Chapter 7- Something's Coming

Sasuke left immediately after Naruto, following someone in a white cloak, pulling Sakura along behind him. She wasn't sure she wanted to be pulled along behind him. He had her hand, and wasn't giving her a choice. Sakura was very much attracted to Sasuke, the same way a moth is to a flame. Or perhaps it was more the attraction a wine glass feels for the ground as it tumbles off a table. Sasuke drew her to him, but like the moth, like the wine glass, she was very much worried about how this would end. Wings burned and heart shattered were the most likely ways.

They both wore black pants and boots, and black shirts, and black cloaks with hoods- his decision. Sakura thought it odd attire given the world was white. Her green eyes and little strands of pink hair were the only color showing on either. Sasuke's eyes were black. His hair was black. The two swords at his side were black, with long, black strips of cotton tied around each hilt.

"It's time to catch him. You ready?" he asked.

"Yes."

He opened a gate with his purple left eye- his rinnegan, and jumped through, and they were instantly miles ahead, and appeared about fifty feet behind someone running through the trees, in a white snowsuit.

"Hold my side," Sasuke ordered.

She did, and he drew his sword, and before she could say anything, he threw it at the fleeing ninja and pierced him through the leg, sending him tumbling over the ground and kicking up clouds of snow.

"That's one way to do it," Sakura said, shaking her head.

Sasuke took her hand, and they ran towards the man. He kicked him over, then saw her face- a panic-stricken young woman. A Hyuga. She didn't speak.

"Get her headband," Sasuke ordered.

Sakura knelt, and pulled the Leaf headband off, revealing the green curse mark running across her forehead. A branch family Hyuga. Pale white; scared eyes.

Sasuke had made sure Sakura knew- do not break touch. Do not break contact. He had to keep reminding her. She kept letting go of his hand. He looked down at the young woman. "Where are you going?"

She didn't answer. Her lips were trembling.

Sasuke pulled his foot back and swung it forward and kicked her hard and solid in the chest with the toe of his boot, knocking her flat on her back.

"Sasuke!" Sakura fussed, and shoved him. "That's uncalled-"

That's all the time it took. The Branch Hyuga jerked the sword out of her leg and ran the razor-sharp blade fast and deep through her neck- deep enough to hit her spine, making a noise like two wet sticks hitting each other. Then a sputtering sound, and then she slumped over.

"What?! No!" Sakura jumped and turned her over and tried to heal her. She almost pulled herself out of Sasuke's grasp, but he kept his hand on her neck. Sakura grabbed the woman's head and pulled it back to her body and surged chakra into her, and tried to pull blood vessels together. Too much blood- too much physical liquid to pull together. Her neck broke the rest of the way, and her head fell off to the side, out of her hand, still attached by a little skin and part of a ligament. Sakura sat there a moment, then wiped her bloody hands on the woman's coat, and stood.

Sasuke waited patiently. The Hyuga woman wasn't running after Naruto. Not close enough. If she wasn't trailing him and Hinata then where was she going, and what was she doing that she wanted to keep secret badly enough to sever her own head? Sasuke looked over- her pale white Hyuga eyes were now dark.

"Sasuke, what the hell." Sakura took a deep and slow and patient and frustrated breath.

"I should've kicked her harder."

She looked levelly at him, and couldn't tell if he was joking or serious. She pushed her pink hair out of her eyes, smearing a little blood on her temple and ear. Her sparkling green eyes glared at him. "Why did she kill herself?"

He shrugged. "You tell me. Hold on to me," he commanded, and bent over and picked up his sword from beside the dead woman. "She could've been under the genjutsu- just long enough to cut her head off. We need to be faster next time."

"She wasn't in a genjutsu." Sakura shook her head. What a fucking mess- a mess made worse if someone had actually caused her to decapitate herself. And now yet another missing Hyuga. But this time dead in front of them. "It doesn't even look like she was following Naruto."

"No."

"God damn it, Sasuke. This is a fucking mess."

"Let's go," he said. He meant back to the Leaf, to pick up shovels, or something, then come back here and deal with the corpse, then thought- why not go north now? "Instead of going back to the Leaf, let's go north."

"Right now? Don't we need to do something about this?"

"She's been killed with a sword, slit throat, clean cut through her leg; her hands are cut, and her clothes, and there's signs of being healed by a medical ninja. Your fingerprints are on her skin and clothes in her own blood. We could burn her, I guess."

