Brother's Wish
Solatta had disappeared, taking it's light with it. Luminatus was sinking behind the mountains after it's twin, scorching everything a charred black in a flooding tide from the peaks down to the valley below.
Where the streams once ran, empty scars like bled out veins scratched paths in pale dead brown. Flanking on either side were the still smoldering squares of fields that had been burnt to ashes along with the village itself.
Neji breathed in a lungful of the Rot stink on the wind, the smoke of his home still scalding on the tongue despite the chill breeze that hinted at a coming winter with murderous intent.
Shakily he examined the lines on his weathered hands, the nails broken and palms calloused. It felt wrong to have no stains to mar the skin which had committed the sin of dooming his village and family to a slow painful starvation. Perhaps when they cut the head from his shoulders the blood would splatter to cover his palms then, painting his internal flaws on the outside.
"Neji," Tenten's voice was hoarse behind him and he sighed, closing his eyes against the brightness of the setting sun.
"The council is waiting." she mustered on, and he turned to look over his shoulder at her unsurprised to find her eyes a golden honey hue in the brightness of the dusk. That was the only thing sweet about her, however. She was a jagged dagger of a person, all sharp edges and unyielding iron. It felt inconceivable to call her a Shadow in the face of her unrelenting solidity. He smiled, and it was worse than if he had sobbed.
"Will you come here, Tenten?"
Reluctantly she stepped forward, crunching the stones of the viewpoint beneath her boots and revealing the packed bags she had dropped a few steps behind her. His smile grew despite it's tiredness, and he grasped her wrist in his hand to pull her forward.
Eyes wide, Tenten searched his face.
"Are you going somewhere?" He nodded to the bags. "That is quite a lot of luggage."
"Long trip." Tenten affirmed, brows narrowing at his light tone and the warmth of his hand still wrapped around her wrist. "I figured I would pack more appropriately this time considering how light we went the last time."
"Ah." He sighed, and she stilled to find his fingers tracing the curve of her jaw. "You think I am coming along."
Teeth clenching, Tenten glared at him hard. "Don't. Don't you dare."
"I have an appointment." He let out a breath, as though she had not spoken. "As soon as that sun sets fully there are a lot of people who would have me face the choices I have made." He cocked a brow delicately. "I am not in the habit of skirting such responsibilities."
"They are going to demand you die." Tenten whispered, as though he had no idea of the consequences that would follow his train of thought. "They will have you killed and for what? They need you. Hinata needs you- Hanabi-"
"I have served and will continue to serve them until the end. It is my wish that they know I loved them-love them, more than my own life. But it is not them I worry for now, having done all I can." He lifted her chin a little, tracing her bottom lip with his thumb so she dragged in a ragged breath. "What about you?"
Pupils dilated wide with terror and need she could not hide he smiled again, quietly. "So, even you can be selfish, hm? I will not lie that this brings me comfort at the moment."
Chin trembling Tenten forced all her fury into a glare that softened none of her horror. "If you want to call me selfish for not wanting you dead then fine. Please," fingers grasping at his tunic front she pressed her cheek into his warm palm. "Please run with me. Let us leave now. They won't dare send anyone. There are no extra hands, there are too many mouths to feed and too few to provide. It would be the same as death to self exile. We could make it. We could find Hinata, we could-"
"Tenten," Neji's laugh had no humor, but it was gentle all the same.
The sound that escaped her was not unlike the groan of ripping out a knife from her own flesh and she gasped, pressing her forehead to his shoulder at the realization that he had long ago made up his mind. Perhaps the moment that he agreed to do Hanabi's bidding, sealing his fate as he poured the angel bone down Konohamaru's throat.
"May I too be selfish?" He whispered into her ear, watching as the sun settled further into the mountain's embrace. In his arms Tenten felt warm as the sun he watched so intently, trying to memorize the rays of light playing through the smoky gloom.
"May I kiss you? I should not, but there are many things I will have to atone for and-"
Tenten didn't let him finish, pressing her lips to his and wishing all the while that she could cry. Instead the anger crystalized inside her, turning sharper and sharper with each gasped breath between the friction of their mouths.
Soon she would be nothing but a lethal edge too dangerous to be near, unless something changed the trajectory of the sunset.
