This is the revised edition.
"In a place where despite the frigid air, memories and feelings of the past would unexpectedly thaw."
Sakura pulled the edge of her deep green cloak tighter to her neck as her feet moved on the path in the snow of which they had trudged through for the entirety of the day as the entered the uninhabited lands of which where the icy crossways between Konoha and what had been discovered by ANBU to be the Sound. Neji and Shikamaru lumbered close behind.
"Sakura-san," Neji sped up to talk with her, "Its getting dark, we should find camp ground."
She slowed her footfall before hesitantly agreeing, "Yea, I guess you're right, I just hoped that we would have made it into the sound before dark. It's getting uncomfortably cold out." Though she admit ably was a warm weather person, the gelid air skimmed any longing thoughts of trailing her once tangible teammate.
"We'll be able to make it to the village by early noon if we leave in the morning. There's no use now in continuing though. The weather is just going to make it more difficult to travel. We can use our chakra to keep warm. Setting up a fire would be too easy to set ourselves up as a target." Shikamaru had it planned out as usual.
"Neji, you still need me to heal your arm right?" Sakura turned her eyes over to him.
Neji's arm was concealed beneath his cloak. He had cracked the bone when a group of bandits pulled a surprise attack maybe an hour earlier. Neji's stubbornness caused the healing to have been placed on hold until they had reached their next stop, already being off track because of the skirmish. "Yeah." His breath brought imagery to his heaved word in the form of erupting clouds, fading after a small moment.
She nodded, "It will only take a moment after we settle."
They found a decently sized patch of which was relatively snow free because of the strong branches of the surrounding trees. Set up only took them ten minutes, their three sleeping bags arranged neatly before Sakura began healing Neji's arm, the task not taking more than one minute.
Shikamaru spoke while taking his pack off and settling it beside his sleeping bag, "We need to watch our chakra levels. I suggest we go one at a time and keep the others warm, that way when we switch the person before can rest. Then in the morning, rather than all of us being a little depleted, there will only be one."
Sakura nodded in agreement.
Neji slipped into his navy sleeping bag, before speaking "Besides, we should take turns keeping an eye out. Maybe I should go first?"
"No, it's ok, I'll go first. I'm not really tired yet. Besides, you should rest." Sakura utilized her sleeping bag so that it would cover her knees as she sat between her temporary team mates.
"Ok, just wake me up around 12, or just when you start to feel tired." Neji settled down, facing away from her.
"Whoever is last to go will be able to rest in the morning while the other two plan and prepare." Shikamaru commented as her settled face up into his sleeping bag.
Sakura nodded as she rested one hand over each of them, her chakra flowing lightly at a steady rate, keeping then warm. "Do you think that he'll still be there in the morning?"
Shikamaru looked toward Neji, who was already starting to drift off, "The truth is that he may not be. But, we should be able to follow his trail, especially with this snow."
She sighed, expecting the answer, but still not pleased with it, "I feel like Naruto-kun should be here."
"Hm!" he let out a small laugh accompanied by a grin, "Maybe, but the confrontation that would probably happen between the two of them would probably make things more difficult."
"I guess you're right," she smiled, her chakra still strong.
"You know," he thought, looking up to the wintering sky, "You should start to worry more about yourself."
"Pardon?" she tilted her head lightly.
"You take care of healing everyone with the exception of yourself. It's not my business, but you need to be healed to. We can all see your hurt."
She forced a smile to avoid the acknowledgement, "Get some sleep. We just have to trust that we'll find him."
"Yep." He sighed as he closed his eyes preparing to fall fully asleep.
Once they had drifted off, Sakura relaxed her chakra slightly, wanting to conserve what she could. She sat there for about an hour, ruminating over what Shikamaru had apprised to her prior to nodding off. She had thought that she hid her pain relatively well. She still met up with everyone on get togethers, laughed at Naruto and Sai's quarrels and contentions. She rolled her eyes playfully or sometimes even exaggeratingly repulsed Naruto's constant quests for her to go on a date with him. She thought she had disguised her pain and worry, but perhaps the eyes never really can hind internal wounds. Her concentration digressed to Neji and Shikamaru's placid slow breathing , no sound beyond the nights hum to be heard. That was, until there was sound of movement to the left of her in the woods. Her head shot up to the direction of the sound, looking through her minimal vision of the night and seeing nothing. She held her breath when another crack echoed into her ears.