God damnit, she thought, and rubbed her forehead, smearing a little blood across her temple. Burn her? God damn you, Sasuke Uchiha. How did he attract situations like this to himself? But obviously he was right- if they took her back, if anyone found her- it didn't matter, it would look like they killed her. Or Sasuke at least.

"I'm not sure what to do here," she said. Other than the wind, the world was quiet. Wind, and snow, and heavy clouds.

"Let's go north now, and take her."

"We didn't come prepared to go north."

Sasuke kicked the woman over- her body rolled, but her head did not- and pulled her pack off her back and opened it- some food, a blanket, a few paper bombs and kunai- travelling light. He handed Sakura the pack.

"I can't believe this. Why did I think a mission with you would go any other way?"

"That's not nice. What are you complaining about?"

"Oh I don't know. Corpses, maybe."

"Corpse. And I didn't kill her." He looked up at the sky through the trees- grey, and snow, and wind. "You haven't felt the winter yet, and need to. You and Hinata both."

"Why us?"

He looked sideways at her. She wasn't looking at him, but away, thinking. Thinking what? "What's the matter?"

She could feel him looking at her, his deep black eyes studying her, commanding her, and the way he stood, as if defying the cold, and the wind, and the day- ready to attack it. Was he even aware a woman had just cut her own head off? Then in that deep gravel voice of his- what's the matter? Sakura was having such a hard time adjusting to him- this man beside her looked like Sasuke, and seemed like him, and mostly acted like him- but it wasn't. He was different, in little ways. "I'm having a hard time with you," she answered, afraid of his response.

"Yeah," he said, and looked at his hand. "Me too. Sometimes."

Me too? What did he mean by that? "What… what do you mean?"

"Forget it," then he looked at her, and held her eyes, and didn't look away. "Look, head back to the Leaf. I'll take care of this."

"Tell me what you meant. You're having a hard time with me?"

"No- sometimes I have a hard time with me, too. Go."

She didn't expect that. "I told you I'm not sure. I don't know what we should do." They were holding hands. She still didn't know if she wanted to be.

"So you don't trust me then," he said. He looked levelly at her. The wind caught his hair and swept it across his eyes.

It took three days for them to get back to the Leaf after the war. And he hadn't talked much, to anyone, at any point during those three days. Then in jail for three weeks. Then gone. Disappeared out the village gates, without a word to anyone, except Tsunade. And then five weeks later he's back, sparring one-armed in the deep snow in the early morning with Naruto, breaking into buildings, cussing the Hokage- not enough time. He was right- she didn't trust him. How is this any different than the old Sasuke?

He could read volumes of hesitation and mistrust on her face. Why now? "It will be ok, Sakura. Head back. We'll meet up later."

But this wasn't the same Sasuke. "And the genjutsu?"

"Hope for the best. It's not like we've been sleeping together at night."

She blushed. "I'm…" she shook her head, "I'm not going back to the Leaf. Let's go." There were no good options here. But out of all the bad, he was the best. "Let's go north."

She squeezed his hand, and he opened a gate, and they stepped through.

They were on the side of a black mountain, in the driving snow. Huge trees jutted out of the ground- it would take ten men holding hands to circle them. And Sakura felt the winter instantly- it felt like pressure pushing against her, air pressure, water pressure- her joints ached, and her head hurt. Deep snow in banks, blown in waves by the icy wind, pelted them. Sakura clutched her chest, and gasped for air- this feeling of dread hit her chest like a hammer: a dreadful fear with the pressure, as if death were spreading all around, decay and pain in her fingers, spreading. Her breath caught, she stumbled and fell into him. Death was in her arms, cold and frozen; her child was pestilence; her daughter ice- it was coming for her; it was coming for her warm family, it was coming for all of them. Shivers and pain ran up and down her body. Such a cold, stinging heaviness. Her eyes hurt, and her toes hurt, and her ears ached- sharp pain, as if something was gnawing on them. She was afraid to look north, into the wind. And she could hardly breathe.

Sasuke collapsed to the ground and clutched his left eye. They had traveled too far. He grabbed his face in pain and fell forward into the snow. Sakura wasn't in much shape to help him. "Fight it," he grunted.

She tried; she took deep breaths and tried to shake the cold out of her heart. And slowly, with effort, she pushed the feeling out, little by little. Pushing this feeling of dread out of her chest required whole-body chakra control. How could normal people deal with this? "What… what is this?" She stumbled to her feet and put her hands on him, and tried to give him chakra, but was doing a bad job of it- it was hard to give and balance at the same time. Not only the dread, but the cold. It was so cold it hurt.

