Hello!
Here we are with another chapter of Trip Down a Hill. This is going to be the first part of the Konoha Crush arc, which will likely last another 2 or 3 chapters.
Other than that, I don't really have much to say.
Without further ado, you get the picture.
Chapter 30: Melting Exteriors
Haku sidled alongside the front wall of Ino's flower shop, making his way carefully towards the door, which lay discarded upon the ground a few feet away.
There was a part of him that screamed out for him to charge blindly forward, but that had never been the kind of fighter he was, and he knew that if Ino really was inside, he'd have a much better chance of saving her if he went in calmly, and with the poise to not alert anyone inside.
Of course, that all went out the window when he heard a girl's scream.
Ino!
He was inside in nary a moment, and his eyes immediately trained upon the backs of two ninja, both of whom had their weapons raised and trained upon the girl in question, who had fallen backwards onto the floor, holding a kunai out at her assailants.
"Hiding, girlie?" One of them spoke, sounding all too full of himself as he took a single step forward. "C'mon out. We don't bite, I promise."
Ino backed away further, pushing herself backwards across the floor and breathing heavily as she found her back against the furthest wall, realizing she was cornered.
"Look at that." The other Oto ninja pointed to the headband that Ino wore around her waist. "Leaf Kunoichi, huh?"
"Oh, damn," The first ninja laughed, shaking his head, clearly rather amused with himself. "My apologies, but in that case, we actually do bite quite a lot."
Haku watched as Ino subtly brought her hands together, making the sign of the Yamanaka clan's signature Jutsu, and held it out. Just as she was about to cast her Jutsu, the ninja who had just spoken reached out with blinding speed, catching her hands with his own and hauling the girl forward, throwing her upon the ground like a bag of rice.
Haku moved without even thinking, without so much as an idle thought. He'd been stood behind one of the many island shelves inside of the shop, and the next moment, he'd vaulted over it, brought an icicle into his right hand, and driven it into the neck of the second ninja.
The man screamed as he grabbed a hold of him from behind, but it was already too late. Haku had become particularly gifted at assassination during his time as Zabuza's tool, and he knew how to kill someone efficiently, without giving them a chance to react.
He put his hand against the wound on the man's neck, and, without missing a beat, poured chakra into it. His own Kekkei Genkai, the Ice release of his forgotten clan, mixed with the man's blood, causing his body temperature to drop nearly instantly.
As Haku dropped backwards off the man's back and took a fighting position, the block of ice that had once been an Oto ninja fell to the floor beside him, shattering as it collapsed upon the ground.
"What the – Jean!?" The other ninja shouted, completely forgetting about the girl he'd been about to slaughter and turning to face Haku. "You bastard!"
Haku ignored the man's rage. The death of what he could only assume was this man's friend would be a shock that would put the ninja on edge. He'd be more prone to making mistakes, more prone to overreaching and trying to kill Haku before he was given a window to do so.
He'd need it, too, because judging by the way his opponent carried himself, The man was a Jonin.
His assailant charged forwards, making the signs for what Haku could tell at a glance was a Lightning Jutsu.
"Lightning Release: Lightning Ball!"
The Jutsu lived up to it's name, as 10 or so balls of lightning spawned into existence around the man, and he hurled them forwards, forcing Haku to either dodge away or take them with a Jutsu of his own.
That was just what Haku had in mind. He pulled from his Kekkei Genkai once more, using his special chakra, and slammed his hand down on the ground.
"Ice Release: Ice Wall!"
He'd made the Jutsu up on the spot, but it hadn't seemed all that complicated to make when he'd thought about it, and as a few crystals of ice sprung up from the ground and blocked the oncoming lightning, he found himself correct.
Haku dodged around the wall, ready to get into close range with his opponent, when he found himself ground to a halt almost immediately.
"Don't move!" His opponent practically screamed, digging his Kunai even further into Ino's neck, and drawing a small stream of blood. "Move and I tear her damn throat out!"
Ino didn't make a sound as she met Haku's eyes, but he could tell she was afraid. She was far weaker than the man holding her, both in relative strength and in terms of ninja ability. It was not her fault that she was an average Genin, being held hostage by a Jonin.
But as he looked into her eyes, and could see the raw fear coursing through her, there came a feeling from inside Haku at that moment that he had not felt in half a lifetime. Perhaps it was the fact that they were both helpless in their situations, or that they both had looked at him with such terror, or that ice was gathering on the tips of his fingers, his toes, the ends of the hairs on his head, but he couldn't help but think of when his mother had been slaughtered in front of him.
