During his travels, the man received a letter from his hometown: "Please, come back quickly. Your friend is severely ill, and is calling for you."
4
Sasuke had volunteered to go. Haiyu had shook his head and said: "With those nifty eyes of yours, you can cover my girls while they cover me. Got it?" So he ended up being a lookout on the mission, but he was faintly relieved. He was cloaked up in a high tree, the branches bare and brittle, so the smallest shift of weight would alert everyone to his presence, but, it was the best vantage point he had over Jun and Naori, who were monitoring Haiyu's progress on a small monitor the three of them were connected to by wireless radio collars each of them wore. It was standard issue for each Anbu team, he was told, and it monitored breathing rate, pulse, and slight outside influences. It also gave them a general area of each of their locations, and Jun could narrate which way for Haiyu to take each time he paused according to her rough map of collected information on the resistance's hideout.
"You should be in the rafters now," she whispered so slightly that even he had trouble picking it up from this distance. "A long beam should run all the way across; it's thick enough to hide you until you want to make your move." Haiyu didn't respond, of course. He wouldn't unless he was caught or in an emergency situation where he needed Naori to analyze the enemy's battle pattern. While Jun was their intelligence, Naori apparently was a deep resource well of battle knowledge, thanks to her fiancée. Sasuke tried to picture Haiyu's position in his head—perched silently and precariously over the length of the room, straining to breathe as little as possible, wary of every figure passing through the main conference room, where Jun had informed him the leader always was during the evening hours. He honestly didn't envy the other man right now.
He suddenly sensed something coming toward them from the south, not slow, but not rocketing either. He decided to keep tabs on it, but until it got closer he wouldn't sound the alert, to avoid worrying Jun and Naori more than they already were. He thought it was funny (strange funny, not ha-ha funny) that even though they were a fully trained Anbu team, they still worried over each other like this. He remembered that with his own team, he got kind of exasperated when Naruto and Sakura worried over him needlessly. He remembered thinking that they shouldn't think so lowly of his abilities. But, watching the girls watch the monitor, every so often checking Haiyu's status and whispering words of encouragement to him, he came to the conclusion that his friends hadn't been underestimating him, but simply worried. Still, he wasn't going to let anything happen to him, so they were just worrying needlessly…
Were these the emotional-overcoming bonds Jun had told him about? So strong, they not only blocked out emotions, but rationality as well? No, he didn't think so. They had just been worried, that was all. Everyone got worried, this he knew. He did too. He was plenty worried about his vow to get married on his return to Konoha. Also, he was worried about Naruto, who had been acting so strangely as of late. That fast-moving presence was definitely coming toward them. He hoped it was back-up, but he severely doubted it. Still, not the time to raise the alarm; Haiyu had just gotten in contact with them.
"Target is alone," the faintest of whispers came from Jun and Naori's collars. "Confirm?"
Jun was already flipping through a soft-leather covered book with her notes for this mission scribbled inside in her tiny and precise writing. "Confirming," Naori said back to Haiyu, letting him know they were looking into it. She left the safety of the nearby trench and Sasuke now had to split his attention. He let the fast-moving presence go for now and kept an eye on Jun's position and Naori's movement. She was circling around the guard towers to avoid detection and to scope out the inner base's activity. "It looks as if they're all heading toward one building. A mess hall, maybe?"
"Mess hall," Jun spoke quickly. "Six thirty p.m. to seven thirty p.m., mandatory dining hour. Everyone should be there, except for the leader, and he has his dinner brought to him. Suggested to wait fifteen to twenty minutes."
"Roger," he spoke once and was gone again. Naori circled back to their hiding place and Sasuke glanced to the guards to check and see if they had been noticed. No, they were waiting restlessly, anxious for the shift change, which would happen—according to Jun—at seven o'clock. They had used the noon shift change and the lunch hour to have Haiyu sneak into the well-constructed base, and were going to use this next one to get him out unnoticed. It was a long wait, but necessary to avoid detection. They waited exactly ten minutes before Haiyu addressed them once more: "Second presence confirmed. He has brought a tray of food for the target. Standby." On the monitor, as Jun and Naori leaned forward in anticipation, Haiyu's heart rate began to rise. Sasuke was slightly surprised. "Alone again. Confirm?"