The forest floor had the good grace of being gentle on her joints as she ran, springy beneath her feet. There were years of needles fallen at the end of each winter, a carpet of stubborn fiber difficult to erode in the cold. But it made for easy tracking and Hinata found the boar's path quickly enough.
It would have been easier, had she been able to sleep soundly next to Rasu's lumbering heat and beneath Sasuke's ever watchful eye but her dreams had been taciturn. Neji's voice called to her through fog or smoke and no matter where she searched she could not find him. She woke sweat soaked and shivering in the chill, aware dimly that Sasuke had woken her with a hand to her shoulder, the first time ever that he had dared to touch her while she slept.
She didn't dare ask what she had said in her sleep, or how she must have been tossing to merit such a reaction and he did not comment. Still, the moment the river banks neared the boat's hull enough for her to leap into the forest she had. Rasu had to eat, after all.
Through the crystalized trees the light of the suns sent diamonds of brightness in all directions, confusing the eye and brightening corners of the forest in strange places. Still, Rasu followed at his mother's heel undeterred by the many difficulties that the northern climate might have posed him had he been alone.
"Tch," Hinata chirped at him softly as she slowed, sniffing the air for the pungent stink of the boar.
The creatures were different as the landscape the further into the cold they traveled. Where their southern counterparts glowed with menace and hunger and something hellish in their veins here the dull brown hides and short claws were joined by a strange stupidity Hinata found nerve wrecking. Tracking was easier when the creatures she hunted had none of the malicious wit of the half bred monsters of her homeland. Hunting became simple with her practiced eye, and yet she wondered at the unfairness of the death of something so naive.
To compensate, however, when she did encounter a hybrid, unlike those further south, in the north they spoke. She could still picture Portia's wicked arachnid face screaming with agony for mercy as she burned.
Rasu huffed at her side where she crouched, puffing out clouds of hot breath with his pink tongue hanging out of his mouth in a lupine smile that made her mouth twist up in reply. Scratching behind his ear idly she breathed in and focused once more on the forest floor.
The boar had taken a sharp turn towards the edge of the cliff that hugged the edges of the riverbed where Sasuke followed with their vessel. Uninterested in finding food for Rasu's insatiable appetite the star often lingered when she hopped onto land, glad for the solidity of earth beneath her feet.
Despite the comfort and necessity of the ship Anko and Kabuto had blessed them with, she had begun to loathe it and all the memories it now inspired in her mind. Memories of an endless darkness beneath the mountains, of water thick as ink and just as dark and all the nightmares it had caused.
She shivered, hugging Rasu's side for a moment longer before rising and drawing an arrow to notch.
Muscles trembling beneath his hide Rasu stilled, sensing the precariousness of the moment as his mother stepped forward on silent feet, cocking her head at the low hanging boughs of a spine covered tree that shivered and danced, shaking off snow in quiet clumps.
Pale gaze sliding sideways towards Rasu she gave one silent nod and the beast launched forward, a storm of brawn and growls. The boar's shriek of terror ripped through the stillness, setting handfuls of birds frolicking to the sky. It tore from its hiding place, throwing snow and rotting pine needles up behind it's cloven hooves. Hinata aimed and fired, arrow sinking perfectly between the creature's eyes.
It was dead before it fell and therefore before Rasu tore it in half.
The stink of blood sang metallic in the cold air. Hinata watched only for a moment as the crimson spread in splatters over snow as Rasu gorged. Turning away she studied her palm, dirty from endless days of hunting demons and senseless boars and the filthy chores of staying alive in the wild.
It made sense her blood would be red, like that of the dull witted animals she hunted. She couldn't imagine something as clean as silver to pour from between slices of her flesh.
As always, the thought of the silver made her throat constrict, swallowing in hopes of the taste of petrichor, mint and power in her veins. Shamed, as always by this insatiable craving she squeezed her fist and eyes shut.
"Rasu," she called, marching tiredly towards the cliffside where her gaze searched for the knotted sail of their vessel. "Finish your supper and come."
Hinata could feel Sasuke's eyes on her as she climbed down the cliff wall, fingers frozen from the cold aching where she grabbed at roots and stone to reach the riverbank before the ship passed her by. Arms crossed and mouth pursed he shook his head as she hopped down the precarious incline.