He couldn't help but feel that same feeling off loss, that feeling of letting his Kekkei Genkai free.
He needed a window, though, because he couldn't attack while the man before him still held Ino.
Apparently, though, Ino saw that as well, because she did something incredibly stupid a half second later.
She headbutted the man with the back of her skull.
It wasn't a hard hit, and truly, in any other circumstance, Haku imagined it would've only served to annoy her assailant, but the brief moment of pause was all he needed to throw out a dozen senbon from his fingers, all of which landed in the sound ninja's body, and more specifically, his right hand. A second later, the very same hand seized up from his pressure points being hit, and he dropped the Kunai he'd been holding.
Ino, through some dumb luck, seemed to pick that same moment to free herself as well, stepping on the man's foot and vaulting forwards, landing a few feet away from her opponent.
"Ino." Haku spoke with an odd sense of clarity as chakra flooded his system. "Get behind something."
The girl's eyes widened, but she got the picture, running behind the same island shelf he'd hidden behind when he'd entered and ducking down.
The sound ninja had recovered and looked to be bringing his hands together for another Jutsu, but it didn't matter.
It was already too late for him.
"Lightning Release: Ligh-"
"Begone."
From out of Haku's body, ice crystals flowed forth, carving their way through the wooden walls and floors of the shop like a hot knife through butter. He watched as the man before him brought his hands up, trying with all his might to block the oncoming storm of frozen death.
But as the world became only white and cold, a trickle of red and warmth proclaimed that his opponent had failed.
/-/
The first thing Ino realized when the rumbling stopped was that she was still alive.
That probably should've come at less of a shock, but she'd thought she was a goner about 10 times in the last two minutes, so she was fairly sure she could be forgiven for believing it one last time.
As she stood up, she nearly found herself impaled upon a jagged icicle that jutted out just above her head. She took in her surroundings a bit more carefully after that, and after a second or two to catch her bearings, she found a place where she could stand safely.
She couldn't help but cry internally about the state of her families shop. Massive stalactites of ice were shooting out from multiple angles, and very few places in the building had been spared from their wrath. The walls and ceiling had more than a few holes, sure, but there was more rubble than there was clean floor at this point.
As she looked down at the shattered remains of a sound ninja, the one Haku had first snuck up upon, on the ground below her, she couldn't help but cringe slightly.
Still, that didn't mean she wasn't glad he'd shown up.
If he hadn't…
She chose not to think about it, instead shaking her head and stepping around a rather precariously placed icicle. As she made her way around it, she finally found Haku.
The boy didn't look good, he was panting hard, and seemed to be gripping his heart for some reason. His breath was visible in the air, as well, even though the icicles themselves had only brought the temperature of the hot day down perhaps 20 degrees in their small room.
Does that mean his organs are freezing!? Ino thought to herself in a panic. Maybe I could–
"Ino!" Having her name shouted brought her out of her thoughts, and she looked up to see the boy had hobbled his way over to her, and, rather embarrassingly, immediately brought her into a tight hug. "I was… worried," The boy panted as he spoke, barely able to formulate his sentence past what now seemed to be a mixture of exhaustion and an overuse of his ice. "I thought that… maybe I'd hit you with my ice as well… I didn't mean to use this much of it, I'm sorry, your shop is all ruined now, and I-"
There was something about the boy's apologetic tone that irked her, more than enough for her to reach over and flick him in the forehead, causing him to stagger backwards and look up at her like a confused dog that you'd accidentally stepped on.
And just like stepping on a dog, she felt immediately bad about what she'd done.
"S-sorry, I just… Don't worry about my dumb shop, okay?" Ino finally spoke, rubbing the back of her head in exasperation as she did. "I'm glad you prioritized me over this rickety old shack."
"Oh… uhm… okay." The boy nodded, still seeming a bit unsure of himself.
A second later the alleyway outside their building exploded in flames, and Haku tackled her to the floor. There was a sudden warmth, a blinding flash of light, and then nothing.
The weight upon Ino's body didn't shift, nor did it move in any way. For a moment, she feared the worst, pushing Haku off as gently as she could and getting up to examine him. She breathed a sigh of relief as she felt a pulse, trying to ignore the newly acquired burns on her legs and feet that hissed with pain.