She abruptly halted her flow of chakra, looking over to Neji and gently shaking his shoulder, "Neji-kun," she could feel the depleted levels of the potent energy raking at her muscles as the moved.
He awoke within a second, "What's wrong?" He could already tell from her expression something wasn't right.
"I heard something over to the left of the woods, can you see anything?"
His eyes paled to white while the veins surrounding them constricted, he scanned the area, "I can't see any sign of chakra anywhere." He scanned over once more as his ears perked, "But, I hear something too."
Sakura turned to Shikamaru without hesitation, nudging him as she had Neji, "Shikamaru-kun, wake up."
He turned over and leaned on his elbows, "What's going on?"
"There's something out there." Neji stood, soon followed by Sakura and Shikamaru.
"Should we split up and go look?"
"Splitting up might not be such a great idea." Shikamaru scratched his head groggily.
"We can all sense one another's chakra, if we just search the proximity then we should be able to know if the other is in trouble." Neji's byakugan retracted.
Shaking his head, Shikamaru spoke, "If you can't see any chakra then that means either a) it's nothing to worry about, or b) it's something to seriously worry about; or rather, someone, someone with an ability to mask their chakra." He paused in thought "This could mean that this is Sas-"
"-he's past this area already, we know that. Why would he back track?" Sakura hushed her voice.
"Maybe he noticed us." Neji responded, shifting to Shikamaru's side.
Another sound came from the opposite direction, "Listen," Sakura started, "I'd rather go look than not. And if the sound is coming from more than one direction, then we might as well split."
Shikamaru crossed his arms and sighed, "I'd rather not span out all over, your chakra levels are still decent, right?"
"Yes." She lied. She wasn't the weak girl she used to be.
"Neji, you're alright?"
"I am. My energy is a bit low, but I'm fine." He nodded toward Shikamaru through the dense night.
"Ok, I'm low on energy, so Neji and I will team up and head north. Sakura, if you feel alright then head north east. Let's agree not to travel far. I don't want any incidents happening tonight. If it's just bandits then we'll be fine, but we don't know." Shikamaru headed north, Neji soon at his side. "Meet back here within forty five minutes."
"Gotcha." Sakura whispered before slipping on her black gloves and heading north-west. Her foot-fall was near silent as she agilely made way through the dark and toward the sound, until any movement stopped for five minutes. She panned her field of vision, seeing no movement, hearing no movement. Her eyes shifted to the near branches, but nothing was visible. She held her breath, assuming that whoever had been out there was aware of her presence, and was acting accordingly to try and shake her off. That wouldn't work with her though.
So she had thought. A hand pulled out from behind her and gripped over her mouth, the other arm swung around her waist, pulling her arms tight to her sides. She struggled, having no excess room to move as the assailant dragged her through the snow of which was seeping into her boots. Realizing there was no chance of her being released with the struggle tactic, she hushed her movement enough for the attacker to drag her without a great deal of struggle. The lack of precaution on the assailant's part told her that he couldn't be one with much brain, and should be relatively easy to overcome. With a quick bend of her knees and the assumption that her assailant would squeeze tightly in response to her sudden movement, she concentrated a decent level of chakra into her feet and slammed them into the snow blanketed ground.
She heard a grunt released from behind her as they stumbled, the attackers balance thrown off enough to crash into the snow with her on top. She rolled off, quickly rising to her feet and taking proper stance, kunai quickly pulled out into one hand, chakra loading in the other. The assailant rose and she pushed forward, her fist cutting through the black night, ready to close in on him. But, something went wrong. The punch passed through the darkness without hitting a thing, throwing Sakura in the direction of her uninterrupted punch. She hated the law of inertia. She fell to the ground, hearing two pairs of feet shuffling in the snow. Before she had near a second of chance to stand, she felt the air pressure around her change with the presence of a leg on either side of her; an arm extended and struck the side of her neck. Everything faded as she dizzied, the echoing crunch of boots in the snow around her only lasting momentarily.
The next chapter is more angsty I swear. Afterall how can one not be angsty with the raven haired, sable eyed nukenin pressing uncomfortably close to you?
Ok, ok, that's not the point of this here message. Reviews please! I want to know how the newer version is going, though so far only minor tweaks have been implemented, the next chapter is going to be more reconstructed since that's where I wanted to reconstruct in the first place. Just had to get the prior chapters to harmoniously coincide with that whole new concept.
Tips and critique are always welcomed, just dont make me bawl my eyes out.