Ignoring him to the best of her abilities Hinata balanced on the palm wide thickness of a fallen tree before hopping onto the deck. Rasu followed in a less graceful lumbering step, whining pitifully as he slipped and nearly missed the boat completely before landing in a panting heap by Sasuke's feet.
"He is filthy," Sasuke commented thinly, pushing Rasu's head away from him with his boot. "And he stinks of blood."
Rasu replied by nuzzling his dirty muzzle between Sasuke's feet.
Hinata wondered if her blood stank to him as well while she rummaged through their bags for soap. "If we stop for a bit I can give him a wash."
It was as close to a request as she would get. They had stopped too many times for Sasuke's liking and she knew it though he didn't voice the frustration out loud. Not that he had to. Times when he was particularly taciturn the air crackled like before a lightning storm and Hinata's hair stood on end along her arms and the back of her neck in warning. Those days even Rasu stayed a fair distance away from Sasuke's reach. Hinata wondered if he sensed their fear, if he saw it in the stiffness of their limbs and the hesitation to meet his eyes.
She had never considered herself particularly brave or particularly cowardly but in those moments she was sure she was one or the other. Deciding which one was the thing she couldn't yet manage.
"You need a fire tonight," Sasuke replied, as if Hinata couldn't feel the sweat that the hunt had covered her in freezing on her forehead from the cold as a result of no longer moving.
"I-" Hinata began, surprising herself as she considered arguing. This also seemed to surprise him as he turned, brow arched in question and attention divided for his gaze had been focused in the distance where the river had begun to turn, blocking view of their path.
Swallowing the pretense that she was fine and did not in fact need the fire she sighed in defeat. "Right." she admitted, and he turned away with a little eye roll that made her twist her mouth in a pout.
"At the turn," he nodded towards the corner where the river appeared to split into two paths to go around a spit of land that was scraggly stone, waspish bits of stubborn grass and a handful of trees. "If the visibility is good."
Several hours later Solatta had sunk down and in the tiny canyon carved by the river's path shadows were already lengthening despite Luminatus only just beginning it's descent on the horizon. Hinata shivered in the growing cold, watching with the same fascination that never died as Sasuke tossed handfuls of timber in a haphazard pile before blowing a flame to life from between his lips.
It never ceased to awe, watching him start a fire. It was easy to forget with the chilly bite of his gaze upon her that fire raged inside, that he was a star fallen from the sky, that within him the veins bubbled with molten silver never able to cool down.
"Cook something," he ordered firmly as he rose from the crouch beside the dancing flames, lifting his dark eyes to her. "You grow thin."
Hinata flinched at this, ignoring the jap of her ribs against her skin where she sat curled into a ball beneath her cloak. Rasu rumbled at her back, shifting against the slice of her shoulder blades to his side.
"I…" she mused out loud, wondering if her thoughts would be welcomed. "I am rationing. I do not recognize the landscape and where foods might be available, and I'm worried that…" she swallowed, keeping her gaze decidedly away from his wrists. "I don't know if I will have enough food for…later."
She did not need to mention how her appetite had waned within the belly of the Scaled Worm's mountain or how before that she had been drained away by the Rot and the subsequent battle. It was a wonder she had been able to maintain what little reserves she had the last few months, eating even when she had no appetite for fear the cold would take her in her sleep if she remained skeletal.
Sasuke's proximity on those cold nights had assuaged her fears at least. Between his fire and Rasu's warmth she had begun to worry less about the cold and more about starving to death in the barren landscape of the North.
"You still eat no flesh." Sasuke retorted thinly. "A silly choice given your circumstances."
Hinata frowned at the flames, unwilling to meet his eye. "I cannot."
"But you can die?"
"Everything dies." Hinata murmured, obstinate and sheepish at once as she patted Rasu's velvet face delicately. It did not escape her that they were on a quest to stop the very world from dying if she could manage it. Sasuke appeared to see the irony in her words as he let out a huffed breath in annoyance.
In the silence there was no avoiding looking up to see what expression was warring on his face and she found when she mustered the courage to look that he was impossible to read.