The explosion hadn't been terribly large, but it had hit with enough force to push itself into the shop, which had unfortunately had its door ripped off when the sound ninjas had torn their way in. It was only the lingering dregs that made their way over to them, but it had still been enough to singe her legs and set the bandages she tied around her thighs ablaze.
As she put out the small flames that still flickered across the remnants of her bandages, wincing slightly as she did, she couldn't help but turn to Haku, whose back had terrible burns running nearly the entire length of his spine, the explosion having almost completely destroyed his green haori.
"H-Haku? Are you alright!?" She let out without any real thought, too lost in her worries for the boy's safety to think. "Can you hear me!?"
"Y-yes… I can hear you." Haku spoke as simply and respectfully as he always did, trying even now to push himself into a sitting position.
It was Ino who stopped him, instead grabbing his arm and putting it over her own shoulders, hauling him up and trying to ignore the way he gasped in pain as she brought him into a sitting position.
"Where does it hurt?" She asked simply, setting him against the front wall a few feet away from the door, which was one of the only places that was relatively unscathed in their shop. "My family keeps a first aid kit around here somewhere; I can try to patch you up."
Haku seemed to consider her words for a few seconds, before looking outside and wincing, though whether that was at the gloom of their general situation, or in pain, she couldn't tell.
"I'm fine, really." The boy lied through his teeth, smiling over at her as he did. "It doesn't hurt at all."
Why are all boys like this? Ino thought with a scowl, finally finding the first aid kit beneath a pile of rubble and digging through it for a roll of bandages.
"Just… turn around, if you can."
The boy looked like he was going to object, but a stern look had him swallowing air, turning around and facing the wall, and showing off the horrid burns across his back. Ino winced as the boy gasped slightly when she applied a small amount of cream to the wounds, but for his sake she tried to stay as quiet as she could.
"Why were you here, Ino?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean… shouldn't you have been at the arena? I thought you'd go cheer on your friends."
I guess that would've made sense.
"I was supposed to go and see Sakura compete, but my dad got assigned a pretty important mission near the back of the village, and my mom's been sick all week. The Chuunin exams are a special occasion as well, so we couldn't afford to just shut down the shop, not with how much business we've been getting. So, I volunteered to stay behind and watch the storefront."
Haku stayed relatively quiet after that, which was a relief, because she really needed to focus on tying these damn bandages!
Why are these things so hard!? Ino couldn't help but complain. Just… one… more… Got it!
As she tied the final bandage in a knot, pulling it taut around Haku's body and causing the boy to wince slightly, she stood up, put her hand out, and pulled Haku to his feet.
"Alright, so just how – Haku!"
She grabbed the boy just before he could fall, and it was then that she realized just how bad his condition must've been, for he was gasping as he held onto her, as if she were the only lifeline he had left.
"You told me you were fine." She spoke annoyedly, wishing that the boy could've just been honest with her.
"L-lied…" He practically whispered, trying his hardest just to speak. "Sorry… didn't want to weigh you down… thought I could manage the pain."
"Honestly…" Ino breathed out, before preparing herself, taking a deep breath, and hoisting the boy back to his feet.
It wasn't easy to keep him aloft. Haku wasn't heavy by any stretch, as was customary from the life of a ninja, but that didn't make him light either. He easily outclassed her in terms of weight, which meant that she was having difficulty even as she only helped him walk.
"Ino…" He spoke quietly, reservedly.
She ignored him, soldiering on as best she could as she dragged the two of them out of the shop, stumbling slightly as her foot connected with the broken-down door of her family's store. She turned around, looking back at the now dilapidated building behind her, and sighed heavily as she took it all in.
The Yamanaka flower shop… its destroyed.
She couldn't dwell, however. Not when she had someone else's life relying on her own. She needed to be strong, for her and Haku both.
"Ino… please…"
Once more, she ignored him, and the pain in her legs, as she took another few steps.
She barely made it to the next building before she collapsed, panting heavily.
"Damnit!" She screamed in frustration. "Damnit, Damnit, Damnit!"
"Ino, we can't get to safety." Haku summarized her own thoughts. "Not if you're carrying me."
Damnit! Shut up! She mentally screeched, pounding her fist on the dirt road beneath her and turning back to look Haku in the eye.
He had an annoying determination in his own dark-brown orbs as he stared her down, before looking back towards the shop, and smiling.
"The two of us can't get away, but you might be able to on your own. Those ninja's we encountered were just a scouting party, there were only two of them. I'm willing to bet they were only sensory ninja, probably why I was able to beat them so easily… but that means that the more powerful ones will come once those two don't report back in."