"It's what we're trying to warn…" he grimaced in pain, clutching his left eye.

"How-how far north… north are we?" White fat and folded blankets of snow slid from upper branches and came down onto the mountain, and kicked up plumes of snow. Thick pines groaned like tired beasts as the weight shifted.

"We're on the north end of the Land of Lightning." Sasuke knew- they felt it coming, and then they crossed the line, and the further north they went from that line, the worse the feeling, and the more the dead, and the colder the air. Nightmares, and rats, ghosts and the dead. Life was freezing, and dying, and going extinct, from north, to south, and it was as sure a thing as dark at night. This village was alive two weeks ago. And now no normal human could walk down these dirt streets for long. It was easily thirty degrees colder here, maybe more.

She looked around, balancing chakra, balancing herself- massive trees, snow, snow drifts against the trunks, and something else in the white distance- she squinted and saw two black ravens on the limb of a huge pine tree, watching them.

Sasuke stood, and took a few steady breaths, and kicked snow over the dead Hyuga, holding his eye the whole time. "Let's go," he said, and took her hand tight in his, and led her down the mountain to the small hunting village. It wasn't a proper burial, but this wasn't the place for that sort of thing. He stopped short of the village entrance and took a few deep breaths. Travelling without Naruto was going to be difficult without hurting himself.

"What are we doing here again?" Sakura asked. Steady, careful chakra control. "Other than hiding Hyuga corpses."

"Corpse. We were here week before last, and they refused to leave with us. Let's see what's left. They couldn't feel this coming- we could."

"Feel it coming- you mean this pressure?"

"It's more than pressure," he said, and again, looked slightly sideways. Sasuke could sense the dead, and the living, and he knew: they were surrounded. "You need to know what's coming- you need to know what we're fighting, and I want you to figure out how the people here died."

She looked from him to the little village. Smoke from a few chimneys, lights on in some of the windows, a shadow or two in front of the windows. It didn't look like people were dead.

He took her hand and clambered down a snowy bank, and into a mostly dark hunting village. Some houses were boarded up- the few shops and stores and stalls were shuttered. On a huge rack, leaning against a two-story house, was a bear skin- some five times the size of a normal bear. The snow was ruining the skin. Also nearby, the remains of a wooden crate.

They went to the tavern, and tried the door and found it locked. They knocked, and knocked again, and it was never opened, and they heard no sounds from inside, despite the dim light coming through the windows.

"That one," he said, pointing to the nearest house to the right. Frost had gathered thick on the windows and doors. He knocked- no answer. He pushed the door open. Wide shutters and heavy curtains let in little light. They walked into an entry hall, then around into the first room, and saw two old people, dead, in the corner- frozen. Their eyes were missing, and their nose and lips and hands were black from the cold. Something had been gnawing on their ankles and had managed to chew a foot off. The gnawed end of a pale gray bone protruded from the man's left leg.

Sakura tightened her grip on his hand.

Sasuke walked over and looked at them closer- frozen, leathery, frost bitten- then they heard talking outside, and ran to the door, and looked, and no one was there. No footprints in the snow, anywhere, except the ones they had left.

What the fuck, Sakura thought to herself. So when they told the Hokage about the genjutsu, and the winter, and she didn't listen… Naruto and Sasuke had left, and had been trying to fix all this on their own? She let him guide her to another house, and another, and another. In each, even ones with the fires burning, or generators keeping the lights on, all they found were the dead, and it was all the same dead: old people, and children. Where were the adults? She studied a few, and made mental notes, and chewed on her lip, nervous as she looked back over the notes. The discolored cold, the frozen and pooled blood, and the frostbite, all disguised a few small details: black swollen lymph nodes. And all their legs were uncontracted- death tends to contract the muscles. Death stiffens; rigormortis stiffens, but the legs of the corpses weren't like that. Another worrisome mental note.

They stopped and looked at the bear skin- this was truly a fearsome animal- a tent for four could be made from its face alone. Sakura wasn't sure, even with her strength, that she could kill it.

"Last house," he said, guiding her to a large house with lights on.

"I thought we had three villages to visit?"

"The other two are further north."

Implying there was no need- everyone else to the north was dead. Sakura shivered, and then the gravity of those words hit her- Everyone. Else. To the North. Is. Dead. She felt weak for a second; Sasuke noticed and let go of her hand and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. She was surprised, but comforted. She hadn't believed them- either him or Naruto. She hadn't understood why they would speak so rudely to the Hokage. It's cold. It's snowing. It's December. How would you propose we stop the snow. Now she understood, and her heart sank. Why had the Hokage refused to listen to them, or accept their offer to take her north? That alone would've fixed all of this, and Sasuke and Naruto wouldn't be putting themselves at risk to try to fix it themselves. How had other nations not noticed? Sakura realized she had been rude to Sasuke too, when he tried to tell her, multiple times. "Sasuke?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry I gave you a hard time. I apologize."