"Eat something." Sasuke stated firmly. "And wash that creature." He glared at Rasu determinedly. "Or I'll use his hide as a mat to wipe my boots, he's filthy enough for the job."
Sighing Hinata allowed herself a half smile as she pushed herself to her feet, clicking her tongue for Rasu to follow her down the gentle slope of the tiny island towards the gurgling water of the river. They would be a beacon in the darkness should anyone or anything pass by but where before this would have made her twitch with anxiety in the growing dark Hinata now found it calming.
Nothing without Sasuke's firepower was so brazen. Everything slunk about in cautious shadows and if they were clever enough to do so they would typically be clever enough to leave a flamboyant flame alone. Those who were not died quickly, sometimes silently at Sasuke's hand.
There had been more than one night where Hinata had woken to find a slayed beast somewhere in the vicinity of their campground, it's body a gruesome warning to anything else that might approach. She had ceased to worry about how quietly he could slaughter, and begun to worry instead about how deeply she was beginning to sleep and what perhaps that meant.
Breathing in and out deeply in preparation for the cold Hinata eyed Rasu who stood at her side with tail low in resignation, shoulders drooping.
"Come now, it's not so bad." she lied, rolling the sleeves of her tunic up as she rummaged in her pack for the soap Kabuto and Anko had packed into the vessel with so many other essentials Hinata would not have thought of in her haste to escape the Scaled Worm's domain. "Just a quick dip and then you can go back to the fire, yes?"
A low keening growl escaped Rasu's throat, rumbling in his chest like weakened thunder as he began the dejected walk into the river's edge, yipping with displeasure as the water lapped up his legs and chest.
"Coward." Sasuke snapped from the halo of the fire's light.
Hinata made an impatient noise in her throat, rubbing the soap in her hands until it frothed. "It is quite chilly," she called back.
Sasuke made a similar noise of impatience in reply.
"What a grump," she whispered into Rasu's floppy ear while she rubbed her hands through his fur, trying to ignore the icy pain making her fingers ache and her skin prick with goosebumps.
Sasuke never appeared to dirty himself, or if he washed he did so when she was sleeping or otherwise occupied. It was one of the many things Hinata envied, his ability to function on little sleep though she had on occasion caught him curled tightly in the chill of early morning with eyes closed, looking younger and less unearthly in sleep.
Rasu only replied with another whine, huffing loudly as she rubbed away the crusted blood of his dinner from his jowls. It was hard to catch the scent of the soap in the growing chill of the evening but as the moon began to sparkle in the heaven's, shattered pieces of it glittering as they appeared, she breathed in deep and froze as she recognized the scent.
She could see in her mind's eye a herb that grew in an eggshell white pot. The soil was too dark to be familiar to her eyes, but which she recognized all the same, speckled through with bronze. It was a pale green herb, covered in a velvety silver fur that was soft to the touch. She could picture the long fingered hands of a woman who pulled leaves from the plant, ripping them roughly before dropping them into a pale gray pot where the scent of sugar combined with that of soap.
"Sasuke, pass me more of the herb."
Shakily, Hinata stepped back out of the freezing water, teeth chattering from the memory as much as the cold.
"Rasu, rinse off." she ordered, frowning down at the soap suds covering her now pale shining hands in the rising moonlight.
He was too silent for her to hear but she could sense him like an encroaching wildfire at her back when Sasuke appeared beside her, frowning.
Swallowing thickly she averted her eyes, crouching down to rinse her fingers quickly at the water's edge.
Rasu continued to whine as he swam about in the shallow currents, snapping at the white caps that rippled around him before clambering out and to the side so he could shake off the excess river water roughly.
"He's going to take all night to dry," Sasuke mused, glancing back at Hinata only to freeze, the scent of her hitting him at the same time as the breeze changed.
She could see the incremental way his eyes widened, searching her face as though she had betrayed him. Delicately she swallowed all the panic tripping her tongue, cold fingers fluttering to pull her sleeves back down.
"I… I'm sorry- it's the soap. It- your mother used to-"
"Stop." Sasuke snapped, turning to glare up at the shattered moon. "Don't."
Head bowed, Hinata studied her blue tipped fingers perfumed with cleanliness and memories he didn't want to have himself and which he resented her having even more.