"So… what are you saying?"
"I'm saying that if we don't clear out of here soon, we're both going to get caught." Haku concluded, looking back over to her, and smiling in a way that made her stomach sick. "I'm asking you to leave me behind."
Her thoughts swam as she stared in shock at the boy before her, trying to find how he could look so damned positive when he was throwing his life away.
"You know you'll die!" She shouted perhaps a bit too loud. "If you stick around here, you'll die, end of story!"
"Maybe not." Haku spoke, still smiling with that same damned expression. "If I go back in there, and barricade the wall with an ice release Jutsu, I may be able to escape notice."
"Are you kidding!?" She fired back angrily. "You think they wouldn't notice the door made of ice and think "Huh, that seems a bit fishy, I wonder if it's related to the two ninjas we're missing?"!?"
Haku stayed quiet, but the smile didn't leave his face, even if it did become a bit sadder than before.
"They might not notice it." Was all he could say.
"Don't give me that garbage!" She screamed once more, grabbing the boy's arm, and eliciting a small hiss of pain from Haku. He didn't complain as she hauled the two of them up, or as she began walking, completely ignoring the pain from the burns on her legs and feet and the way her muscles ached as she pushed the two of them forward. "I am not leaving you behind! I refuse!"
"You'll be killed, too!" Haku raised his voice for perhaps the first time she'd ever heard. "If they catch us, I can't defend us!"
"Then I won't let them catch us!"
"You're being overwhelmingly stubborn." Haku spoke, calming back down to his usual timbre, but still carrying a hint of a growl at the back of his voice. "Don't make me stop you."
It would've perhaps been a threat, one born for her safety, but a threat nonetheless, if it were not for the ease of which Ino saw through the boy's fragile veneer.
"You won't." She spoke simply. "If you tried to break away from me, I'd merely come back over and pick you up. That would slow the both of us down, putting me in danger." She kept going, feeling raw anger for the boy's idiocy flow into her voice. "If you tried to harm me to keep me from getting you up, or knocked me out, that would prevent me from being able to get away, thus putting me in danger."
The boy's eyes widened, but she knew she had him when he turned away, pointedly avoiding meeting Ino's own gaze.
"Don't think I can't read you like a damned book, Haku, because I can!" She finished speaking, breathing heavily as she cleared the alley they were in, and almost immediately running straight into a ninja from the sound village.
Luckily, it seemed the woman hadn't seen them, and Ino was able to duck back into the alleyway, staying hidden as she placed Haku down.
"We won't be able to get by her." The boy spoke simply as he erased his chakra signature. "If you'd just-"
"Shut up, I'm trying to think."
"…Right." Haku whispered quietly. "Sorry."
"Don't apologize. You're trying to protect me." She turned and smiled down at him. "Admirable, just really dumb."
Haku seemed to take that a bit personally, but he didn't speak as she began trying to form a mental map of their area.
"Ok, so… we're here." She drew a small map in the sand below her. Well, she called it a map, but it was more a circle with a dot inside of it. "We're pretty close to the main gate, which means that when the ninja's start showing up, we're pretty screwed."
Haku simply nodded.
"We'd need to get further inside the village, which is…" She thought for a moment, before looking in front of them, and off to the right, directly where the Kunoichi from the sound village was standing. "Right there, unfortunately."
"We could probably kill her before she saw us." Haku added, sending a small chill down Ino's spine as he did.
"Ok, no." She spoke simply, narrowing her eyes as she glared at him. "No more of that heartless crap."
"Uhm… I'm sorry, what?"
"Back in the shop, you saved me, but you killed those two ninja." She explained. "Well… I don't like it. Don't kill anyone for my sake, got it!?"
Haku's eyebrows drew down into a confused expression, as if he was flabbergasted that she could even complain about something so asinine.
"You do realize they're trying to kill us as well, correct?" Haku spoke, his usual elegance falling to the wayside as he began to get heated. "We can't afford to be kind when they'll show us no such mercies!"
"Alright, if it's literally life and death, then sure, do what you must!" She whispered angrily. "But! If there is a chance for us to pass by someone without killing them, then I want to take that route instead."
"You can't afford to think about things like guilt on the battlefield." Haku chided, his eyes darkening in a way she'd never seen before. "Play on your enemies bonds, destroy them in front of them, break them down and utilize it to your advantage. If we don't work with everything we have, we don't have a chance in hell of making it out of this alive!"
