Sorry I have been missing guys.

Thank you all so much for your lovely reviews... some seriously I have no words for, they're a ray of sunshine and I can't express my gratitude that you take the time to mention your views and suggestions. Forgive me that I cannot always answer, just writing and editing this sometimes takes up all the spare time I have.

To say I am displeased with this chapter is a huge understatement. I found the wasteland so hateful. Putting myself there mentally I think made me a little anxious, so I feel my writing suffered. :( still, this chapter needed to be done so I could move past it.

Much love,

Inky

In Hell

His sleep had been troubled, his tense brows and anxious breathing keeping her awake through the night. When he woke, groggy and still dazed she had thought for the first time that he was young.

Much younger than she had thought. The never ending legends of her history books and mythology had placed him somewhere in the realm of the eternal and so she had always felt like she was before an elder. An ancient creature.

Something, more or less closer to a god than her own kind.

Still, sitting up with eyes heavy lidded with tiredness, wincing at the flash of discomfort from the healed wound she had wondered...

In the end they had gathered their things and started off, fighting through the tiredness to the edge of the wood. Drawing closer with each step to the overwhelming plumes of sulfuric acid that bubbled from the rot basins.

The wasteland was a patchwork quilt of powdery red dust and sink holes filled with a thick oily sludge that bubbled and popped releasing smells more putrid than the decay of flesh left in the sun, so acrid and oily it burned the inside of their noses and left a film of grease on their skin and hair.

Hinata and Sasuke had stared at the endless expanse of red that stretched before them in light of the rising suns. The dust and fumes made it turn a garish orange despite the blue sky. When Solatta passed the peak of the Scaled Worm it set the waste to shining. The greasy residue atop the bubbling mud winked in the light, a thousand cunning eyes with secret intent, blazing.

A voice whispered within Sasuke then, a voice that- if he was honest he had not heard in too many years. So long, that at first he was unsure of why he felt his stomach twist and turn, unaccustomed to hesitation. It was too close a feeling to fear.

A flicker of his dark gaze towards Hinata's tired little face made him balk, realizing with the abruptness of surprise that he was worried.

This is a mistake.

Amaterasu keened softly beside her, tail low, eyes squinting against the blast of the stinging smell and the wind tossing the red metallic tasting dirt into their faces.

She was stained and bloody from the battle. Dark circles lined her pale face and already her lips were cracked and dry. Although she had not been plump when they had met she had lost weight since being in his company and he highly doubted there would be anything in the flat endless chaos before them to supply her with a way to maintain what little reserves she had left.

"...it's... the only way, yes?" Her pale gaze, finally sensing his scrutiny despite his attempt to be subtle turned to him, brows drawn with worry.

"It's the only way to find... to find the Apostate?"

Turning back to the endless red landscape he let out a breath, tasting the dust on his tongue.

Itachi.

The dark eyes of his brother, held within the pale face he could not help but remember clearly flashed in his mind and a different feeling rose within him, a viscous dark thing. At his neck he felt the unsteady pulse of his wound like the response of a nerve to the emotion.

Whatever the voice of worry was, it was destroyed with the burning heat of his sudden furious hatred, a thing that no longer burned but simmered with the patience of endless dedication.

"Yes."

Her unwavering gaze was new, and he wondered only briefly at her gall. The shaky tremble of her fingers as she pushed her hair back telling of her fears despite this new confident stare.

Still, whatever fears caused the tremble were held within her mouth, like he held the bitterness of the Rot. In the end when he stepped forward she followed, and he found himself withholding a sigh of relief and a pang of anxiety at once.

The silence of the village during the hours before the sun rose was of great importance, something all the citizens within the walls respected deeply. Shikamaru had made it clear that their enemies took advantage of the light, the stillness, the tiredness of the guard at twilight and so the village always seemed to hold it's collective breath as the night deepened towards daylight.

At the guard towers, both exhausted and wary their warriors let their eyes flicker through the darkness of the wood and all the nightmares it could hold. They never trusted the whisper of the breeze, never allowing themselves to be lulled into complacency by the serenity of the twilight.

Sai sitting next to Kiba on the wood ground stared at the blue violet sky past the pointed trunks of the gate, contemplating the colors of the heavens before the sun rose. Their depth seemed to change, over time it flattened to a slate blue gray and then brightened with the sun.

"How is your master then?" Sai asked finally after another long awkward silence punctuated by the trilling cries of insects out on the other side of the gate. Kiba shifted slightly, careful not to wake the ball of fluff on his lap that was the body of Akamaru in a dead sleep, his side rising and falling rhythmically with soft puppy snores.

"I have no master." He replied tartly, flashing the oddly rude Sai a look of puzzlement. It was hard to pin down whether the pale young man was just out to pick a fight or perhaps simply awkward.

Looking at him made Kiba decide almost instantly that at least stupidity was not the cause of his rudeness. Cleverness flashed behind his eyes even if confusion was often paired with the wit.

"Oh? I thought that the man you and your friends called the Warren was your master." Sai continued crossing his long legs in front of him before batting away a neon green colored dragonmoth buzzing around his face lazily.

The halo of light shifted and drifted away with an indignant trill of it's wings.

"No. My Opaque, my..." Kiba paused, thinking of Hinata's kind face, her wide open smile, her soft voice. Calling her a mistress seemed incorrect, perhaps even disrespectful. He loved her, loved her as Shino loved her, with a selfless protective affection. She embodied everything they thought their clan needed. Compassion, determination, resilience.

Hope.

"Lady Hinata, right? That's what the Tenten girl called her." Sai supplied, and Kiba nodded slowly, feeling the aching twist of the name spoken out loud. "Lady Hinata." He whispered. "It is her I follow, and serve."

"So you're a slave."

Frowning at the grating words Kiba fixed Sai with a look, jaw clenched hard enough to feel the poke of his rather sharp incisors on his gums. "You have a way of saying things that beg for bruises. Were you dropped on your head as a child?"

Sai blinked, and then grinned. "No, but I was a slave once." He paused. "I did not think this would be an insult to you. My slavery taught me many things of use."