Her lips felt sticky as she pulled her mouth apart to say his name. "Sasuke, I am… I'm sorry-"
"You weren't this apologetic after waking." Sasuke snarled, moving back to the fire resolutely. Hinata frowned, hesitating only a second before following him into the honey hued warmth of the flames. Rasu already lay on his back as close to the heat as he could get without completely scorching his fur.
"What do you mean?" Hinata breathed, fidgeting in her clothing uncertainly. Everything about her felt awkward and ill fitting from her baggy tunic to her scraggly hair and her chilled fingers. Sasuke by contrast moved smooth as a slip of silk in the dancing fire light, gathering the handful of leather bound scrolls that were maps Kabuto had assured him were the most accurate renditions of the North he had been able to find in the Scaled Worm's libraries.
"What was it you said, exactly?" Sasuke muttered irritably as he pictured her frail and defiant and small in the bed she had been sleeping in for days after dragging him from the brink of death. "I'm not sorry," he quoted, recalling her determined frown and the way her freckles had stood to attention as her pale face flushed. "I would do it again."
"I would." Hinata hurried to defend, hands flexing at her sides as they went slightly numb but getting closer to him felt like a dangerous decision she wasn't sure she should make at the moment. "But… but that doesn't mean I'm not sorry that I- that the memories had to-"
"That I paid for it with my entire life?" Sasuke turned to her slowly then, pinning her there with his dark eyes and the accusation that simmered within. Hinata clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering, shame welling inside her despite the fact she could have done nothing else.
"Please…I didn't choose the payment." She started, surprised and mildly annoyed to feel her eyes welling with tears. Stubbornly and a little selfishly she blinked to suppress them, hoping he wouldn't see them glitter in the dim light.
Sasuke turned away, brow furrowed as he glared at the flames he had brought to life and which were roaring wild and taciturn as his mood in his presence, enough that Rasu yipped in surprise and scrambled back a handful of steps.
"I know." He breathed out after a long pause, shoulders loosening slightly. It didn't change the obvious fact he hated it all the same.
In the silence the fire cracked and cackled, offering up wild shadows that danced against the looming trees until Sasuke sighed again and they settled into a more subdued grumble. Hinata shivered, drawing his eye.
"Stop being an idiot." He muttered, grabbing at her wrist roughly to pull her into the fire's warmth to shove her hands towards the heat. "The last thing we need is for you to lose your fingers to frostbite in the-" he stopped, able in the abrupt proximity to see the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.
As though caught in a lie Hinata flushed scarlet, looking anywhere but his face. Too aware of every bit of herself to not feel the trickle of the first tear breaking past her lashes to course down her cheek.
"You should just-" she forced herself to say, bracing for the feel of his warm breath against her skin and the molten touch of his tongue that made her blood run wild in her veins.
"I don't need it."
Said abruptly, he stormed away before she could catch the look on his face. She watched instead as he pushed past Rasu into the shadows of the trees and disappeared, swallowed by the black before Hinata could remember how to breathe.
Somewhere on the opposite shore a white clay bird examined the scene with a curious cock of his roughly crafted head before spreading wings and taking flight back up the river.
"How could it have reached the tree without so much as touching the garden?" Shikamaru stared at the dying corpse of what had once been a flourishing young apple sapling. When spring came it was one of the few trees to bloom, scenting all of Tsunade's herb garden and the house which housed so many of their sick or wounded with something sweet that reminded them of life still continuing on year after year.
In the unforgiving light of a clear sky and two suns it stood to attention, surrounded by many of its own shadows in varying hues of gray, a quickly darkening trunk charred from within and covered in something black that dripped into a solid like chilled candle wax.
There would be no more blooming for that tree. Already Shikamaru considered how much shade would need to be manufactured by hand in order to keep the many herbs they grew beneath it's boughs from wilting when the summer came.
"I cannot comprehend it myself." Tsunade stared at the mess with hands on her hips and stance wide as though bracing against a strong wind. "Something isn't right."
Shikamaru could have told her that himself but he let her continue, aware that there was a noxious scent like and unlike the Rot coming from the decaying tree. It was familiar the way common mud and potters clay were similar but still not the same.