Ino felt chills run up her spine, but she didn't say anything for another minute, instead focusing on mapping out their intended route, and a secondary route they could take just in case they were blocked off.
When she finally did speak up, it was with a slightly defeated tone.
"You might be right." Ino admitted, looking up and seeing that Haku's eyes were wide. "It might be safer for us to kill those we come across, but I refuse to compromise my own morals just to save my own hide. They might be our enemies, but they're people, too!"
There was a quiet silence that filled the alleyway as the two of them patched themselves up. Ino spent a few moments rubbing some of the burn cream from earlier into her leg, whilst Haku wrapped and rewrapped some of the bandages around his chest. When the boy finally responded to her words, it was with an oddly soft look on his face, and a small, sad smile.
"Hold onto that."
"What?"
"Master Zabuza once told me that morals are something only the strong can afford to have, that the weak must rely on our instincts and our brutality." The boy grew quieter as he continued, a sad smile coming to rest upon his face. "I think… I never quite felt the way you did about it. I lost my family in the span of an hour, and then I wandered the snow-covered mist village for months before Zabuza picked me up."
Ino found herself being drawn into the boy's story, and having finished coming up with their escape route, she chose to listen to him as she hauled him up, walking the both of them out of the alleyway the back way, avoiding the sound ninja they'd seen entirely, even if it would take them all the way around, effectively doubling their initial travel time.
"You see terrible things happen every day on those streets." Haku spoke quietly, solemnly. "I was one of the lucky ones. Most kids who get picked up off the street… well, no one heard from them again."
Ino caught his meaning, even without him having to explain it. She tried to ignore the sickness forming in her stomach at his words, even as she pulled them both into a small crevice to avoid being seen by a sound ninja passing by overhead, jumping from rooftop to rooftop.
"When Zabuza told me to kill for the first time… I didn't even think about it. I didn't want to make my benefactor mad… so I did what I had to do. By the time I could afford to look back and feel anything… I just didn't." Haku finished, his head falling and coming to rest on her shoulder, though whether or not he'd meant it to, or was really so exhausted that he was spacing out a bit, she couldn't tell. "What I'm saying is… hold onto your ability to care. That in and of itself is a talent, and one that's just as important, if not more important, than the ability to take a life."
Haku's words stuck with her, even as they managed to make it into another alleyway, perhaps 3 or 4 blocks from the Yamanaka flower shop. They had another 15 to 20, if her calculations were correct, before they could make it to the arena, and what Ino assumed would be the brunt of security.
"Thanks." Ino spoke softly as they took another break for her to rest her aching muscles, and briefly massage some of the burn cream into the wounds running up and down her legs. "I… I don't really know what to say other than thank you."
"You don't have to say anything." Haku responded as Ino rubbed some of the cream onto his burnt and exposed back. "You've taught me some things today that I never knew, but I'd like to think that goes both ways."
She smiled.
"It does."
"How much further?"
She brought up her mental map in her head, trying to think about how far they'd come.
"We're about… a quarter of the way there?" She spoke without any real confidence.
"Not exactly what I'd hoped to hear."
Despite their situation, Ino found herself giggling quietly.
"Yeah, but we're making progress. We can do it."
Haku smiled back, a simple smile lacking any of his usual poise or grace.
Perhaps, underneath his cold, perfect exterior, this is how Haku really is?
"We should be moving." The boy said, managing to push himself up and, from what Ino could see, support himself on his own two feet. "I think I'm alright to walk a bit. That should let us make better time, as well."
"Alright." Ino breathed out, trying to gather enough energy to keep moving, despite the burns on her legs and the aches of her muscles.
"Let's keep going."
/-/
"Keep your guards up, there's someone up ahead!"
"Right!" Sasuke shouted, before passing the message along to those behind him. "Someone's up ahead, be ready."
"Gotcha." Sakura responded, before herself passing the message back to Shino, who passed it back to Shikamaru, who passed it back to Kiba.
It had been a fairly spontaneous formation that Shikamaru suggested. Power up front with the Sharingan to scan for enemies, added with Pakkun's nose picking up anything Sasuke's eyes couldn't. Sakura in second, having no real sensory abilities. Shino in the middle, being able to use his bugs to watch the entire formation. Shikamaru in fourth to pass on commands and actions to the whole line, and Kiba in the back, using Akamaru's nose to pick up anything Pakkun missed.