Naori came out again and rounded toward the front, watching a solitary figure come out of one building and enter the mess hall. "Confirmed," she whispered as she came back, "the target is alone."
"You have an eighteen minute window before the shift change," Jun warned.
There was a heavy pause, pregnant with anticipation. Over the radio transmission there was a sharp click—the crossbow—and then nothing. Naori was chewing on her bottom lip. Jun was frowning at the monitor, watching Haiyu's heart rate jump up, then recede gradually. "Mission accomplished," he breathed.
"Good, now get back here, please," Naori sighed.
"Shift change in thirteen minutes," Jun reported.
And at the edge of his consciousness, Sasuke became alerted once more of that not-fast-but-not-slow presence coming toward them.
The team had unanimously decided to flee from the rebel's base at top speed to avoid identification and to get a head-start from their trackers. They finally stopped running at dawn, when they reached the outskirts of the Lightning Country. Another day of rest and running would get them back to the country's outskirts, and after that, a five day hike toward home. While Jun redistributed their equipment to make the journey easier, Naori set up the camp and Haiyu and Sasuke placed warding tags all around the site which made them temporarily invisible to the naked eye. Only something similar to Sasuke's Sharingan or the Hyuuga's Byakugan could sense them now; this made it easier for them to rest for the next run. Sasuke noticed that Haiyu was having a difficult time finishing the strokes on the wards.
"Do you want me to do it?" he offered.
"Huh?" Haiyu blinked and then grinned restlessly. "Nah, I've got it. My hand's just shaking, that's all."
"Have Kaeri take a look at it."
"It's not that simple," the other man shook his head, frowning a bit as he completed the last stroke on the warding tag and slapped it onto the tree beside him. A faint shimmer distorted the air around the campsite, signifying that the barrier was in place. They could relax for exactly eight hours.
"You're still upset over the assassination," Sasuke stated more than asked.
Haiyu chuckled, but didn't look amused. "It's not easy to hide things from you, huh?" Sasuke waited, silent. Haiyu sighed in resignation: "Yeah, it's about the assassination. The superior says we should be used to it by now, but…"
"You're not, then?"
"Who could ever be used to killing people?" he made a face. "Personally, if I could say no, I would."
"Then why didn't you?"
"…" Haiyu stuck his hands in his pockets, looking uncomfortable. He glanced away from the dark-haired man, his gaze flickering from Naori building the fire circle to Jun, neatly repacking their supplies. "If I don't do it, they will." He didn't get it; Sasuke lifted an eyebrow. The other man shook his head. "If I don't do the killing, the girls will have to do it. They'll have to suffer the nightmares and the guilt, and I don't want to put them through that if I can help it." He turned back to Sasuke, his usually-twinkling eyes heavy and dark with emotion. "I don't want them to suffer, if I can somehow help it."
"Sasuke-san!" Naori called from their left. "Can you please light this with your katon jitsu? The wood's all wet from last night's rain…"
"Sure," he started toward her, casting one last look in Haiyu's direction. His eyes had returned to normal and he grinned and jogged past Sasuke, to where Naori and Jun were.
"How come you've gotta ask the rookie?" he wrinkled his nose. "I can use katon too, you know!"
"Because I asked Sasuke-san first," Naori stated primly, sticking her nose up at him. "Besides, he can do it better than you can."
"Naori-chaaaaaaan…" Haiyu pouted, deflating.
To protect those that are precious to me, I shall become even stronger… I will keep all that will harm them away; I will take all of that evil inside of me—I will eat it all up—just to see them smile…
He awoke near dawn, the sound of something close clacking against the earth, a snap, a flicker. He opened his eyes. Naori was settling down across from him. "Sorry, did I wake you?" she whispered softly. He propped himself up and shook his head slightly to clear it.
"Why aren't you sleeping?" he asked, his voice thick with the remnants of his own sleep.
She shrugged. "I just felt like sitting up to watch, that's all."
"There is a barrier still in effect for…" he had to pause to count backward, "three hours. We don't need a lookout."
Naori shook her head and smiled at him. "I just felt like it," she repeated.
"You'll be tired tomorrow." It's not like he particularly worried or anything, but her lack of sleep could be hindering to them come tomorrow. She shook her head.
"I'll be okay," she smiled. "Thanks for worrying, Sasuke-san."
