Struggle Chapter 8: And All Was Dark, a naruto fanfic

A/N: Here we go. Back on track.

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Sakura was curled up underneath the covers when Temari came back down from the roof. If she would have rolled over, she would have seen the light pink brushed across Temari's cheekbones, but she didn't even acknowledge Temari's presence in the room. As much as she knew it'd be a bad thing to be in such an argument during such a desperate stage, she couldn't help it.

Temari got into her bed, and turned off the lamp, causing the room to plunge into darkness. With a sigh, Sakura dropped the kunai she had been holding in her hands under the covers and let it drop to the floor. Ah, finally, a taste of reality.

The next morning, Sakura was the last one to crawl out of the hotel room, too late to understand what was going on as Temari argued desperately with both males. Sakura came up and stared expressionlessly at them, Inner Sakura raging beneath the surface.

"We need to continue on now. The longer we wait, the farther ahead they're going to get. I wouldn't even trust the pattern we had defined earlier, yeah sure it worked once, but they have to know we found it out. We need to track them before they change course!" She didn't even look a bit flustered, even as she argued with two men who seemed to be throwing her ideas out the window.

"It's no use going after anybody if we're not all rested up. You're not the only one injured, Temari-san." Kakashi said, placing a calming hand on her shoulder.

Temari shrugged it off roughly, but glanced at both Sakura and Naruto, who looked fairly tired and ready for another day off. She glowered, and fell silent, her gaze on the top of her shoe.

They could waste all the time they wanted, as far as Temari was concerned, but she had to continue tracking these "bandits", this whole mission was getting out of hand. She paused in her running to lean against a tree, not quite out of breath but feeling nauseated. It was a strange thing, even a day after the fight, a day after having her head bashed into the ground, she still felt the dizziness and nausea.

She was also getting clumsy. An annoying condition where she could barely run and not trip over a cliché tree root or small, sturdy brush. But that wasn't the worst part of it. The worst part was the headaches. Oh the headaches.

They came and went quickly, but when the came, they hurt, like a sludge hammer against the sides of her skull. Or sometimes, it'd be like a knife, twisting and turning inside of her smooth flesh. She knew she couldn't fight them in her condition, but she could follow them just as well. They had to stop sometimes; she'd get rest. But she'd have to make sure she was up before the rest of them.

She rubbed her temples, and sighed, wondering how long it'd take for the rest of the team to notice she was gone. However long that would take, she knew it'd take even less time to figure out where she had gone.

And thus, she had to move quickly.

Naruto, Kakashi, and Sakura stared at the empty bedroom belonging to Sakura and Temari. Temari's side of the room was striped clean of her belongings, and the bed made neatly, which tipped them off that her absence was something of her own will. Naruto was staring at the bed with an unreadable expression, causing Sakura to stare over at him with utmost concern.

It almost made her sick; the way she had ran off like that. She had made so much progress with Naruto, made him so much happier and suddenly she just ran off. No notice, no nothing. It was almost like Sasuke all over again. The pain was probably almost unbearable to him, the feeling of being betrayed all over again. She knew what this was like. She knew what it was like to lose the one you loved.

But unlike Sasuke, Temari was easily retrievable. She couldn't get too far with a concussion as bad as hers—you don't get your head smashed into the ground a couple dozen times and walk away with no problems. She'd have to rest. A lot. And Sakura couldn't imagine that she'd make it too far in her current condition.

Kakashi sighed with absolutely no enthusiasm compared to his usual upbeat attitude. He knew full well what would happen if Temari disappeared while underneath his command—not only would he be punished by Tsunade-sama, Konoha would probably lose a lot of it's connections with Suna. Connections they couldn't afford to lose in their time of lack military power. Tsunade-sama was already mission-happy as is, they didn't need to increase that "happiness".

"Well, we should get started." Kakashi told the two younger ninjas, turning away from the bedroom, "I'll check out. You two get started without me."

Sakura and Naruto exchanged glances, then nodded, both disappearing in one large puff of smoke.