It was a relatively faultless formation, at least from Sasuke's point of view. It had no real clear weaknesses, and it's strengths, in terms of tracking down a running target, were numerous.
As they came across one of those targets, however, Sasuke realized that they weren't dealing with a couple of innocent kids at all.
A massive blast of wind had them all covering their faces, and they fell from the trees they'd been jumping through a few seconds later, landing on the earth below and staring at the progenitor of the gale herself.
"Yo." The girl named Temari spoke confidently. "I'll ask you just once, turn around and stop following us."
"If you'll tell us why you're running away, and maybe where you're running to, we'd be happy to escort you there." Sasuke spoke, giving his teammates time to flank the girl from all angles. "Otherwise I'm going to have to ask you to stand down and surrender."
"Oh, and why would I do that?"
"We have reason to believe your teammate is the carrier of the One-Tail." Sasuke spoke, watching the girl's face for any reaction, and grinning slightly as he eyes went wide. "So we were wondering just what it was you were doing, taking him so deep into the forest."
Temari didn't speak again, instead she merely raised her fan and placed it behind her back, striking an odd pose that he could only assume was a battle stance. It spoke the words she wasn't willing to, however.
She would not let them pass.
"Go, you three." Shikamaru spoke, grabbing Kiba by the shoulder and stepping forward. "Mission's changed. No need for my tactics if all they're planning to do is delay. Me and Kiba here can take this girl."
Sasuke's eyes widened slightly, but he nodded as he, Sakura, and Shino stepped around, doing their best to come from too many sides, so that Temari would have no choice but to let some of them get by.
"Oh and do me a favor." Shikamaru spoke up one last time. "Don't do something stupid like engaging that Gaara kid if something weird does happen. I think I speak for everyone when I say I'd like to see you three come back in one piece."
Sasuke nodded towards the boy, before, with a flick of his wrist, he sent three shuriken directly at Temari. As he did, Sakura and Shino began to run past her, forcing her to either dodge, attack, or allow them to pass.
The choice was taken from her a second later as Shikamaru and Kiba charged into her guard, effectively pinning her down as the three of them forced their way through, and back into the tree line, and even further still, until they could no longer hear the sounds of combat.
They fell into a lull as the three of them continued running. There was only the small ambiance of the occasional bird, and the rustling of the wind though the leaves. The silence was broken, however, as a clump of beetles suddenly surrounded Shino.
From what he could see, they seemed to be passing on a message.
"There's another one ahead." He spoke, almost entirely inexpressive. "I will handle him. You two, do not stop moving."
They nodded, deciding it was probably best to just let Shino do what he wanted. A second or two later, he dropped from the tree line, and the sounds of combat echoed out into the trees for a while longer, until at last they faded, and he and Sakura were left alone.
They were out of sensory ninja at that point, but Pakkun was still in front of them, sniffing carefully as he jumped from tree to tree, and every once in a while looking back to make sure they were still following him.
"We're about half a kilometer away from that boy, so if we want to catch him, we need to speed up our pace."
They nodded once more, keeping to a pace that was faster than what Gaara was traveling at, but not too fast as to exhaust them.
It took them perhaps 10 minutes to catch the boy, but they were surprised to find that when they did, he seemed to already be waiting for them.
Sasuke had never really interacted with Gaara before, and to be honest, he'd never seen the need to. The boy reeked of murderous intent at practically all times, and it seemed like the only thing that kept him from acting on those feelings was a hair-trigger, oh so easily set off.
"Temari said there was someone chasing us." The boy said as they landed in front of him. "You are the teammates of that boy, Naruto, correct?"
"Yeah," Sakura responded, eyebrows drawn down, as if suspecting the boy was up to something. "Why?"
"I have been thinking about him a lot since our talk a little while ago." The boy admitted without holding back. "His words… they are just like the ones Yashamaru spoke to me when I was a child. They have made me remember things I would rather not… and think about things I had not considered."
That's… interesting. Sasuke surmised. I wonder if we could use his hesitation.
"Who's Yashamaru?" Sakura asked, turning towards him, and nodding her head, seemingly having had the same idea of keeping him talking.
"Yashamaru is… was my uncle. He was… more of a father to me than my real father." Gaara told them, falling for their scheme more easily than Sasuke had predicted. "He taught me a lot about things like… pain, and love, and sorrow." Gaara's face darkened minutely, and already Sasuke had the feeling the story didn't have a happy ending. "He tried to kill me, having placed the blame of my mother's death upon me, as she died giving birth to me. I… I killed him without knowing who he was, and with his last breaths, he cursed me."
