To the Stars and Back

Part 3: The Southern Cross and Children's Songs

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Sasuke whistled this when he was little, his brother would sing it to him when he was sick. He woke or thought he was in a dream, he had been sitting in front of a fire his father had gone off to bed early and it was just him and Itachi staring at the flames. "Do you know what stars are, Sasuke?" his brother brought out a star chart and showed it to him. "Every star was once believed to be the souls of those who passed into the next world."

"Is it true?" Sasuke blinked and looked up curiously, he had been five.

"No, it isn't true, but if you want to believe that Sasuke, you should have something like that to think about," Itachi smiled at him and brought him into his lap. "Let's see, what should tonight's story be?"

"About the foolish hunters!" he laughed.

Sasuke came out of the dream and blinked, he strained to remember the story of the Foolish Hunters, his brother told it to him a thousand times and yet he could never recite it. He remembered something about wild cats trying to eat them. "Some stories aren't meant to be forgotten," he heard someone talking and turned to see a boy who was no older than fourteen sitting there, he kicked his feet and sighed.

"Ka-san told me those stories, then I passed them onto Itachi-chan when I was older," the boy smiled and looked away, his eyes were bright and happy. "It was an accident, I guess I should have waited until you were old enough and then pass them to you, he never learned his lesson. One day a Wild Cat will eat him up."

"Uncle, I'm sorry," Sasuke whispered and ran up hugging him, his eyes filling with tears. "It's all…"

"Sasuke, why do you think it was your fault, you did nothing wrong."

Naruto was aware that Sasuke was dreaming, he sat up slowly and took off his jacket putting it over his friend. He looked around the car and sighed, this place was warm now, but he still felt nervous, he looked out over the field and saw trees, the smell of apples was everywhere.

A man with blond hair was sitting in one of the booths and was talking to Haku. "I hope we arrive soon, I'm getting tired of waiting."

"Be patient, it will be within the hour," the boy vanished and appeared at another booth talking to someone else, this person pulled the boy onto his lap. "Zabuza-sama!"

"Well, so how is soul collecting?" the man laughed and looked up. "Didn't know those two…"

"They're not dead, they're helping a soul let go," Haku smiled and looked over his shoulder at them.

Naruto shook Sasuke awake who just stared at him with evil eyes. "What?"

"Where are we?" They looked around and found Mizumi was still sitting there staring off into space. "Mizumi-chan, where are we?"

"We're close to the Northern Cross, we're close to…." Her voice trailed off, she was becoming more detached from them as they rode along.

Haku walked up in a few moments and looked at Naruto and Sasuke. "Did you keep the paper I gave you," he looked up as the door opened and a man came in dressed as a conductor.

Sasuke reached into the jacket that was covering him and pulled out the paper, then the conductor took the paper which turned into two strange looking tickets. "Amazing, a three dimensional tickets, two of them, well, you're going to go far," the man walked on checking everyone's tickets, Haku stood by the operator's door and the man came a halt. "Haku, are you done cleaning out the operator's office?"

"Just about," the boy went back into the office and he was not seen again.

The whole car was empty, Sasuke stretched his legs as he walked around. "I wish he didn't go," he whispered and started to feel lonely. "I just made this wish in my head and he just vanished like that."

In a distance, there was the sound of thunder and the door opened, water was rushing along the floor. A man with a boy walked in, the man had dark green eyes and looked like a doctor, he was holding and helping the boy enter. It looked like the boy couldn't walk. "Robert, look there are two boys just your age on this train, would you like to sit with them?"

The boy nodded silently as Naruto moved to sit next to Sasuke, the boy looked very pale and seemed very tired, he sat down next to Mizumi. "You two must be on the same destination we are," the man sat down and tried to sound friendly. "It was such a horrible accident, I wish I could have done more to help, but my blunder must have hurt him terribly."

Sasuke looked out the window to see strange looking vehicles, they were piled on top of each other. The man was trying to reach a boy who was in the backseat of the other bleeding horribly. Then there was a fire and it trapped the man and the boy inside.