"It's ok," he said.

He stopped in front of the last house and she knocked. Sounds from inside, shuffling, talking, hushed voices. But no one answered the door. She knocked again. Lights went off upstairs. He looked at her, and she tried the knob, and found it unlocked. The door opened quietly on its cold metal hinges.

"Do we really need to go in here?"

"Yes."

The door didn't move, but the hinges creaked as if it had.

Sakura looked at the door. How could it make the sound of moving but not move? "I don't think we do." She no longer wanted to be here. She wanted to run as far south as possible, and leave this cold, and dread, and dead, and these ghosts alone.

"What happened here? Do old people normally just sit down at their kitchen table and purposefully freeze to death? Not even bother to wrap a blanket around them or anything? Don't you think if adults fled the village there would be tracks- broken branches and shit? Look around the village- if people fled this village they went north, not south. Who in their right fucking mind would flee here and go north?" He had been to the north too many times and still not found answers. This winter was spilling across the land, killing everything in its path, and it wasn't just the snow and cold.

She took a deep breath, and followed him inside. "Hello?" she called, loudly. "We don't mean you any harm."

They stepped around the corner- no people, but Sakura noticed he was right- there was an iron stove, and dry wood piled in the corner. They walked from room to room, and then went upstairs, cautiously. They had both heard people in here, and seen lights go off when they were outside. Both were aware this could be a trap. Room by room they swung the doors open, carefully, and found no one. There were white pencil drawings of flowers above the headboards with the words: God is Love. And there was a cotton shawl on the back of a chair. And there was no sound- the house was empty and quiet and cold, and dust motes hung frozen in the reflected light of frost and wood beams.

"There were people in here, right?" Her voice moved out in front of her in a white cloud.

He shrugged. "Hold on to me. I need my hand."

She was happy to put her arms around him, and he drew his sword. He led her to the hall, looking at the ceiling. A small window was all there was to cast light, and the light that came in was gray and cold. Sasuke pulled them against the wall, then blinding fast split the ceiling above the hall, cutting the plaster and rafters in one swipe. There was a creaking, and wood cracking, and the ceiling gave up the bodies of an old woman and a young child. The bodies tumbled down; their skin frozen and white-gray, and they hit the wood floor in a series of thuds.

Sakura held tight to him. She looked at the girl- she still had her eyes, which none of the other corpses did. The old woman did as well. Why would they choose to hide in an attic? Where was the door to the attic? And what the hell had they seen and heard in here from outside? And then, behind them, something fluttered into the window. Sakura jumped, startled, and held tight to him. Sasuke turned calmly.

A raven, fat and black, looked at them, then at the girl, at her eyes, and pecked the glass. It wanted her eyes. Sasuke walked to the window, pulling Sakura behind, and when he was within striking distance, drove his sword through the glass and through the raven.

"You ready to go?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Anywhere else north you want to see while we're here?"

She couldn't tell if he was politely offering, or goading her. She didn't feel like dissecting it. "Let's go home."

He walked back to the girl and nudged his foot under her. The raven was dead on the end of his sword. He opened the gate, and she surged chakra into him, focusing on his eye. He stepped through, and they entered his apartment.

Sasuke collapsed, his knee nearly hitting the young girl's corpse. Sakura activated her hundred seal- black lines ran down her face, her neck, her arms, out to him, and around him, and she poured chakra into him. He took his hand away from his eye and pulled himself to his feet. "Thank you," he said, catching his breath. "But save some of that."

So he was being sincere in asking her if she wanted to see anywhere else. He wouldn't goad her and then say thank you.

"We were curious where you two went," Kakashi said. His voice came from the back room. He was sitting on Sasuke's bed.

Genma stepped out first, then Kakashi. They looked at Sasuke and Sakura, then the body of a young girl, her eyes frozen open, and the dead raven at the end of Sasuke's sword, and a white pack slung over Sakura's shoulder. The pack looked similar to ones they had seen Hyuga carrying.

Sakura started to back up, but Sasuke held her in place, his hand on the back of her neck.