Sasuke could empathize, having been betrayed by his own brother, losing everything and everyone he'd ever loved in one night. He almost wanted to reach out and try and talk more with the boy…
But they had a job to do, and Sasuke wasn't about to let his feelings get in the way.
…But maybe they wouldn't? Sasuke couldn't help but think to himself. Maybe I could use my own experiences to keep him talking, while also empathizing with him a bit?
While he was thinking, Sakura kept Gaara talking.
"That's terrible, I'm very sorry."
"Why do you all apologize?"
Sasuke's train of thought broke as he looked up at Gaara's confused face. He was not indignant, or angry, like Sasuke had once been when people had given him pity. No, Gaara looked really, truly confused, as if he couldn't quite comprehend why they'd apologize to him.
But mixed in there, just a tiny movement of his eyebrows, was a modicum of doubt.
Is that Naruto's influence, perhaps?
"Well… Because I felt bad for you, I guess." Sakura tried to explain. "I can't really relate to your experiences, but I still feel horrible for you."
"But-" Gaara seemed about to try to question further but held himself back after a few seconds. "Is it that… you're feeling my pain, and then…" Gaara looked to be trying to piece together Sakura's feelings, trying his best to learn about what they were feeling. "You thought about my experiences, and felt my pain through your own lens?"
"Yeah, I guess that's a pretty good way of putting it." Sakura smiled, trying to erase the sadness from her visage.
"I see." Gaara seemed to contemplate what he wanted to say next for a while, taking nearly 20 seconds to speak. "I am not… separated from those kinds of feelings after all."
That's good! Sasuke found himself thinking. Maybe he won't want to fight us now.
"Earlier, my sister, Temari, told my brother and I to go on, that she would hold off your approach." Gaara explained, his face remaining neutral, except for his eyebrows, which betrayed a small feeling of sadness. "I was… I felt something when she said that. I'm still not sure myself what it was, but… I did not want her to do such a thing."
"And then my brother," Gaara continued, not even paying them any attention anymore. "He did the same thing a moment later, deciding to stay behind when we found out you were still coming after us. I felt that same… feeling in my chest." The boy reached down, grasping the cloth that hung over his breast. "Like my heart was tightening."
"Then… perhaps you don't need to fight us?" Sasuke suggested, taking a step forward. "If you three would be willing to surrender and stay with us for the remainder of this incident in the village, we won't attack you anymore." Sasuke offered, reaching his hand out. "Surrender, and we'll make sure you and your siblings will be safe."
Sand encircled his hand, and briefly, he thought that Gaara would aim to cut the limb clean off. A second later, however, he realized that the boy was merely lowering his hand, bringing it back down to Sasuke's side, and then releasing it.
"No." The boy spoke clearly. "This feeling… I don't know what it is yet, but I do know that they stayed behind so I could accomplish my mission. I want to complete our mission, so that those from our village that first gave us this mission will recognize them… will recognize us."
Sasuke thought it was all well and good that the boy was having this realization about himself and his feelings, but he couldn't quite help but curse the fact that it had to happen right now, instead of a day or two from now, when it would've led to him not having to fight a Jinchuuriki with only a single other person as back up.
Screw my damn luck. Sasuke thought simply. Of course, this wasn't going to be easy.
"I bear the two of you no ill will, that I can be sure of." Gaara said, looking them each in the eye, and bringing his face back into complete calm. "The people from the leaf have truly taught me a lot, but that does not mean I will hold back."
Good. Sasuke thought to himself. Just fantastic.
"Ready, Sakura?"
"Heh, he's not really giving me a choice in the matter."
"Yeah." Sasuke responded simply as a torrent of sand threatened to overtake their position.
"He's really not."
/-/
"Naruto, on your six!"
Naruto complied with Tenten's shouting, rolling to the side and laying on the ground as a raging ball of flame flew over him. He stood a second later, dashing to the end of the rooftop and vaulting to the next one, landing beside Tenten and just barely getting behind her before she launched what might've been her hundredth volley of weapons back towards their opponents.
He couldn't deny their effectiveness, though, as the enemy ninja were forced to fall back behind the makeshift cover of a chimney to avoid being skewered, which meant they definitely couldn't return fire as he and Kakashi kept moving forward, following the hole that Guy and his team were punching in the oncoming enemies.