"I am not... a slave, per say." Kiba grumbled, unsure of how to continue. Sai's unnerving grin was not what he had expected to see on the face of someone who had been freed from unwilling slavery. "No one demanded I give my life. I give it freely, every day."

"Except she's not here." Sai mused, raising his eyes back to the dark sky. "She's out there looking at the stars far away. You must feel very untethered."

"Sai, remember how we talked about not saying things that were going to get your nose broken?" Shikamaru's voice suddenly called from the ground floor and his steps making the wood stairs creak made Kiba sigh with relief. He appeared on the second floor, hands in his pockets and face pinched.

Sai looked innocently at him. "Yes, I recall that conversation."

"Not enough to save yourself from a trip to Tsunade's then I suppose." Shikamaru grumbled, rubbing the back of his head tiredly. He fixed Kiba with a look. "I apologize."

"Oh. Did I say something that merited an apology?" Sai turned to Kiba, blinking. "I offer my apology as willingly as you went to slavery."

"He says he wasn't dropped on his head." Kiba grumbled, pushing himself to his feet with Akamaru soft and warm in his hands. "But I have my doubts."

"He wasn't. He had much worse." Shikamaru sighed, patting Sai on the shoulder. "Go on."

"If you say so." Sai paused, looking at Kiba one more time before catching Shikamaru's furtive shake of his head and sighing he strode down the stairs, face smooth and expressionless once more.

"Where is your friend?" Shikamaru finally inquired peering between the tall trunks to the forest beyond looking strangely silent and innocent. Kiba sighed. "Giving Lee a break so he can sleep. He won't rest unless someone is watching Tenten and Neji. They are still sleeping a lot. He worries."

"Hm." Shikamaru nodded, frowning a little at the dark of the forest. "Tsunade believes it is because so much of their reserves were used on the travel before the magic with the trees. She is not concerned about their recovery however , so neither should you be."

Kiba nodded. "I'm not. But I am concerned about how long we have been here."

"You wish to go after your mistress." Shikamaru kept his face pointed away. "I understand that."

Wincing at the title mistress Kiba stepped up beside him, looking out at the quiet woods.

"So... Sai was a ...slave?"

"So he says." Shikamaru nodded. "He has never spoken much about it, and sometimes I think it's because he can't, not because he does not want to." He winced. "Spell or trauma, I don't know, but something holds his tongue."

"Is that why... he..." Kiba waved a hand and shrugged, unsure how to word Sai's awkwardness. Shikamaru nodded, eyes dark filled with curiosity and worry. "Makes you wonder what happened to him to break him in such a way, does it not?"

Akamaru shivered in Kiba's hands, nuzzling with content noises into his master's skin. "Yes, it rather does."

The night wind whispered then and Shikamaru frowned, ripping his eyes from the fluff ball in Kiba's palms to the darkness of the wood, lips parting as a cold ripple of anticipation slid down his spine.

The wood, it's usual rustle and mechanic buzz of insect wings was uncharacteristically silent.

Opening his mouth to ask Kiba if he noticed something strange Shikamaru froze, hearing the first soft melodic tones of something beautiful and silky whispering through the night air.

Kiba's gaze lifted, looking with a frown at Shikamaru. "...is that..." he began, cocking his head in a slightly dog-like fashion. "...music?"

The sound continued, and uneasy Shikamaru moved towards the bell tower at the end of the gate, blinking hard to clear the sudden feeling of weight on his eyelids. "...something does not feel right."

He had hardly got those words out before his legs began to wobble and with eyes growing steadily harder to keep open he watched as Kiba stumbled, two, three steps before slamming to the railing with his back, blinking hard.

"What... is..." he began, slumping.

The music was as heady as strong perfume, although not loud it overpowered everything but Shikamaru's heart beat and with unsteady breaths he clung to the bell rope, fighting hard to ring the alarm.

The rope shivered in his grip and the bell whispered too quietly. Feeling the world fading to black, and his feet unsteady beneath him Shikamaru cursed inside himself, in the place where his mind was still intact.

With hands half numb he fell, gripping the rope and the pull of his body as he tumbled set the metal ringing.

Just as the darkness was eating at his vision he heard the calls from the villagers as the guard came to aid the keepers of the gate.

Satisfied that at the very least they knew, he slumped and let the black take him.

Thoughts of home haunted her every moment. Thoughts of the wells with crystal clear water, cool from the darkness of the earth. Mouthfuls of salty broths and succulent fruits. Even the crunch of the silkweed roots straight from the tree made it into her mind, inspiring hunger, inspiring thirst.

She tried as hard as she could to keep her feet moving, her eyes focused on the tracks left behind by Sasuke's continuous relentless pace. Sometimes the thought of her valley turning into the wasteland she wandered through made her fingers itch and a mad anxious panic turned her thoughts to her bow on her shoulder, the arrows in the quiver and the knife at the small of her back.

Sasuke's back before her was a target, easy to hit, in rapid succession surely her arrows would be victorious?

These insane treacherous thoughts made her more sick than the taste of mud in her mouth from the dust mixing with the thick saliva coating her tongue.

The heat and the sun and the endless walk in the light looped her thoughts in a hangman's noose around her. Shame at even thinking of attacking him ate her up through the day, only relieved at night by the turn of her viscous thoughts to herself. As dusk fell and she shivered violently in the sudden cold winds she ruminated on the idea of laying down, of breathing slowly until there was no breath in her lungs anymore. It was strange being frightened by her own mind, by her own lack of motivation.

"...it goes on forever."

Days, they had gone days without speaking. Her voice was a remnant of itself and again he wondered if he had made a mistake to bring her into the hellish endless plains.

The red dust spread so wide and far it felt exactly as she described, endless. Each step a torture, with only the mountain growing ever closer in the distance in too small increments.

Looking at her in the dark of the night with the stench of the bubbling mud yards away and the breeze throwing fistfuls of the metallic dust in their faces he fretted in silence, uncomfortable with the fear that perhaps she would not make it.

