Author's Note: Have fun!

THE ULTIMATE UKE SYNDROME

by rosesareblue

Chapter Twenty-eight

"It's jammed tight." The brunette boy hissed, then cursed under his breath as his nail chipped against the unyielding metal. "Shit."

"Careful." Shino told him, looking out the window at the wall of white snow. "This won't budge easily."

"Kuso." Shikamaru cursed under his breath. He brought a leg back to deliver a shattering kick against the adamant door. The metal rattled but didn't budge against the strong pressure of the snow forced onto the tipped vehicle. Shikamaru closed his eyes against the frustrating situation, silently calculating the level of pressure he'd felt and various ways they might escape their ice prison.

Finally the brunette opened his eyes again slowly and said tightly, "No. I don't think we are going to get out of here anytime soon."

'And we have approximately six days before we suffocate to death.' Shikamaru added wordlessly, a pleading reminder to himself to quickly plan a way out, 'And four days before Chouji's concussion, if left untreated, becomes fatal.'

The Konoha team captain turned dark worried eyes on his chubby friend who lay shivering under a pile of clothes though his cheeks were red hot with fever. When the avalanche hit suddenly, the bus had crashed off the road and tumbled down the precipice. It'd plummeted, front first, into a thick blanket of snow. The impact had killed their bus driver instantly and had left Chouji, who was sitting in the very front, with a serious concussion. Lee had a broken arm and Kiba a sprained ankle from the fall.

Then snow – endless snow! – had buried them completely. The back part of the bus, jutting up to meet the falling snow, had been crushed in and the sides of the bus had crumpled inward as well. Their cell phones were useless under the mountain of ice and frost. They were completely trapped under the gargantuan mass of white snow.

Escape from such a situation seemed impossible.

Shikamaru's hands balled into fists. But even if it was impossible, he had to somehow make it possible. For Chouji. For everyone else on the team. He was the team captain. The team captain, goddamnit. He was responsible! And if anyone died, it would be his fault. His.

Shino laid a hand on Shikamaru's shoulder, as if to rescue the brunette from his own self-loathing by his touch. Shikamaru sighed and leaned his head against his teammate's shoulder for support. After a moment, the brunette turned his head stiffly. He stared bleary-eyed at Neji who was moving deftly to cover a fitfully sleeping Lee and feverish Kiba with clothes from his own duffel bag.

"O-oi."

Shikamaru's voice came out brokenly. He tried again.

"Oi, Hyuuga."

Neji turned to the brunette, his face expressionless save lifting an eyebrow in an implicit question.

"What are ya thinking about now? What are you thinking about now in the face of death?" Shikamaru asked, just to ask. The brunette was not calculating the degree of troublesomeness in his own inner complete weariness.

What are you thinking about behind that expressionless mask?

Neji replied instantly and simply.

"Naruto." The pale boy glanced coolly at his wristwatch. "By now, his surgery should have finished. He's all better now."

Shikamaru and Shino's lips cracked into a small smile at the older boy's words.

'You better be alive, dobe.' Shikamaru thought, closing his eyes and burying his face in Shino's shoulder. 'You better be alive, Naruto, so I can complain about this trip to you when I get back.'

When the brunette opened his eyes again, the first thing he saw was the limp and bloody body of the dead bus driver. The blatant sign of death wasn't a good omen.


"Tsunade-sama!" The nurse's piercing scream resounded down the hospital halls. "TSUNADE-SAMA!"

"Azuka?" Tsunade frowned, coming down the hallway supporting a red-faced and clearly drunk Jiraya. "What's the mat –"

"TSUNADE-SAMA! NARUTO-KUN'S – NARUTO-KUN'S DISAPPEARED!" The nurse collapsed at the feet of the blonde doctor, sobs mixing with her desperate words. "On-one minute he was there and the next minute he – he – "

"What?" Tsunade dropped Jiraya's heavy arm and knelt down next to Azuka's crumpled form. "Naruto-kun's p-probably taking a – a walk around the hospital to stretch his legs or – "

Azuka shook her head, covering her tear stained face with trembling hands.

In seconds, Tsunade and Jiraya, though how the man managed to walk at all while so heavily intoxicated was a mystery, were racing down the halls to Naruto's room, pushing aside anyone that deterred their path.

Frozen in the doorway of the hospital room, Tsunade's wide chocolate eyes reflected the upturned white covers of the unoccupied bed and the frosty breeze from the open window blowing loose papers around and around the dismal and starkly empty room.

"T-Tsunade." Jiraya croaked, pointing at the blinking TV screen.

Tsunade looked and paled.

"He-he went – "

"He went to rescue his teammates." Jiraya's hoarsely spat out. "Naruto went to them."

Tsunade would have fainted had she the leisure of time to faint. Jiraya was by her side in the next moment, supporting the blonde woman up against him.

"Ji-Jiraya – He – Naruto – "

The weight of the cursed truth she'd kept denied for so long finally burst upon the woman's stale, stiff tongue. The sourness of her own words felt like acid in the frigid cavern of her mouth.

"Naruto will die."


"Hokkaido." The blonde demanded, getting into the taxi. "Route 76."