"It's so black." Tsunade whispered, inching forward another step. Shikamaru drew a breath as she lifted a hand towards the tree as if to touch it. Whatever warning he had meant to give died in his mouth as the gem on her forehead burst to light knocking the Chancellor back a step with her reaching hand flung over her head like she was trying to ward off a headache.
"Tsunade," Shikamaru cried, reaching to grab at her elbow as she gathered her feet beneath her again, wincing.
"Rope off the area," she winced, flinching against the shimmering brightness of the stone. "Whatever it is, I do not want anyone near it. And abandon the garden." She glanced mournfully towards all the neat rows that would die off as winter came in earnest and return with spring. "We cannot trust that anything growing here is worth saving."
"Lady Tsunade," Ino's voice drew their attention to the back of the house where the girl gazed out worriedly. "Is everything okay?"
"No." Shikamaru answered, glaring back at the dead or dying tree before them. "We need to make contingency plans."
"I thought we were already on a contingency plan." Tsunade grumbled, glad for Ino's discreet hand passing her a flask of something that was most definitely not water.
"We need a contingency plan for our contingency plan then." Shikamaru crossed his arms as he thought, brow furrowed. "If this begins to spread-"
"The village is done for." Tsunade grunted, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand roughly. "Curses."
"Is that what that is?" Ino glared at the black trunk of the tree which she had so loved in the middle of spring. "Is it cursed? How did this happen?"
"I do not know but Shikamaru is right." Tsunade breathed out heavily. "We will not be able to stay here."
"But where to go?" Ino frowned at them both in the brightness of the suns, lifting a hand to block out the glare. Seeing better did nothing to soften the concern on both Shikamaru and Tsunade's faces.
"The Chattels did say that there was abundance and sanctuary at the palace of the Scaled Worm." Shikamaru ventured slowly, preparing mentally for the reactions which would be merited. Ino did not disappoint.
"You are mad." she breathed, turning to face him sharply, eyes wide. "You are absolutely mad."
"The Rot plains would kill us all." Tsunade muttered darkly, brows gathered tight at her forehead.
"Not… if the Chattels were persuaded to leave some of the angel bone they carry with them behind." Shikamaru offered a tad sheepish.
At this both Tsunade and Ino stared.
"Angel bone?" Ino whispered, grabbing at his elbow to drag him forward as though the dead tree might overhear him saying something blasphemous. "What in the Veil are you talking about?"
"They carry a satchel." Shikamaru said, determined to keep any shame from lighting his face as he looked back at Tsunade though he spoke to Ino. "I heard them whispering about it and I think I might have seen it among their things. If I am correct we wouldn't even need all of it, just enough to get us through the Rot to the other side and they could continue on to the Hawk Eyed."
"I do not want to hear how you figured this out." Tsunade muttered, voice thin with displeasure. "I fear it wouldn't be something I approve of."
"I don't approve of them being here at all, yet here they are." Shikamaru muttered back, undeterred. "We all make sacrifices, don't we?"
The truth was he had caught Sai snooping through the Chattels' things, toeing open the satchel one of them carried and which he claimed he had only wanted to observe. It was difficult to know what to make of Sai's placid face, his ability to lie was something Shikamaru always wrestled with. Trusting a face which gave no semblance of emotion was hard, even when given no reason to worry.
"We certainly could demand payment for services rendered." Tsunade admitted, making a face as though the words made her tongue taste bitter.
"But," Ino let out a huff of air indignantly. "How is that…that's-"
"Mercenary, I know." Shikamaru soothed, though his voice was also firm. "Drastic times call for drastic measures."
"Let me ask them." Ino put in sharply, and though her hand landed on his shoulder gently it still had the energy of a shove and he rolled his eyes in reply. "Let me ask them first."
"And should they say no?" Tsunade tapped a finger to her bottom lip thoughtfully. "What then?"
"What does it matter?" Ino grumbled, frowning intently. "You've already decided you're going to take it anyway, haven't you?"
Shikamaru and Tsunade glanced at each other.
"I suppose that means we're also planning to cross the Rot?" Tsunade rubbed at her forehead where the gem glowed dimly in the bright light. In her mind she pictured the pregnant mothers of her village, the babies in arms, the ancient bones of the elderly walking through the winding sandstorms and slime covered Rot.