His blood although still helping he realized was not enough too late. Already a week into the journey and well past turning back. It did not heal the cracking of her lips, the crusting of her eyes and the painful dry cough that wracked through her body even in sleep while she shivered in the dark.

Amaterasu too had slimmed down, and his whining wail long stopped. He wandered next to his adoptive mother with his head and tail low, his large fan shaped ears floppy and limp on his giant wolfish head. He had stopped drooling. Sometimes, he did not even open his eyes as he trudged on.

It was hard to remember what it felt like to be anywhere but this endless desolate landscape.

"You are shaking." His reply did not address the fact that eternity stretched out before them, counted in endless steps among the reddish earth and wispy dry grasses that lined basins of bubbling heated mud. They could not light a fire for fear of the oily residue and the wispy plant life catching into an all consuming blaze. Although the rot spluttered and boiled in patches around them the temperature of the air dropped and the wind tore through their clothing and hair, snatching their warmth and life with each breath at night.

Hinata did not bother looking up at him. Eyes closed against the constant sandpaper onslaught of the dirt blasting her face she shivered again, arms tight around her knees, chin pressed hard to her forearms.

Behind her Amaterasu sat curled like a giant heater, attempting to keep the wind from knocking his new mother over from at least one angle. But like everything about the wasteland the wind had no direction, no purpose. It blustered and swirled it danced crazily in the dark and hissed back and forth. There was no knowing where it was coming from.

"...I don't understand why... the Rot people live here when the woods are just beyond." Her voice scratched along, quiet and hardly audible in the hiss of the breeze.

"Forget about them." Sasuke muttered, pushing himself to his feet. She was hardly a shadow in the darkness, the few stars that bothered to shine did not provide enough light to see by. A hunched little bundle of shivers was all he could make out in the dimness. Usually her eyes, reflective as a cat's in the dark were how he kept an eye on her in the night, but with the wind that had picked up force the further they stepped from the wood the more she seemed to keep her precious eyes closed against the sand blasting.

"...I slayed many...I doubt I will ever have the luxury to forget." Hinata's whisper reached him only as he settled beside her, shifting awkwardly for a moment to push Amaterasu back a bit. The horkney sighed, but did not argue like he would before and another pang of worry pulsed in his chest.

"Tch. Nonsense beliefs of a the Hawk Eyed." Sasuke grumbled, ignoring the thickness of his tongue, and the metallic taste of dust. "It was a battle, you did your part to stay alive."

The grate of his wings unfurling made Hinata finally open her eyes, and she watched as his shadow expanded, and his wings reached wide and shining. Carefully they stretched, and then cocooned around all three of them, blocking most of the wind and all of the sand. The relief was instant and her thankfulness so overwhelming she sat up, looking around in the dark of his razor sharp feathers before turning her thankful tearful eyes back to him.

Carefully he held Amaterasu's maw in his hand, long fingers stained red from their journey leaving powdery prints on the silk of the horkney's fur. "You did your part keeping me alive as well."

He had not spoken of it, not since his stunned voice had reached her ears the moment after the battle. Hinata studied him in the darkness and it occurred to him as he sat there with the horkney's tired face in his hand that she could probably see just as well in the dark as in the brightness of day. Keeping his face as still as possible he turned to her finally. "It's a pity that slaying them to help me haunts you."

She had not cried in days, had had no tears to shed with the numbness of just living overwhelming her. And as the tears welled she hesitated.

What would they taste like? In her chest thankfulness and misery, surprise and relief fought. And beneath it all, something else... something foreign, unnamed.

She blinked, feeling them condensing on her lashes. Every dusk like clockwork he sliced his hand, pressed her thirsty mouth to his skin, let himself be consumed. Guilty thoughts of needing that blood- the ichor as the Rot people had called it - for her Valley made swallowing more difficult every night.

Sniffing softly, she strained to keep from blinking, from wasting the one thing she could offer in return.

"...I...I'm crying."

He stilled completely, his hand having been tracing patterns on Amaterasu's face frozen by her words, and the invitation innately worked into the tone.

Tiredness had seeped into his bones, and although he was in better shape than both of his companions he couldn't help the rapid pulse of his blood at her offering.

"I did not think you could at this point." He admitted, aware he was putting off the inevitable touch of his mouth to her skin.

"I did not think so either but I- oh!" Hinata moved then, her body pushing closer to his. In the dark the feel of her hip bumping him and then her hand on his shoulder quickened his breath. "I...they will fall if you don't-"

The urgency in her voice made it easier, and taking her face in his hands he kissed her eyes, first one fluttering eyelid and then the other. The moisture was warm against his lips, exploding on his tongue in such brightness and freshness he pulled away instantly, glad that at least for him, her face was hidden in shadows.

In the silence that followed he listened to his heart beat, rushing in his chest as he bit his lip hard, straining to stay still. He counted breaths, listening to the wind beyond the cover of his wings, and to her silence, every muscle in his body a tightly wound band aching.

Soft, and sleepy from beside him Hinata's voice asked very much later, "...what did they taste like?"

Like sun warmed strawberries fresh off a stem, dew drops condensing on mint leaves, the pop of cherries red and succulent and just before becoming overripe.

The only thing he could think to call it was affection.

It was not his way to lie. But to tell truth had also never scared him before.

"...I don't know." He mumbled it so long after her question he wasn't sure she heard, and he couldn't decide if that was better or worse.

It was entirely too soon for the Warren to be using his magic, too soon after nearly killing himself usurping the forest for his purposes and making it violent when all it wanted was life. Still, being in leadership forced one to make hard miserable choices and Tsunade had become rather accustomed to that.

The music was coming from over the wall, and when it finally stopped she had had to take the Hawk Eyed troupe with her- none of them were willing to stay behind knowing that their comrade had been at the gate.

All the better, she was going to need the Warren's prowess.

Never before had the Rot Clan attacked with magic. Their main source of power came from numbers, sheer numbers. It baffled that there were so many. They fell like flies at every battle and yet it seemed that they had resources of men and women to fight that were without limits.

Tsunade shuddered at the prospect of having such a large population and nothing stable to feed them with.

