Chapter Seven: The Coming of Crimson


The snow was getting heavier. The poor sunlight now passed and the moon shone a faint glow on the travelers seeking for the flower.

Kiyuri shivered. "I'm scared…" She suddenly went to Hinata's back.

"What would you – Ahhh!" Naruto screamed as he saw Kiyuri's catlike eyes glowing in the dark.

Hinata looked back at her. "Are we getting close to that mountain, I see it but I don't think we're getting any closer to it."

Kiyuri got the map from the pocket of her jacket. "According to this, we're nearer."

"Nearer! You said that an hour ago!" Naruto took the map from her grasp. He lit up a chakra torch. "I don't get this. We should've taken this left path but didn't we take the right path awhile ago."

"Let me look at that." Kiyuri neared to him and looked at the map. "No we should take this path cause it's faster."

"What are you talking about this path is two times longer than the other path!" Naruto yelled, eager to start another argument.

"You don't understand that path is closed." Kiyuri's hair stood on end.

"So? We can still cross there, we're ninjas remember?"

"Much as I'm embarrassed to tell this, that path's just too creepy for me. We should just continue here. We're here and going back then taking that other path would waste our time." Kiyuri said. She started walking. "Come on you guys!"

Hinata started following her.

"Okay." Naruto, defeated and slightly weirded out by Kiyuri's reasoning followed the two of them. "Why do I always have to follow you?"

Kiyuri wanted to say something but didn't, she felt tired of arguing once in awhile.


The path was getting steeper. Hinata and Naruto's pace was getting slower and slower as the snow gets heavier. Kiyuri was somewhat ahead of them. She stopped at her tracks.

"There's no way we can find that flower now. It's snowing harder than it should have." Kiyuri said. "We're on the foot of the mountain as of now. I think resting here for the night wouldn't be a bad idea."

Naruto looked at Hinata. Her thick coat covering her thin body yet she was still shivering. "Yeah that would be great."

"It was a good thing Kasumi forced us to bring these." Naruto grinned at the girls as he was fixing the baggage he was carrying, taking the tent equipment one by one.

"Hurry up will you. We're freezing here." Kiyuri ordered.

"Why you… You should be the one fixing this. If it weren't for you and your lack of sense in direction, we should've got that stupid flower by now!" Naruto said as he was putting up the tent.

"You're the one with no sense of direction! I've got a lot of experience here in these mountains so I know where to pass and not to pass." Kiyuri although cold and shivering was now hot with anger. "And don't call that flower stupid!"

"Just stop arguing with me, okay? If you would just try to help me maybe we could finish faster." Naruto snapped at her.

Kiyuri grunted.

Then Hinata coughed. She nearly collapsed. She now was in the snow covered ground, kneeling, covering her mouth in an attempt to stop herself from showing weakness.

The two then fell silent. Kiyuri took out a blanket from her bag and covered Hinata to give her at least a bit of warmth. Then she took Naruto's suggestion and helped him. In a few minutes they were done.

The snowing stopped for awhile. Naruto then made a small bonfire and heated water to a boil. He gave it to Kiyuri who was the one who asked for it in the first place. She then placed something in it that seemed like herbs and something in powder form. She hurriedly made Hinata drink the stuff she had made before it grew cold. Hinata didn't finish it, though.

Kiyuri then went out the tent. It was snowing again. "You want some. Hinata couldn't drink it anymore." Kiyuri laughed a little and awkwardly, too. "My sister makes me drink this when I'm sick. It tastes like dirt but it can cure you."

Naruto was still quiet looking at the fire he had brought to life.

Kiyuri then threw a blanket at him. "Blame me if you want to."

"Huh?" Naruto glanced at her, slightly puzzled.

"I really don't want Hinata-neesan to go with us… She's still sick but …" Kiyuri took something to eat inside her bag. She took one for herself and took one for Naruto.

She passed it to him.

"But what?" Naruto asked.