They were all going to die.
"Whether we choose to stay or go." Shikamaru glared at the corpse of the tree behind Ino like he would an opponent. "We need that angel bone."
"And to think," Tsunade sighed, marching back into her house to tend to the Chattels they would soon be robbing if they were not generous, "I used to think the Hawk Eyed were lunatics to put their hopes on the dust they claimed was angel bone."
"How things change." Ino said meaningfully, her frown unmoving as she stared at Shikamaru.
"What choice have we?" He asked thinly, glad that Tsunade closed the door on them both and left them in the privacy afforded by the garden's low walls. "What other plan do you see?"
"I see only the young vulnerable girls inside the house at our mercy." Ino replied softly. "How did you know they carried something so valuable?"
Shikamaru pursed his mouth thin, shoving his hands into his pockets as he slumped. "Have… you noticed anything odd about Sai since they arrived?"
Ino stilled, thinking back on Sai taking one look at her walking down the street only earlier today and spinning around to head back the way he'd come without so much as an awkward wave.
Hanging her head she sighed, and wished the world would be kinder, just the once.
"How much longer, do you think?"
The map was spread on the deck she had wiped of mud from her and Rasu's messy excursions onto land. Packs and crates and other things which were largely empty after so long on their trek were bundled into the sides of the vessel. Sitting cross legged on the softly swaying floor Hinata leaned against one of the crates that had until recently been filled with the star shaped grains that Anko had fed her the first night she had spent at the palace, and which Hinata had finished too quickly for her liking.
"If this is correct," Sasuke replied, brow arched ", and it's probably not, there is still a couple of days journey through to the sea. Hopefully the river doesn't thin much more." He straightened slightly to look over the side. "If it gets much more shallow we will have to walk."
Hinata considered how this might not be such a bad thing, fingers tracing patterns on Rasu's fur as she followed the path of the river with her eyes on the map.
"Days yet." she breathed out heavily.
"Do you grow weary?" Sasuke asked, a hint of teasing in his voice as he stood, rolling up the map in one smooth motion. "It will be a much harder trek on foot."
"But then perhaps I would do less of the nothing I've been doing." Hinata murmured, fidgeting when he cleaned up the items they had used to spread the map. "I…I feel itchy, almost."
"Perhaps a dunk in the river." was his blithe suggestion.
"Not actually itchy." Hinata sighed, exasperation tingeing her voice and therefore her cheeks pink. Dimly and with some horror she wondered if she smelled. "Just-"
"You can hardly afford the energy of the walk. We have only made it so far because of the nothing you have been doing." Sasuke interrupted, not looking at her as he studied the river winding ahead.
Hinata bit her lip in consideration. He was not lying, Sasuke never lied. Kabuto and Anko had given up their escape route for the sake of her departure, after all. Everyone had been in agreement that she was in no fit condition to travel in any way that wasn't the vessel.
Sometimes Hinata thought the time for such measures was over. She could track game through icy lands, she could bathe when forced in the numbing waters of the river and even swim against the current for a time. She could fight when pressed, and although it cost her to recover she had done so many times on their journey.
But it did not escape her that her body hungered always to be closer to Sasuke's heat, thinking inescapably of the blood which would knit her muscles back together to the same strength she remembered from before and perhaps even more.
"I…" she began slowly, and something about her tone had him looking over his shoulder to examine her face for it was a familiar hesitation. He had heard it before, the last time she had asked for his blood and he had resolutely said no. Jaw clenched tight enough to hurt he waited, forcing himself to stillness.
Hinata licked her lips, uncertain at the feel of his focus on her. "Perhaps then we might be able to continue on the ship once we reach the coast?" She mumbled, changing her mind at the last second.
Sasuke glanced up at the sail tied to the mast and largely unused with the river's current to usher them along.
"It's been a long time since you sailed though, no?"
No sooner had the words left her mouth than she slapped a hand over her lips, wincing. Sasuke let out a breath through the nose wondering which of the many memories she had used to piece together that bit of information. He was a raw and exposed wound everytime he was reminded that his childhood lingered in her mind unfiltered, and undiluted.
"If that headman was correct," he said firmly, as though she had said nothing at all, "then the people we search for will be increasingly distant from the coast the further north we go."