Kakashi knelt down and looked at the body. The girl was perhaps four, or five, and was dressed for cold weather. She wasn't skinny and frail, as if she had starved. And her eyes were open- for some reason Kakashi thought that if she had died from the cold her eyes would be shut. He looked at the raven- it was pierced through the chest and dripping bright red blood. Its small maroon heart hung out of its body by the thread of a vein.

"Tell us about the girl, and the bird," Kakashi said, standing.

"I was hoping Sakura could examine her, and figure out how she died."

"And the bird?"

"It wanted her eyes," he answered.

"And the pack?"

"We…," Sakura started, and looked at Sasuke. "We came across a branch member. We thought she was following Naruto." She did not want to get Sasuke in trouble. He had done nothing wrong.

"I hit her in the leg with my sword, and kicked her so she would talk."

"Did she?"

"No. She decapitated herself. With my sword."

"And where is she?"

"Far to the north, covered in snow."

"They're not lying about the winter, Kakashi," Sakura said, looking at him and Genma. "Or the genjutsu. I was hit with it. So was Shikamaru and Hinata. And the winter- something's in it. Something's coming."

"Can you take us north, Sasuke?" Genma asked.

"Not right now."

"Why?"

"I don't have enough chakra, and can only use this so many times a day. And with Naruto gone, I need to make sure I can get to him if he needs me. If you truly want to go I'll take you. Give me a day or two."

"Are you going to tell Tsunade?" Sakura asked.

"Only that you two have been with me all day," Genma answered.

"When you're able, take us north," Kakashi said. "Until then, get some rest. Genma, let's sneak this into the-" He was about to suggest sneaking the young girls corpse into the morgue, but he stopped as soon as he looked down- her eyes were gone, and at the door, waiting to go outside, the raven.

"Oh god," Sakura gasped, and leapt back, pulling Sasuke with her. That raven had definitely wanted that girl's eyes as it looked at them through the window, and that raven had definitely been dead.

In one quick, arching motion Genma threw a kunai and hit the raven in the wing, pinning it to the baseboard. It flopped around, trying to free itself. Then it stopped flopping, and looked at Sasuke, and then cawed at him, then did something that should be impossible for a bird- it moaned at him, and the moan sounded like a woman, frail, and pitiful, and crying out in pain. Sakura shivered as if ice water had been poured down her back, and clutched tight to Sasuke. No animal should be able to make that sound- especially a bird. Kakashi pulled a kunai from his pouch and stepped over and decapitated it. Its head rolled, and its eyes still blinked, and its mouth opened and closed reflexively. Kakashi lifted his foot and crushed the small black head into the floor.

"You're going to clean that," Sasuke said, and put his arm around her shoulders. The motion surprised her, but she accepted his arm, and strength, and comfort, gladly- she was rattled and scared, and she needed his support. "Leave the pack with Kakashi. I'm walking you home," he said.

She nodded, and let the pack slide to the floor. She felt shaky, and tired, and nervous, but they had work still to do. "Can you come with me to the hospital instead?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. Where are your trash bags?"

He took her to the kitchen, and, holding her hand, reached for the cabinet door and opened it. She grabbed a bag, opened that, then had Kakashi help bag up the young body and wrap it in a blanket, then into another bag. Sasuke and Sakura left, avoiding the smeared raven skull on the floor. She had his hand tight in hers, and the small body over her right shoulder.

"This is getting messy," Genma said, and went to the kitchen for rags.

"What did Sakura say?" Kakashi asked, looking at what was left of the raven. "Something's coming?"

"You think we should send some help to Amegakure?"

Kakashi considered this, then, "No. They'll be ok."

They heard Sasuke and Sakura talking as they walked down the snowy street:

We need to… spend more time together.

Because of the genjutsu?

No. Because we're partners now. Because we could've done better than that.

I should've kicked her harder.

That's not it.

You don't trust me, do you.

Not… not as much as I need to. We need to work on that.

You need to work on that.

Why are you being difficult?

Why are you being stubborn? Do you want to get some food first?

While carrying the corpse of a young girl? Really? And I'm not stubborn.

You can sit her down, and you are.

No, I am not. And I'm not taking a corpse into a restaurant.

Well at least it's finally corpse, and not corpses.

Funny. Ha ha. Funny, jackass. And what other horrible missions do you have planned for me?

Us, not you. You need to work on your grammar. Plurals are giving you trouble.

I swear to god you are the most infuriating man I know. How's that, for grammar?

Let's get food to go.

Kakashi smiled. Sasuke was back. Of all the other problems that were piling up, he was glad to have the old Sasuke back.