"I saw the look in her eyes and I thought that she wasn't kidding when she said she wanted to help." Kiyuri answered.

"Neji…" Naruto said her cousin's name.

"What about him?" Kiyuri raised her eyebrow.

"I heard that he was sick. I think he might be infected with the disease."

"Hinata-neesan… She cared too much to the people around her…"

Kiyuri and Naruto then went silent.


If only her father was here. If only she could leave the task of figuring out this puzzle of a cure. Kasumi would go after Hinata and bring her back here whether she likes it or not. Never before has a patient escape the grasp of this medic-nin and she had constantly felt guilty.

So when a knock came at the door that morning she hurriedly opened it and wished that it would be the prodigal patient but it wasn't.

It was her father.


Hinata felt that she was moving. She slowly opened her eyes to see yellow hair. She squirmed a little and realized that Naruto was giving her a piggy back ride as he was climbing. Hinata was tied to Naruto to prevent her from falling.

"Don't move. We're almost there." Naruto said to her reassuringly.

Then a hand reached out to Naruto and helped him get to the edge of the cliff. Kiyuri untied the rope that bonded the two together.

"There we go." Naruto grinned at Hinata who was blushing madly.

Kiyuri then started to look at her map. "Okay so now we walk towards the northeast and we'll see a cave there and we go right inside it. The other side of the cave will lead as to this thingy and we climb down to this watchamacallit and well I don't exactly know where the crystille flowers are." Kiyuri looked at them smiling awkwardly.

"What!" Yelled Naruto.

"Shhh You might cause an avalanche or something." Kiyuri warned him. "Look that flower is hard to find okay?"

"You said that there were lots of it here and even in Konoha."

"I said there are a lot of those in Konoha but there are only a few of it here." Kiyuri smiled awkwardly again.

"What do we do now?"

"We walk." Hinata said.

Ahead of them was another forest within the mountains.

They followed her.


"Amazing!" Said Shigure. "This book must have been more than seventy years. You can never find this at the local bookstore anymore."

"I've taken some notes in it and I simplified the writings." Kasumi said showing the notes to her father.

"See I told you learning nged it lchanged it aftlanguage. an ancient language would come in handy." Shigure said to his daughter. "But I wonder because this kind of writings was changed way before the said time in this book. Where have you found it?"

"Hinata, father, she gave it to me." Kasumi replied.

"I see."

"Father, I need to go and get Hinata back." Kasumi said.

"Get her back? Why?"

"She's sick."

"She is?" Shigure then looked at her daughter. "You let a patient get away? Kasumi, I thought you'd know better."

"I was just getting her lunch down stairs. Then I went to the guest room and when I saw her bed it was fixed and Hinata was gone. I never wanted for that to happen! Honest!" Kasumi was a bit terrified of what her father might think of her.

He just smiled. "You sound like Kiyuri… So you better go now and retrieve your patient back here so we could treat her."

Kasumi nodded and then went upstairs to get ready.

Awhile later she was outside and her father was, too.

"Tell Kiyuri that after they got the herbs and I had made the medicine we'll go to Konoha, okay?" Shigure said.

"Yes, father." She started to walk.

"Wait Kasumi you never told me what Hinata's sickness was?" Shigure asked.

Kasumi stopped in her tracks she looked back at her father, sadly.

"Dear lord." His father muttered under his breath.


"Is that the cave?." Kiyuri asked to no one in particular. "Hey guys! It is the cave!"

She looked back at them but she saw no one.

"What the?" Kiyuri said. "Hinata-neesan! Naruto!" She called out their names but no one answered.

"But we're near the cave… Where are you guys!"

Then she shivered, she felt something bad was going to happen.


"Kiyuri…?" Hinata looked back and discovered only Naruto behind her.

Naruto turned his head. "Where's Kiyuri?"

"We lost her somehow…" Hinata said.

Naruto took a glance at her face. It was paler than before. "Are you okay?"

"Yes I'm fine." Hinata clenched her fists.


A/N: Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

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