Hinata watched as he leaned against the mast, crossing his arms as she continued to gather herself back together from her blunder.
"Neji…" Hinata rubbed her hands on her pants hesitantly. "He taught me to canoe before the rivers dried up." She pulled her knees tight into her body and rested her chin there. "But the rivers were slow even then, nothing like this one." Laying her head on her knees she examined the towering trees that flanked them on either side, their roots visible in the earth and stone that held back the riverbanks.
"Nothing seems dead here. I smell no Rot, and the creatures are…" she frowned, considering the boar.
"They aren't hybrids." Sasuke explained, startling her to look back at him.
"That beast," he nodded at Rasu laying flat on his back with all four legs up in the air, tongue hanging out his mouth as he wiggled indecently on the deck. "He is a poor example but demon blood is supposed to increase intelligence and strength."
Hinata almost laughed at his joke and Rasu's antics except for that it made her pause, turning to look at him.
"Like yours?"
Hinata could see the thoughts flickering like birds startled through the sky across his eyes, so many they clouded his face until he breathed out firmly.
"No. Not like mine."
It hurt to look at him, at the denial she could see him already formulating though she had herself not even formed the words of her request in her mind.
"Hinata," he began, and she was relieved when instead of continuing to speak he froze, eyes catching on something behind her just as she caught sight of something behind him.
"What-" he began, standing straight.
Hinata shoved herself to her feet as well. "Is that… the ocean?"
Sasuke spun, watching as the bend in the river widened and widened and widened some more with the water sparkling beneath the light of the late morning and the scent of salt heavy on the wind.
Hinata gasped out a breath of salt air. "It goes on forever."
Sasuke tore his gaze back towards the way they had come among the trees where his eyes searched for the white patch against the green that he thought had been an unnaturally shaped bird fleeting from branch to branch as though stalking prey.
"We need to move,"
"What is wrong?" Hinata turned to look at him sharply, catching the tension in his voice enough to startle her out of reverie of the sea. Following the trajectory of his gaze with her own she froze, startled enough to grab at his sleeve.
"What does it look like?" Sasuke asked, glad for her blessed eyes and not for the first time.
"It's…" Hinata shuddered in something like disgust. "...a bird of clay."
No sooner had she breathed out her confusion than the bird fluttered from the branches of a tree behind them to in front, wings flicking white against the green boughs until it was buried well within and near the trunk.
Electricity flickered across Sasuke's fingers, one hand sliding to grab Hinata's arm, dragging her behind him as he kept his eyes on the place the bird had gone.
"Something is wrong." He began. "Something-"
"Turn back." The voice of a young man came from within the tree and Hinata's gaze zeroed in among the needles to where the little bird sat with eyes dead and beak open so the human voice left it's roughly made face. "Turn back, young star. Turn back and question those who have sent you."
Hinata flinched, gasping hard at the feel of Sasuke's magic exploding to life in a haze that rippled the sail above, electricity popping in sparks through the air sending Rasu cowering back.
"You dare order a star." This was not said in question, but disgust. Sasuke moved forward a step, muscles tightening as though to leap from vessel to land. "A foolish choice."
"Have a care," the expressionless bird continued. "This is a warning and an opportunity." the young voice said lightly, almost carelessly. "What you choose now will dictate the next choice made. It is your brother's wish that you should choose to live."
Hinata sucked in a breath, flinging her hands up to protect her eyes in time as Sasuke's power shimmered and pulsed deep within her bones, the word brother triggering a heat wave that forced her and Rasu crashing back into the boat's side with the rest of the loose debris as it titled wildly. He leapt, elegant as a hunting cat to shore, shattering stone beneath his feet on landing.
"Sasuke!" Hinata's shriek surprised even her, startling Sasuke to a stop, dark eyes finding her over his shoulder. They stared for half a second in the sudden eerie quiet before the bird and the tree and half the hillside exploded with a high pitched rip of sound sending splinters, cracked stone, earth and water in all directions.
Through the haze of debris and smoke Hinata dragged in a dusty painful breath, grabbing onto Rasu's scruff to drag him to the stern as the giant tree on which the bird had nested began to creak and groan tipping sideways and towards them.
TBC