Jiraiya sighed as he left Tsunade's office. This mission should have been taken by ANBU in the first place—not Team Kakashi, even with a Suna Jounin (who were notorious for being stronger than most of Konoha's Jounin, which may be an effect of living in peace for far too long before Orochimaru sent the Hidden Villages into a tangle).

Now he was sent off to fix her mistakes because she overlooked a crucial detail in the job description. Not that it was entirely her fault, she did a lot of research before she could have made that connection, but for now, all he could do was hope that Kakashi had taken a day off since their last encounter with the bandits.

And that he wasn't too late.

God how Temari hated her condition at this point. She moved slower than ever before, having to stop and either lean against a tree or sit down depending on the severity of her dizziness. She wasn't too concerned about it at the moment, moving was better for it than sitting down, she could go to sleep and never wake up.

But that wasn't the main issue at hand. The issue at hand was that the bandits were nearby and she couldn't do a thing about it. It was almost like they knew she was there, taunting her, always just out of reach like showing a steak to a dog on a chain. Not that she'd ever admit to ever being effected by such taunting; after all she was a ninja of iron will.

But not while a jackhammer was pounding her skull.

With a sigh she pushed herself off the tree and went on, and she knew the party just out of reach was doing the same.

Naruto delicately picked up the Suna headband that had been lying around in the dirt. It could be Temari's—fallen out of her pack or left behind on accident, if she had taken it off to try to pass as a normal woman. He rubbed his thumbs against the cool metal, staring at it for longer than he knew was necessary. He was trying to imagine was was going on inside of that Kunoichi's head.

He clutched it in his hand, and the rage welled up inside him. She wasn't going to make him break another promise. After all, he had said he'd protect her right?

And he'd do everything within his power to do just that.

Sakura stared at Naruto's shaking form, as he stared down at the headband clutched in his hand. It must hurt, for him to know that every second they wasted here was a risk, but having to stop anyway to wait for Kakashi-sensei's directions.

Finally, Kakashi spoke up, "This way." He took off, blurring out for a moment, and the two followed him, darting behind him.

Temari couldn't have made it far.

Kumori was travelling slower, much slower than he was used to. It was kind of fun, knowing you were letting someone on, watching them try desperately to catch up, dangling their goal in front of their nose, and watch them try to grab it. It was surprisingly fun. He never really thought that he'd consider that type of sadistic torture fun because of how boring it had seemed, just barely keeping out of their reach—kind of like a slow moving Keep Away game.

They stopped when she stopped, they continued when she continued. The thought of her current condition made him smile, of how much pain she must be in to keep up with them. But that was the part that made him anxious.

Why send someone as injured as her—and proven unable to take care of herself? It had to be some sort of trap that they were just barely tip-toeing around. They'd still have a chance even with all four them there, after all, only two of them were a worry—Hatake Kakashi and that kid with the weird chakra. The two girls could be disposed of fairly easily and quickly.

He sighed, almost disappointed it was about to end. "I guess we should take her out now." He mused aloud, causing everyone to stare blankly at him like deer in headlights. He rolled his eyes at their dumbfounded expressions, "The kunoichi, you idiots. The one that's been following us for miles."

The group exchanged glances before nodding.

Sakura stared ahead worriedly at Naruto's back. His chakra had been flaring up and returning to normal for awhile now. It was starting to worry her, the way he kept bouncing from a high to a normal, it was bound to exhaust him at some point, his body couldn't just keep taking that, blow after blow. Eventually it would break down, after all the human body wasn't really meant to release that much chakra in the first place anyway.

She saw Naruto pause ahead of them, standing rather still in the treetops, his gaze transfixed below. Sakura came to a rather harsh stop right next to him, but the branch below her didn't even shake. She looked down upon the scene, and winced.

"Ninpou Kamaitachi." Temari swung her fan again, but the wind strength amount was getting less and less as she continued on. It was getting rather annoying, the limitations her condition presented, and using up more chakra than necessary was just one of the more horrible ones.