"Are you crazy, kid?" The taxi driver asked, eyeing the skinny blonde girl in the rearview mirror. "Maybe I should drive you to the hospital – Route 76 is where they had them accidents and – "

A spray of yen hitting his face and falling into his lap cut off his words. The driver stared in shock at the sheer quantity of bills that exploded against him and up at the blonde again. The girl's blue eyes were hard and determined.

"ROUTE 76." The blonde said, in a voice that denied any questioning. "NOW."

If the taxi driver hadn't complied, the blonde looked as if she'd hijack the vehicle.


Snow covered everything outside the window that Naruto could see. White. So white. As the taxi raced down the highway, the proportion of the world swallowed by the blinding white grew and grew.

He was traveling into nothingness – the worst sort of burial ground. Here, death would not be a stringent bloody pain nor a churning dark night but only –

Nothing.

And Naruto would be nothing as well, if he lost his friends to this tyranny of white.

As the blonde gripped his hands into fists in silent determination, suddenly, the brakes of the taxi skidded on the icy ground.

"This is as far as I'm allowed to go." The taxi driver told his blonde passenger fearfully. "There's a road block up ahead and – "

"Where are we?" Naruto asked, sitting up in his seat.

Knock, knock.

Someone was tapping against the window. The taxi driver rolled the window down to reveal the worried face of a young policewoman. "You can't go past here. It's too dangerous."

"What's going on?" The taxi driver asked.

"We've unearthed part of a high school bus." The policewoman explained, squinting sorrowfully. "By the look of things, the passengers should be dead – but we are not sure. We have to be certain before we concentrate our limited resources on excavating this area."

"I see." The taxi driver said, his brow corrugating, "But there is a way to rescue them if they live…?"

"We are trying crane some heavy equipment down there to pry the back of the bus off – it was jammed down hard by the avalanche – but because of the weather conditions, I don't think that would be possible within the week."

And Naruto was already pulling the door to the cab open.

"Miss! What are you doing?" The taxi driver hollered. "It's too cold outside – "

But Naruto was already out and running. The small blonde evaded the policewoman's reach, ducked under the roadblock and disappeared into the canvas of nothingness.


Little boy, little boy.

Do you need my power?

Little boy, do you need my power to protect those you love? But then, that's just an excuse to use my power to protect yourself from your loneliness? Ah! Greedy little boy! Greedy, greedy little boy – why don't you just ask? Ask!

Because, it's so easy for me to give you the power you seek. Too easy for me to give.

As long as you pay death's price.

And little boy, little boy.


"He's burning up!" Shikamaru hissed, laying his own freezing hand on Chouji's hot – too hot –forehead. "Damn! How can he be burning up when it's so fucking cold?"

Wordlessly, Shino stripped out of his own jersey and, willing his body not to quake at the sudden onslaught of cold, handed the jacket over to his team captain. "Use this."

"…" Shikamaru stared at his teammate, who's revealed skin was tinged with blue. Shino met his gaze directly, his expression still and unchanging. After a short stare, Shikamaru immediately relieved Shino of his jersey and turned to the task of bundling Chouji up in yet another layer of thick cloth.

Denying the small part of him that doubted the existence of hope.

After bundling Chouji up more tightly, Shikamaru returned to the task of surveying their imprisonment. He'd ordered all his teammates to huddle together in one corner (away from the dead body) to preserve and collect each other's body heat. Precious, precious heat in the spartanly cold icebox.

Teeth chattering, Shikamaru hoisted himself up towards the back of the bus and pushed his body against it. The great pressure that'd weighed it down before had alleviated – which meant some of the snow had been cleared. It was too great an amount to have been cleared naturally – someone was looking for them! Luckily, someone had found them!

But Shikamaru knew that though they'd been unearthed, they were still far, far from being rescued. There was still the crumpled metal wall of the bus between them and escape into a white jungle of savage, unrelenting snow.

Shikamaru darted a glance back at his teammates again. All of them were passing in and out of consciousness. But Neji's white eyes, though open, were completely and utterly blank. Shikamaru paled.

"Shino!" Shikamaru jumped down from his position balanced on the seats to reach the back of the bus. "Slap Neji awake! Now!"

Instantly, Shino's bluish palms were leaving red handprints on the Hyuuga's white face. But Neji seemed oblivious to the pain. And Shikamaru realized that Neji's body was on the verge of shutting down – his friend was freezing to death.

"Neji! Neji!"


Naruto oddly didn't feel the coldness of the snow around him as he slid deftly down the steep banks of the mountain. Amongst the white, it was easy to spot the flashing lights of the rescue squad working tirelessly at the bottom of the precipice. And there a metallic structure of what the blonde guessed to be the remains of the Konoha bus.

Naruto paused for the briefest second to close his eyes and do something he'd never done before – not even at the orphanage. He licked his parched, cold lips and prayed to every single god he could knew of.

Just a little bit more. Give me just a little more strength – to protect the people I love – to protect my friends – so I don't die – so I don't die while I'm still alive –

Please – please – please – I'll do anything. Everything. I'll give up everything.

Please, just a little bit more.

TBC


Author's Note: Okay, I lied about this being the last chappie. The next one is the last chapter in the Naruto Arc… (So, it is much, much longer than the Gaara arc – author mutters, as she simultaneously ducks an onslaught of hurled computer moniters)

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