"Is it the Rot Clan you mentioned before?" Neji's voice was a whisper. After waking he and his shadows had done nothing but murmur together in his rooms, thankful for the assistance of the village but anxious to move on after his cousin when Tsunade had admitted her brief visit.

Shikamaru had insisted they keep their guess that the Rot Clan was after the heiress of the Hawk Eyed from their visitors. It had only taken one conversation with the still weak Warren for Tsunade to agree.

They were all on a suicide quest, their aim to capture the star, to rescue the heiress, to supplicate to the Scaled Worm should their trail grow cold. There were few objectives Tsunade had heard that had such high chances of death in the attempt.

She hardly needed to add a run in with the Rot Clan out alone in the woods to the list. Or at least, she had thought she could eliminate that possibility. Now however with what she assumed was them attacking, she had obviously been wrong.

"Yes. Or at least... if it's not them then we're in trouble. Our village and their Clan are the last two groups in these lands. Before there were villages further past what is now the waste, on the mountains and in the pine forests but with the Rot depleting all the food..."

"So it's them, or an unknown." Tenten was walking at Neji's elbow. Her status as shadow suited her well, there was never a moment she was further from him than a few inches and Tsunade wondered at the fealty. It was a strange custom they had in the Valley and she had always thought in her mind that slavery regardless of it's cause was never something she could approve of.

Strangely enough, this hardly looked like slavery, more like... love.

Around them the village bustled, men and women stood ready at arms, swords strapped to hips and backs. Arrows and bows in shaking frightened hands. Lee glanced at their strained pale faces in the torch lights, wincing against the flickering flames he and his comrades could not get used to and sighed.

"These people are filled with fear."

"Terrified." Tsunade admitted easily, approaching the hill leading to the gate with trepidation, her eyes narrowed. The crumpled forms of the first crew of soldiers to rush towards the gate at the sound of the bell lay sprawled on the path. She stopped well away, hopeful that they would be too far from the sound of the music that caused the sudden involuntary sleep.

"We have had too many run ins with the Rot Clan. They are desperate, they are hungry. Their children starve, their people die of illness." She shuddered. "To tell the truth I believe the Rot they live in has started to drive them mad... they move strangely, act strangely." With a sigh she squinted at the gate. "My people are right to be afraid, we are only a fraction of our village left, everyone else has fallen to their bone spears."

A stench of decay and dead things wafted through the night breeze and Tenten gasped, slamming a hand over her face as Neji and Lee recoiled. The smell was familiar, since it had been slicing into the mountains of their Valley every year.

"Rot." Lee grunted. "Here?"

"It's on them." Tsunade whispered again. "On their bodies. They're covered in it."

"What do you need?" Neji finally asked, glancing at the blonde chancellor. The woman didn't grace him with a look, behind her Sai and Ino stood at the ready, listening. The rest of their forces itched to head into the dark shadow of the gate to check on their captain who had just relieved Sai from duty and their new but appreciated comrade Kiba.

"I need a shield." Tsunade muttered. "I need you to shield me as we move forward so I can get our men out of there, and then to see what they want. No one here wields the kind of magic you possess. If you managed to get the trees to fight for you... a shield should be manageable even now."

"He is still recovering-" Tenten began and stopped at Neji's swift glance.

"You have my assistance." He stepped forward beside the healer, fingers moving through the unlocking mechanisms of a spell.

"To sustain this while moving requires concentration." He murmured softly. "If you need my assistance to carry them I will have to drop the shield."

"I can carry them." Tsunade smirked. "Keep the shield up to negate the music from the flute if it begins and we will manage."

Tsunade was accustomed to doing the impossible. She could reset limbs too broken, heal wounds too bloody, sow skin too shredded. When things could not be done by hand her energy and magic flared. The long and arduous training she had undertaken matched with reserves gifted through her family line providing power most could only dream of. Legend said someone somewhere in her ancestry had been taken in as a lover to a demon in exchange for the power of hell.

And the truth was it smacked of truth when she thought of it. Still- come from hell or not her power mended. She didn't really care where it came from.

Softly, with the pulse of thickening air that accompanied all magic Neji closed his eyes, imagining the particles of light and air, wind and water in the night breeze. He watched them interlocking to chains that tightened and tightened around him and Tsunade in the darkness of his mind.

"Environ."

A gasp of energy set everyone squinting against the blast and the shield shimmered thickly around them. It was a pulsing throbbing thing and had he not been so rested it would have been impossible. It sank beneath their feet, a bubble not of glass but of water, shimmering and shifting as he focused and when solidified to crystal clear he opened his eyes, ignoring the surprising strain in his chest as his energy shifted restlessly, like using a muscle only just recently strained.

"Ready."

Together he and the Healer moved forward, Tsunade studying the smoothness of the shield, hearing her words echo back at her as they bounced off the smooth curved walls.

"Go to the second floor and there I can speak with them first, if they are willing. Perhaps if they cooperate the shield will not be required for as long."

"I can hold it." Neji replied, his monotone flat.

"Yes well, there's plenty of things I can do as well." Tsunade murmured interested in the movement of the shield as they headed up the stairs to the observation post where Shikamaru and Kiba lay sprawled. It shifted and dodged the wood of the railings and steps, molding around objects as they came close. "Yet you don't see me doing them unnecessarily."

Deciding to focus instead of argue Neji frowned, keeping his mouth shut looking over the gate at the clearing before the trees. For a moment his breath caught as a small girlish shape looked up at them from the smooth soil.

Then the clouds shifted against the shattered moon and she graced them with her light, shattering the hope of his cousin standing there.

The girl looked up at them with eyes flashing against the smeared browns of Rot and blood. The redness of her hair showed through the filth and at her feet a large boulder of a man lay splayed and unnaturally still.

Pointing at them with the flute that had so offensively rendered men unconscious with, she spat.

"Look at you cowards, hiding behind walls and shields." Her eyes squinted then, gazing at Neji with a glare he took like an arrow to the heart. "Hawk Eyed. You little vermin are everywhere of late."

