the kunai back in her leg pouch. "Don't leave this cave, any of you. Understand?" she said. They nodded at her, still gasping for air.
"Master, why . . . can't I . . . breathe?" panted Shikamaru. Choji gripped his head, and Sakura's nose was bleeding.
"It's the altitude," Kurenai answered. She was breathless, too. "We've gone up so high . . . that the air is harder to breathe here." She yawned and handed out the last of the pears from her pack. Everyone deserved a treat for their effort today. They all ate hungrily, and finished the meal with bread and water. Not much of a feast.
"Can we . . . light a fire?" Choji asked.
"You know we can't," Kurenai told him patiently. "When we're traveling . . . enemies might see the smoke. Especially up here."
"But it's so cold," Shikmaru groused. He and Choji were already nearly on top of each other to keep warm. Sakura shook violently with shivers. Kurenai made a bed for them, padding the stone floor with bedrolls. She tucked the three of them into it and covered them with whatever blankets and spare clothing she could come up with.
"Is that better?" she asked wearily when she'd finished. Sakura nodded silently. "Stay close together . . . and you'll stay warm," she told them.
She sat cross-legged at the entrance to the cave as the moon coursed across the clear sky. The cold went into her very bones. She hadn't dressed for weather like this, and all the extra clothes were now serving as bedclothes. Late into the night, Shikamaru surprised her with a question.
"You're cold, aren't you?" he asked quietly from where he was bedded down. "That's why you're staying awake. If you're cold and go to sleep, you never wake up again." Kurenai smiled a little at his precocious appraisal.
"I have to keep watch," she whispered to him. In the unlikely event that enemies made the approach up the mountainside, she needed to be ready. Also, she wanted to make sure that her three teammates didn't accidentally roll anywhere near the drop-off.
Shikamaru squirmed out of his pile of blankets and padded over to her. He dropped a pair of woolen leggings and a gi-style shirt in her lap. "Wear these, Master. I don't like to see you shivering." He hurried back to his sleeping area and re-buried himself in the bedding. Again, Kurenai smiled as she put on the offered clothes.
She was warmer after that.