Robert smiled and looked around then closed his eyes going into a deep sleep. "At least now he can sleep without fear of pain." The man looked somewhat relieved, he sat down slowly and looked around.

Sasuke, Naruto, and Mizumi were listening to the story when Sasuke noticed a constellation finally, he blinked at it rubbing his eyes with his hands. "I know this story, Itachi told me it when I was angry about things not going my way."

"That's the scorpion's tale isn't it," Naruto smiled.

"Yeah, once long ago there was a scorpion and it would kill any insect that crossed its path, well one day a weasel found it and tried to kill it. The scorpion was scared of death that it fell into a well and was trapped, he begged and pleaded that his next life wouldn't be so pitiful as this. He swore he would let the weasel kill him when he had the chance, but when he said those words, he caught fire, then the Gods took it up to the heavens and put it as a star, forever burning to remind people of being good." Sasuke recited the story word for word, just as his brother had told it to him. He wished though that Itachi was here to be reminded of it.

"That's a good story," Robert looked up and smiled at him with bright blue eyes. "I love stories, I dreamt my brother, Edmund was telling me a story and then when I woke you were. Any story is good for me."

"Your welcome," Sasuke responded, he nervously looked over his shoulder and noticed the boy vanished and the car was again filled with bright lights.

People were singing, that was what Sasuke and Naruto glanced out and then looked at Mizumi who seemed like she had not heard it, that was when the car went dark again. Sasuke pulled himself out of his thoughts and noticed that once again, Mizumi was standing to stretch, but this time all he could see was the darkness outside the train. He saw stars, but they were flicks of light twinkling, Naruto was looking out too, he was staring at their friend who was walking toward the end of the train.

"Mizumi-chan!" Naruto called to her, he followed her and she turned around. "Where are you…"

"I see Ka-san and To-san," she blinked and ran off, she was running to the end of the train, toward the caboose. She was running a lot faster than normal, Sasuke ran after her too, he was slow to respond, but he was soon in caboose.

"We don't want you to leave, Mizumi-chan," he whispered to her and knelt down to look at her. "Please don't go away."

"I have to, I see Ka-san," the little girl was soon gone and all they saw was a little girl running along the tracks to two people who were standing by a cross roads.

Sasuke soon felt his knees give and he started to feel tears going down his cheeks, he saw Naruto standing staring out the back of the car, his eyes were wide staring at her as she ran away. "MIZUMI!"

Naruto and Sasuke found themselves back on the hill, they heard the sound of people calling for Mizumi, they looked at each other not sure if they had just had a bad dream. Running back to the town, they saw Shikimaru, Choji, and Ino running with the rest of the crowd. "There you two are," Shikimaru ran up. "There was an accident at the river."

"What happened?" Sasuke walked ahead of Naruto who was still silent about what they both had witnessed.

"You remember Mizumi-chan right?" Ino looked at them waiting for them to nod. "Well, she and her friends were putting gourd boats in the water and well, somehow she fell into the water before anyone could catch her. Iruka-sensei was really upset because Mizumi-chan doesn't know how to swim yet, so we haven't been able to find her because the current picked up since the last rain."

Running to the river, Naruto and Sasuke saw Mizumi's lifeless form being carried from the river by Kakashi who lay her down. He handed her off to Anko who tried to do CPR, but nothing worked. We should tell them that she's gone, Sasuke thought to himself and looked away and noticed Naruto was shaking his head sadly.

"She's gone," Kakashi whispered and pulled a blanket over her face, everyone looked away as he carried her to some doctors who took her away. "This is horrible, does she have any family?"

"No," Sasuke shook his head. "Her mother and father died a long time ago." At least she's with her mother and father now, he thought walking back to her aunt's home to tell the woman the horrible news.

"Sasuke-kun, wait for me!" Naruto ran after him.

End

(Alright there are references in the story relating to Miyazawa stories, one is called Restaurants of Many Orders which is about two very foolish hunters and the other is a story within Night of the Milky Way Railroad.)