"What do you want?" Tsunade snapped, watching as Neji's breath hitched and the shield fluctuated as though against a strong current.

"...we came seeking a healer." She growled. "But it appears our enemies have joined together to destroy us."

"A healer." Tsunade snapped, disregarding the girl's furious words. "Attacking my men and rendering them unconscious is hardly the way to-"

"They're fine. Would you have preferred a volley of arrows? They'll wake up rested and alert. Had we knocked we would have been slain." she pointed at Tsunade again. "We do what we must, just as you."

Tsunade's face puckered like dry fruit. "If you need a healer you must be desperate, and you must have lost to someone."

"A Hawk Eyed dog hit Jirobo with a magicked arrow." The snarl was viscous, and using the flute again she pointed at the body on the ground. "We have come from days away, carrying him and expecting his passing. The magic hums, it does not surrender him to death. She has cursed him to suffer forever." The girl spat then in the direction of Neji with precision. "Hawk Eyed scum."

A kick from her foot sent the body on the ground rolling onto it's back and Tsunade winced. It took much to get her reeling but the gruesome sight of an arrow through the eye had a way of making everyone squirm. Neji breathed out sharply, seeing the black fletching of the arrow's shaft, shining against the soft gold pulse of magic that seemed to beat slowly with the victim's blood.

"Hinata." Neji's shaking whisper was followed by the shiver of the shield again and Tsunade gripped his arm. "Focus. I need to get down there, you must come."

"They attacked her... they might have killed her." Neji's lips had gone white against his face, disappearing in the dim light of the moon. The shield shivered again against an invisible wind. "They might have-"

"It looks to me like they were beat rather soundly." Tsunade murmured, staring into his face in an effort to get the young man to see reason. "Your charge is not alone, if the star defeated two of the Hawk Eyed warriors trained specifically to slay him then the Rot Clan too must have fallen against his might..." Her eyes flickered back to the girl, whose hands were raised impatiently.

"Release him from the spell, healer. Send him to his death at last. Surely you will take great joy in ridding this Veil of one more of our kind."

Her eyes flickered to Neji beside her. "At the very least let the Hawk Eyed dog come down here and slice Jirobo's head off like a man. Set him free."

"You people." Tsunade grunted, turning around and heading back towards the gate with distaste. Neji followed close behind, jaw tight, glancing only briefly at Tenten, Lee and the others waiting at a distance, although calls from their voices rang as they watched Tsunade reach the gate's chains.

"I am going to open this thing, and we are going to look at that man, and you..." her eyes turned to Neji finally in the black of the gate's shadow. "You are going to put a shield around the entrance and let no one in until the gate is down if there is an attack. Although honestly... I don't think so."

Neji hesitated, straining to remain in control of his thoughts, his mind snapping from the energy and focus required to sustain the shield like balancing books on one's head and thinking of Hinata's magic lingering on that arrow, keeping her victim from death.

It was a torture that seemed unbelievable for someone like his cousin to contrive let alone execute and his heart raced, panic and fear, confusion, disbelief. They clamored inside him.

"Do you understand?" Tsunade frowned at him intently. "Do you agree? I need to look at that arrow. Perhaps they will tell me if she is still alive."

"Yes." Neji nodded, swallowing hard. "Yes, let us go."

With a glimmering shine of the stone placed on her forehead Tsunade nodded back and slammed her fist into the lock of the gate, setting the machinery to whirring rapidly, the snap of chains and the clunk of the trunks rising croaking in the quiet of the night.

Behind them the murmurs of her people rose in panicked hisses, the shift of swords pulling from scabbards and arrows being notched harmonizing with their worry.

"Don't any of you get me slain!" she snapped over her shoulder. "Hold your fire."

As the wood lifted higher and higher the girl came into view. Behind her shadowy figures shifted and watched, a dozen or more in the trees, hiding.

Tsunade paused within the safety of the village walls surveying the mountain of a man and then the girl.

"You must give me your word that there will be no ambush once I step outside."

The girl's returning grin was feral, all teeth and no mirth. "I am Tayuya of the Rot Clan." she slapped her chest hard, fixing them with a stern expression carved from stone. "I give my word, my men and I wish only to end his suffering- fool though he was." she kicked at Jirobo and Tsunade hissed her displeasure.

"Just let the pig die, that's all we ask."

"Unbelievable." Tsunade whispered furiously, stepping forward. Behind her Neji's shield expanded and grew, a bubble blowing up in a soft breeze until it glimmered wet and shining across the mouth of the gate.

Sai, Lee and Tenten were suddenly at his sides, hands hovering over weapons at the ready.

"Shikamaru would be very displeased to see Lady Tsunade out there alone." Sai whispered, watching as the blonde knelt next to the fallen Jirobo. "Very displeased." His placid face did not hide the flash of worry in his eyes.

"I doubt anyone is particularly pleased right now." Lee whispered.

Before them Tsunade knelt, keeping an eye on Tayuya uneasily before succumbing to her healing instincts and looking at the lumbering shape.

The man was filthy. Crusted blood, the remnant dried parts of his eye coagulating in the socket, the flesh smelling as bad as the crusted earth smeared over his body. The only thing that appeared clean was the arrow, despite the gore of destroyed flesh. It pulsed a soft rhythm that turned the shaft gold as the dragonmoths glowed, and then faded, humming softly with each beat.

The razor sharp fletching glistened black and deadly at the end and Tsunade studied it a moment before sliding her fingers along the wood, closing her eyes to feel the tangled knots and threading of magic that had been imbued into the arrow.

Tayuya and the others behind the shield watched in silence as Tsunade's forehead jewel glimmered, her hair dancing in the breeze of her magic as she prodded the spell, asking it to share it's secrets.

A flash of memory ripped through her, hard and painful like the arrow had pierced into it's victim.

Panic, frightened terror as a brute stood before the kneeling shape of black wings, smooth pale skin, defiant shoulders gazing up.

The arrow in her fingers, her heart in her throat.

So much death, so many dying.

Compassion. Mourning. Pain.

One thought, overwhelming all the others.

No more death.