Of course, along with splitting migraine came this incrediable bad aim. She didn't even think she got close to hitting him, but he seemed to humor her, and jump like he was dodging. It was awfully sadistic, the way he liked playing with her like this. He knew she'd never hit him, hell even she knew that.

Finally, she smoothly locked the fan into place into it's slim closed form. 'Why should I even try when I don't even get close to this guy. Every ninja is unfortunate enough to meet their match someday anyways. I was just really hoping I'd manage to become as old as Chiyo-sama and her brother…or even to the age of Tsunade.' She let the fan drop to the ground and held up her hands.

"Nobody's coming. I came alone." She spoke with a slight rasping from the dry throat syndrome she seemed to be suffering from. She licked her lips and swallowed some saliva in desperate attempt to get rid of it.

"All the better then."

Sakura surveyed the scene with apathy. Blood was strewn across the grass, and a folded up fan was laying in the middle of it all. The only thing missing was the body of Temari, which she persumed was taken away from the scene. She glanced over at Naruto. 'How tragic for him…' She thought, not letting her eyes stray away from Naruto's figure.

Naruto jumped down into the clearing, the Kyuubi spoke gently to him in his velvety voice. Although gentle, Naruto found he didn't like the words it was speaking to him; as he examined the place.

That happened to him sometimes. The random voice in the back of his head he knew had to belong the the Kyuubi. The alternative was believing himself to be entirely insane, with voices in his head telling him to do things. Not that an evil nine-tailed demon that was sealed inside of his stomach somehow talking to him inside his head was any better. But it made it seem just a little more normal.

He kicked a rock hard against a tree. The rock was big enough it caused a rather large crack in the trunk, causing the Kyuubi to chuckle. 'Shut up, kitsune…'

You first, kid.

It didn't really talk that much, the Kyuubi. But when it did, it was hardly ever useful. It was like having a cousin come visit once a month with a rather large hammer that they used to pound against the side of your skull while he managed to annoy the hell out of you with abnoxious laughter at the same time.

You need a therapist, has anyone ever told you that?

So he wasn't mentally stable anymore, so what? Naruto sighed and sat down in the grass, paying no attention to the slick material that stained his clothes, skin, and even the grass beneath him. He knew Temari wasn't dead, they would have left something other than her fan behind, a warning or something.

Sakura approached him, slowly but confidently, "I'm sorry Naruto. We're too late." Naruto shook his head at her, causing her to sigh, "Naruto, there's nothing left here." She gestured around her, "There's blood. There's her fan. There's no body. They obviously fled with her body."

Naruto shook his head again, "She's alive. I can feel it."

Sakura glanced down at him, and the Kyuubi chuckled again, barely able to contain himself.

You guys are better than mid-day soap operas.

'Oh shut up already…'

When Temari woke up, it was dark. Or it could have been a blind fold. She was too cold to notice or care, as her fingers expressed their deep protests at being half-way frozen to death. She flexed them slowly, and the joints popped, almost like she hadn't moved for a decade. She nimbly managed to to use her elbow to prop the rest of her body up, until she was leaning against a hard, cold wall behind her.

The darkness, she realized, was neither the sky nor a blindfold. It was just deep, dark nothingness. Her fingers desperately felt the ground beneath her, and she let out a breath in relief as she came contact with the rough surface.

'Where the hell is this?' She wiped some dried blood from the side of her head, and winced. 'Jeez, this is the second time this week. I'm going to have a big gaping scar on the side of my face if people keep deciding it's a good idea to KICK ME IN THE FUCKING HEAD.' She surprised herself by wincing at her own thoughts as it seemed to echo around her head and pound against the boundries. She let out a groan, and leaned her head against the wall behind her. She was almost frightened when she broke the silence, but it soon returned to a dull, eerie silence.

A/N: I normally wouldn't have cut it off right here, but good lord, this took forever because of personal issues… x.x. Finally up though. Thank God. : D