Still, even when they punched a hole into the formation, they couldn't keep it open forever with only the six of them. There were far too many enemies, which meant that they were being flanked from all sides as they kept moving.
It would've been a suicide mission, if they didn't have a trump card.
"Alright, Naruto." Kakashi shouted to him as he turned back to look him in the eye. "Just so we're clear, you can use the summoning Jutsu on command, yes?"
"You've asked me this four times now!" Naruto shouted back indignantly, finding himself more than a little annoyed at this point. "I've already told you, it doesn't always work, but I've never failed when it counts!"
"Right, but I'm more asking about the definition of 'when it counts'!"
"I'll be able to do it!" Naruto screeched. "That's what that means!"
"Alright, gotcha, just making sure."
The Hydra in the distance let out a howling roar, and if Naruto were a bit more superstitious than he already was, he might've thought the beast had heard him, and was calling him out on his bullshit.
Which would've been fair, given that Naruto's summoning ability was about as consistent as Gaara's mood.
Oh, he'd been able to summon that giant Gamabunta, and he'd formed a pact with the guy as well, but that didn't mean he could pull it off every time he wanted to. In fact, the majority of the time he tried to summon, he accidentally called in a tadpole, or something even more embarrassing then that.
Hell, sometimes he might as well have used a smoke grenade.
But he was confident that when the chips were down, he'd be able to summon something more substantial. Hell, he'd been able to do it when Jiraiya threw him into that damned cavernous void.
He'd also had an interesting talk with the Nine-Tails which, looking back, seemed to have been the two of them talking smack to each other for 30 seconds before Naruto had caved and begged for some chakra to save his life.
It had worked, but his dignity had died an ugly death in the waters of the Nine-Tails' cage.
Still, from what he'd seen, Jiraiya was currently using Gamabunta to fight that giant snake Orochimaru had summoned. That meant that he certainly wasn't summoning him for this little mission.
And if I do accidentally summon him, I'm fairly sure Jiraiya will kill me.
In front of them, an explosion went off, and Naruto immediately panicked, thinking something had happened to their vanguard.
"It's alright!" He heard a man scream a second later, and instantly recognized, simply thanks to the boisterousness of the voice, that it was Guy Sensei. "We're alright! Kakashi, I assume this is far enough!?"
"Yeah!" Kakashi called back, gazing only a hundred feet ahead to where the Hydra had crashed through the gate, and was slithering it's way towards them. "Transition over to rear defense, we don't want these guys interrupting us."
"Alright!" Guy spoke, before looking at the thing, putting a hand on his chin, and lightly remarking. "You know, I could probably just use the sixth or seventh gate and-"
"And make yourself completely useless afterwards?" Kakashi called out to him, speaking in a deadpan voice. "In the middle of an active war-zone?"
"Alright, alright, sheesh." The man said, sounding oddly cowed. "It was just an idea."
"Appreciated, but unnecessary, we'll take it from here."
"Got it. Neji, Lee, On me!"
"Right!"
"Yes, Guy Sensei!"
"Tenten, you form up with them," Kakashi told the girl. "I appreciate you covering our flank back there, if you've got any seals left, then your help would be crucial as well."
Tenten nodded, taking a deep breath, and then turning around, charging after her team, and drawing her scroll out even further. She'd already gone through at least half of it, but it seemed she still had more, despite having already thrown out perhaps a hundred Jutsu.
"Now, Naruto," Kakashi spoke up, turning towards him with his eyes hard. "You ready?"
Naruto felt like he should've been annoyed, having been asked that same question 5 times now, but there was something about this time, now that they were really there, that had his blood stilling, his nerves calming, and his breaths evening out.
He hadn't realized it, but he'd been panicking for a moment, with the weight of all of their efforts on his shoulders. Kakashi had seen that, and pulled him out of it before his feelings could consume him.
Thank you, Kakashi Sensei.
"Yeah."
I appreciate it.
"As I'll ever be."
End Chapter 30
And here we go!
We've got the set-ups for our three scenarios this chapter, and these are the scenes that will be focused upon during the Konoha Crush arc. Ino and Haku's stealth mission, Sasuke and Sakura's battle with Gaara, and Naruto and Kakashi's battle with the Hydra at the gate.
Gaara comes to some conclusions on his own, having already dealt with a lot of really odd people, but getting some last minute help from Naruto that has him at least realizing he cares somewhat for his siblings. Unfortunately for Sakura and Sasuke, it could not come at a worse time for them.
Well, that's life, everybody, get used to it.
See you all next week!