The arrow flew, the magic roared.

Tsunade snatched her hand back from the shaft, blinking hard to clear the vision, stunned.

Tayuya frowned, shifting. "What?"

"...it..." Tsunade gasped, staring at the man, at his beating heart, at his breathing lungs, at his body that should surely be dead.

"It... it's keeping him alive."

"I told you- that White Eyed witch she-"

"No." Tsunade snapped, turning to look at the girl finally, her disgust sketched on her face clearly. "No. She aimed to keep him alive, she... she did it without knowing, without thinking. She didn't want anyone else to die. It was compassion not torture she had in mind."

Waving a hand at the breathing, unconscious man the blonde shoved herself to her feet. "How long ago did this happen?"

"A week... maybe more..." Tayuya shrugged. "We figured he lived because-"

"I can save him." Tsunade muttered, interrupting her. "...she must be alive if her spell is still working then. The girl?"

A snort of dislike left Tayuya's mouth. "Couldn't handle us taking what her Clan couldn't. She's with him still. Too weak to take him down herself, too selfish to let our people have his blood and bones." Her eyes narrowed in the direction of Neji. "But they'll get theirs." The thin threat in her voice left no room for wondering what she meant.

Tsunade let out a breath. "...you would...go after the Hawk Eyed Clan? Over an arrow-?" she motioned to Jirobo but Tayuya made an impatient sound that had Sai and Lee jumping forward nervously.

"An arrow? No." Tayuya's breath was rapid, her frustration and hatred tangible in the air like the smell of the rot on her skin. "We bet everything on that star. It's blood was our salvation or our demise and she stopped us from getting our prize. Without it..." she swallowed, and her eyes fell on Jirobo.

"They hide in their damned Valley, they hoard and prosper while we all starve." She sniffed. "No more. If you save him, that's your choice." She turned then, moving towards the darkness where the other shades of her clan stood silent, watching, like monsters from nightmares deep.

"What?" Tsunade snapped. "You can't just leave him here!"

"We came to have him die, not live. He is too much a burden." Tayuya continued until the bracken rustled with her movement, and tucking her flute into a pouch hidden by the mud smeared on them she waved a hand in a circle over her head.

Instantly the bodies of the other Rot Clan vanished into the thicket.

Tsunade gaped after her, stunned. "You're going to leave him? He is not our problem!"

"Let the forest have him then." Tayuya snapped, fixing her with a look. "We did our job, his everlasting suffering is the fault of your allies." shooting a look past her at Neji she bared her teeth. "Take responsibility. Join us in the filth of the Veil. We are all of us monsters now."

Before Tsunade could say another word, she vanished into the trees and only the soft ululating cries through the canopy fading away echoed in the darkness.

Sighing heavily the blonde pressed a hand to her face, turning towards the others in time to see Neji's shield shiver and then disappear, releasing the pressure of magic in the air so that everyone took a deep breath.

His face was pale and Tsunade thought it might remain so indefinitely. He had of course heard.

"...they aim to attack our people?" Tenten's whisper shook like a leaf in the wind and beside her Lee gripped her hand hard.

Neji stood frozen, heart torn in two. In one direction the wasteland, the Rot, the star and his heiress, the first of his charges.

In the other, his home, his people and the little fire, the other piece of his life Calling.

No one needed to ask the obvious question, the one hanging in the air as thickly as magic, as the smell of the Rot and the coolness of the night air.

Who, in the end would the Warren choose?

Her mother's voice was probably the thing she recalled the most vividly. Her face faded, just the smooth heart shape of her chin, the delicate curve of her cheek, the darkness of her hair remained in her memory. Too many times she had been told that she looked just like her and so now, when the memories came her face was just a vague version of her own.

But her voice remained, soft and delicate, like the caress of white ethereal feathers on skin. Her lullabies bright and permanent within her mind.

"Loom loom for your cakes and, loom loom for your lips, loom loom for your belly, and loom loom sweet kiss." Her pale hands, lined from working in the woodland, from wielding blades for slaughter and digging in the earth would always tickle as she sang her silly songs, pressing her nose to Hinata's cheek and setting her to giggling.

"Loom loom for your water, so you drink in bliss."

Amaterasu shifted behind her and Hinata's awareness snapped from the distant past where she had been small and loved and cared for to the thick thirsting pain of her tongue. The contrast with the comfort of her mother's arms and the hard dry ground beneath her highlighting the ache of her bones, the throb of her heart.

Sandpaper dry from head to foot, she winced. Lifting herself up on her elbow she surveyed the half light of the Rot plain. The patch of reddish dirt they had found was dry as long buried bones, the life long sucked from them and left powdery so that every movement of her body shifted clouds of red dust around her.

A few feet away Sasuke had his face turned towards the horizon, a muscle in his jaw tight. Behind her she could feel Amaterasu equally tense, looking in the same direction. His fan shaped ears and the tufts of fur along their tips fighting the growing pull of the breeze.

"...Sasuke?" her voice was a croaking ancient thing, dry as the dirt she sat on and with some effort she swallowed, tasting the dust on the roof of her tongue. It had been too long since her last drink. His blood although capable of healing and bringing forth the energy she needed was not enough to keep her eyes from crusting or her lips from cracking, not with days of sun exposure and endless sweaty walking.

The Rot plains were a death trap, it was a wonder that anyone had ever managed to reach the Scaled Worm. But then, the plains grew each year. Perhaps before it had only been a short distance. Bitterly Hinata envied those travelers of before, despite their destination. Two weeks on their path had put them frighteningly close to the growing mountains, but still there was no water.

His blood might keep her alive, but she thought that despite it, her thirst might drive her mad.

"Something comes." Sasuke's voice held all the tightness of anxiety in it and she followed his gaze to the far off horizon, noting with some wariness that her vision blurred and strained, unable to focus for a breath before finally crystallizing into the sharp reality of her usual sight.

The waste spread out wide and endless and dusty and then moving quickly were clouds of red, shifting and swarming, rising high into the orange sky until it hit the blue of clean air above the flat lands.

The sight stopped her heart cold.