I wasn't worried. "You really should just sleep…"
"…it just eases my mind, keeping watch like this," her eyes became slightly unfocused. "After what happened the other night, I felt I should."
"It wasn't your fault or anything."
"I know. I just worry too much," she laughed lightly. "Chi-chan and Ha-chan always say that." She flushed and looked at him from across the steadily-burning flames. "Don't tell them I call them by those names still. Chi-chan—Jun, I mean—made me swear never to call her that after the first time, and Ha-chan just sort of grew out of his." She shook her head, smiling. "Still do it, though."
"It's a nickname," he frowned. "Why should it matter?"
"It matters to me," she laid her hands across her joined knees and leaned her chin against them. She stared at the fire with something akin to contemplation. "They matter to me, you know?" She gazed at him across the campfire, her eyes glimmering in its light. "I became a medical nin just so I could support them better. So I wasn't as useless…" she turned her head away. "I really used to suck as a ninja. Our team failed the chuunin exams once because of me. I was…weak." She drew in a deep breath and sighed. "I swore that I wouldn't hold them back anymore. I would do my best for them, because I care about them. I worry that they're not eating well enough or getting enough sleep or are trying to hide their sickness and fatigue because they know that I worry." She glanced back at him. "I suppose that's why I'm awake, Sasuke-san, because I'm worried."
"…I can take over for you," he offered, startling himself. "Get some sleep. If you're tired, you won't be able to take care of them to the best of your ability."
Naori blinked, then nodded and chuckled to herself. "Okay," she agreed. "Thank you, Sasuke-san."
I want to become strong for you, so that you don't have to worry anymore; so I will no longer hold you back from what you want to do. I will take care of you, because I don't want to be a burden to you.
He leaned against the tree's trunk with his arms crossed and his eyes blankly focused on the horizon. He was thinking. He was doing a lot of thinking lately. The Anbu Team Seven was stirring up feelings from his locked up room at the back of his mind. They were slowly drawing out memories and feelings he had once experienced with his own Team Seven, and it made his chest ache and his head throb. Sakura… Naruto… With an hour before the barrier would go down, there were no enemies detected within the range of his Sharingan, but that weird presence from the day before—the not-too-fast-not-too-slow one—was circling them now, as if searching. For them? Maybe it really was from Konoha. But why? They hadn't requested back up. Maybe it was from the resistance? They couldn't possibly track them with the barrier up. So what could it be?
Whatever it was, it was slowly nagging at him, driving him nuts. With forty minutes to go before the tags expired, he decided to go out and check on it. Before he left the circle of protection, he cast one glance back at the three team members. They all slept peacefully. He felt the start of a smile creeping upon his face as he muttered the counter jitsu and strode quickly through the barrier so as not to get stuck or accidently shatter it. The air around him rippled like the disturbed surface of a lake and he was outside. Instantly, the circling thing bombarded him.
He whipped out a shurinkan and covered his eyes with one arm, shielding them from possible attack. A weight settled on his forearm and he lowered it, looking down at it in confusion. The large blue-gray striped falcon ruffled its feathers and beat its wings, its talons working along his arm to regain its balance from his unexpected shift. There was a leather cartridge attached to its back with a leather strap harness. It was a container for message scrolls. He unlatched the cartridge, slid the message out, and tossed the shurinkan back over his shoulder where it hit the tree behind him with a slight thunk sound. Frowning, he unrolled the scroll to see the encrypted message:
"To the moon far away in the deep sky. This star is longing for your light. The sun can no longer shine and the orbit is out of perfection, as is the rest of the cosmos. The moon is the only thing that can restore the sun, so please return the moonlight to the sky."
What? It took him a minute or two to actually make sense of what he was reading. Then, as if a lightning bolt had come from the sky to strike sense into him, he remembered. This was the type of code Sakura would use on their missions: Moon for Sasuke, Sun for Naruto, Star for herself, and Orbit for Kakashi; metaphors of the sky to describe the situation. Okay, so then, the message roughly became:
"Sasuke, I know you're away on a mission. But I need you here. Something's wrong with Naruto and Kakashi doesn't know what to do, and neither does anyone else. You're the only one that can help him, Sasuke, so please come home."
He reread the message three times, each time, something dark and fearful swelling in the pit of his stomach. 'Something's wrong with Naruto…' He had to get home.