"...oh Veil." Limbs scrambling she stared, fingers brushing against the cracking edges of her lips, the rough curve of her cheek.

On the ground still, holding himself with the same tension preceding a battle Sasuke turned his head towards her, away from the shifting thing that came ever closer. "What is it?"

"... a storm... wind, I think. But here..." she turned, looking around frantically. "There's nowhere to hide...we'll suffocate in that. We can't breathe in the dirt, it'll..." she wanted to scratch at her tongue with her nails, take the putrid flavor off her taste buds by force if not through drink. Panic fluttered weakly in her chest and she breathed in slowly, trying to calm herself.

Amaterasu made a noise of fear, a low whining wail that paired with his flattening ears and sinking tail attracted Sasuke's dark gaze quickly. Snapping his eyes to Hinata he murmured. "I may have to fly us above it." Rasu's fate was unsaid but Hinata stared, mouth open as she considered what he was suggesting.

"But...Rasu..."

"If I'm going to have to choose the beast or you-" He paused, suddenly unable to continue. Hinata was shaking her head however, her fingers moving to Amaterasu's head to pat the still silky smooth blackness of his coat.

"It could be hours, the storms spread miles..." her eyes turned back to the encroaching red powder, already so much closer, already defined against the blue of the sky. The panic continued feebly in her chest, unable to work up the real hyperventilating hysterics of near death. And she knew, in that moment that she was not in good shape, not if laying down and letting it come for her sounded almost like a relief.

Sasuke's dark eyes narrowed as he pushed himself to his feet. "There must be a crack in the ground then, they're everywhere. I can find one from the air."

Hinata blinked slowly at him then, uncertain, unmotivated. "I ... I don't know if-"

"Don't move." He muttered, turning away to hide the sudden shot of anxiety that filtered through his body at her words. Amaterasu keened softly again, his eyes looking back and forth between Sasuke and Hinata as though waiting for orders to allow him to run as fast as he could from the approaching danger.

The grate of Sasuke's wings pushing from his body and unfurling slowly made her wince as it always did, the nail on chalkboard scratch loud in the bleak silence before the slam of the storm on their heads.

"Sasuke, I don't think we will be able to..." She began but he ignored her, shoving off the ground with a flare of his wings that made the dusty ground dance in swirls of red powder. Gasping Hinata flung an arm over her eyes to protect them from the dirt, coughing hard as her hands fumbled for Rasu now wailing beside her, snorting hard to dislodge the dryness from his throat.

Above them Sasuke pushed, the pull of gravity fighting him for every inch of space between his body and the ground. The air was dead, a flat uninterested breeze whispering from the horizon smeared with the redness of the coming dust storm the only current to fight with the downward stroke of his massive black wings opaque in the deadness of the waste. He could feel the strain of holding himself above, his body aching with each pass of his wings and he knew like Hinata instinctively seemed to know, that flying would not allow them to escape, not in his state.

The suns were gone, hidden behind the rising wall of dust, it's sound now a hum like a million insects getting louder the higher he rose. Below Hinata and Rasu became dark ink blots on a splotchy canvas of browns and red and fetid ugly grays. Cracks spider webbed between the pulsing vats of decaying rot and patches of dry powdery crusts.

Eyes scanning Sasuke urged himself not to look at the storm again, coming faster and faster from the right as he swept his gaze over the flatlands. They had passed gaping holes so many times in the earth, skipping over them and sometimes having to walk around them altogether, too wide too jump, too deep to ignore the cold moist sewage smell that came from the dark.

One of those holes, so repulsive before was now a haven. If he could find one with a ledge and sequester Hinata and that damned beast in the darkness of a rocky hole they might survive the onslaught of the storm, just protected enough not to suffocate in the wash of red powder.

"Sasuke!" Her voice was so small, so weak as she yelled. There was not enough panic in her, not enough desire to live. He had known the wasteland would be hell for her, uncomfortable for him.

He had once again, underestimated the Veil and it's murderous nature.

A crack, finally came into view, not a hundred yards from them and with a breath he plummeted, tucking his wings tight to his body, allowing gravity to think it had it's victory as it dragged him down.

Hinata's eyes, so pale in her dirty tired face widened to large glimmering pearls as he flared his wings to land, straining against the sudden snap of wind to the muscles and razor sharp feathers of his limbs. Panting slightly he tossed her bow and quiver over his shoulder, moving fast in the direction of the crevice, grabbing her arm by the elbow to drag her sluggish body along.

"This way."

"It's too close." Straining to look over his grip on her arm Hinata trained her eyes on the swirling wall, finally feeling the sudden spike of adrenaline in her veins. It would be a horrible death. Feeling the dirt in her mouth, beneath her tongue, crunching between her teeth, dry and bitter and metal. It would scratch under her eyelids, and with no tears to shed there would be no relief until her lungs filled like an hourglass-

"Run." Sasuke's voice ripped through her sudden terror, her stumbling knees, her hyperventilation as the hiss of the wind and the buffeting slap of the storm tangled her hair in a mess around her face. "Run, damn it."

He was dragging her hard and with Amaterasu making snapping growling sounds beside her she did as she was told. Each panting breath a burning searing pain in her chest, already stinging with the dirt in the air the painful sandpaper friction of coarse soil scratching at her exposed skin.

It was louder than she had thought, a whirling maddening hiss as trillions of bitter molecules spun in the air, turning to miniature blades in the velocity of their swirling wind. Death through a thousand million cuts too small to see individually.

This...Hinata realized as they reached the gaping black mouth of a crack in the wasteland, ...this is what Hell must be like.

There was no time to ponder how to climb down, Sasuke was shoving her over the lip of the crevice, her fingers numb from fear fumbled to find hand holds, her feet kicking uselessly at the protruding wall, scrambling along miniature unreliable perches for a foothold.

"Go!" Sasuke's shout could hardly be heard over the incoming chaos, his face blurry as the red dust came in plumes around him, swirling through the darkness of his hair. "Hinata, go!"

Together they half climbed half fell several feet into the black, Hinata's shrieks as her fingers failed and then tangled themselves in the biting painful sharpness of the walls echoed in the sudden darkness as the suns were completely blocked and the storm came rushing in overhead.

A hole, about three feet wide and two feet tall gaped below and with Amaterasu's substantial weight under one arm Sasuke strained, pressed like a spider to the wall, thankful for the stabilizing tangle of his cramped wings on either side of him.

Heaving and cursing the beast under his breath he shunted the terrified horkney into the hole and with a painful whine the animal disappeared into the dark mouth. Hatefully Sasuke hoped if there was anything terrible in there it would eat the bothersome creature and give him warning to get himself and Hinata away.

After a moment however the continued keening frightened whimpers from the beast reassured him it was safe enough and blinking hard to clear his sand covered lashes he squinted in the dark.

Hinata was a thing grown from the rock. Her tunic and hair, her pale dirty face nothing but smoother more soft edges to the sharpness of the walls. She hugged the stone with her cheek pressed firmly to it's roughness, the only clear glowing part of her the two orbs of light like feline eyes gazing at him through slits of her eyelids.

"Get in there." He waved a hand in the direction of the shelf housing the horkney, unsure if she could hear him over the blasting scream of the storm raging just above them, raining dirt and sand down around them in abrasive buckets swirled by the winds.

Her eyes shifted, and only pulling from the rock half an inch she glanced in the direction he was gesturing, the disbelief that flashed over her features half hidden in the shadows. The hole was just a dark smear against the red and black roughness of the walls. Below it was a fall that seemed endless, a gaping mouth lined with the horrible broken teeth of stone ripped open.

Finding the hand holds and impossibly thin bits of stone willing to take his weight, Sasuke maneuvered until he was above her slightly, trying to block some of the thunderous spray of sand with his wings from buffeting her too roughly.

"Move, you can't stay here like a leech against the wall."

"I...I can't move..." Hinata shook her head, looking down at the black maw of the earth opening into an endless void below her feet. "It doesn't end, Sasuke! I... I can't..."

He stared, incredulous and slightly annoyed. She could climb trees, rock walls, fight clans of murderous people, jump from cliffs probably but this? Right now fear had to show it's face?

"Hinata, you have to move, you will die if you stay there."

A sob, the first he had ever heard from her escaped her mouth and eyes closed tightly she shoved her face hard against the rock, fingers knuckle white and painful to even look at. "Veil have mercy, Veil have mercy..." her whimpering gasps twisted and turned, ripped apart by the shriek of the storm and finally after a long breath she winced, her body shifting minutely in the direction he pointed out on the wall.

It was not too far, but the space tightened for a brief stretch as jagged stone pressed from either side of the crevice towards each other, about as trustworthy as thin ice and bottle necking the path towards the hole where Amaterasu's snout peeked out.

"This way." Carefully Sasuke reached down, bracing himself painfully against the rocks, with her trembling fingers in his he moved her hand, finding a groove for her to grip tightly.

Slowly, whimpering all the while she let him wide her hands, shifting her feet to follow. Inching closer to the mouth of the ledge where Amaterasu's nose peered out, worriedly keening in the dark.

"That... that doesn't look strong enough..." Hinata hesitated, her feet uncertain on the jagged edge he was instructing her to step on before reaching the edge of their hole to climb in. Above the storm was a battering ram against Sasuke's wings flared as wide as he could twist them in the small space, every shift of his shoulders setting spills of red sand and dirt water falling down on them.

"Step lightly, quickly, don't linger."

Breathless now himself he stretched his fingers, settling into a more comfortable position with his hips in line with her pinched frightened face looking down below.

"Hinata. Go." Impatient now he urged through gritted teeth. "Go."

He regretted his order instantly. The ledge proved untrustworthy, her feet instantly giving way and with a guttural cry she scratched at the wall, finding a handful of rock to cling to with her body hanging flat against the stone, feet scrambling for another step and finding nothing.

In two breaths he was there, braced between the tight bottle neck, in time to wrap his legs around her waist, the unwilling rock beneath her fingers crumbling away beneath her weight.

Grunting hard she held on, arms wrapped rightly around his torso, face pressed hard to his stomach as she wept. "I'm too heavy!"

"Be quiet!" He gasped, arms straining, legs so tightly wound around her waist he wasn't sure there would be any dislodging her even if he wanted to. Below the gaping deadly blackness of the earth breathed, like a beast with mouth open to take her from him.

Heart furious in his chest and more from fear than from the strain he winced, blinking more of the painful grating sand from his eyes as he strained. Above him his hold was agony, but at least stable, the stone a darker shade than the rest of the roan red powdery mess that was obviously so unreliable to climb. But his shoulder, the blasted wound that refused to fade ached through to his spine, and in his bones he knew there would be no holding this position for long.

She could feel the shift of his abdomen beneath her cheek as he strained moving to swing her, shoving her back hard against the wall just beneath the lip of the cave where Amaterasu sat whining incessantly now.

"Can you-" he began to ask but she was already scrambling to get in, finding finger holds fervently until she lay flat on her stomach inside, panting hard and in utter disbelief to be alive.

A few moments later had him tumbling in, his wings retracting hard and making the whine of metal on metal fill the small cramped space so that Hinata threw her hands around her head as Rasu flattened his own flappy velvet ears. With the wings no longer a barrier between the storm and the entry of the crevice however the dust and sand blasted in and the sudden howl of the wind stampeding above them sent a new wave of lung searing dust into their faces.

Coughing hard and still terrified Hinata curled into herself, thinking her sobs too quiet to be heard through the banshee wail of the tempest above.

When his arms dragged her to him and buried her face into his shoulder she welcomed it, breathing in the scent of his neck and skin, the familiar electric flicker of magic soothing compared to the sandpaper friction of the storm. Tangled together she sobbed and listened, to his heart beating, to her own stuttering and terrified pulse, to Amaterasu's whining fear, to the storm mad and mourning.

Until exhausted, sleep came for her, rendering her a limp rag doll in his arms.

Still, he hung on gently.

And above the storm continued to wail.

TBC