Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto and I am simply a remora fish.

Author's Note: Thank you so much to all who have reviewed, favourited and followed since last time's chapter! Special mention must go to KARASU25 again, who wrote such wonderful reviews, and to Rosebunse, who has been very encouraging. It's difficult to keep up the stamina, but with your help, I managed to get this out. I would really like to hear some of your views on the way this Konoha is turning out. Some of it, like the cloaks and visors, and the Grey Cross, surprised even me. I hope you enjoy this installment!

Air stirred. Something brushed past him on its way towards the entrance. Suigetsu opened one eye, but whatever it was had already gone.

He stretched, yawned, and leaned his head against the cool handle of the blade in his hands. It was still the early hours of dawn. There was a thin film of condensation on the metal and the air was fresh.

From the back of the cave came a loud cough and a shuddering breath.

"For crying out loud, Karin, just chuck it up already!"

"Shut up, Suigetsu," she croaked back. Karin raised her hand and stuck up her middle finger at him. She was lying under her longcoat, with Suigetsu's longcoat rolled up and pillowed under her head. "Go outside. You're making my head ache just being in here."

"You know what? I think I'll do just that."

Suigetsu pushed himself to his feet, then stopped, and suddenly looked wide-eyed around the cave. His eyes fell to the ground, where a line of footsteps curved their way out of the cave, just grazing the spot where he had been sleeping. Had not Suigetsu been a ninja and trained in how ninjas walked, he would have missed them. They were light and barely scuffed the dust.

Suigetsu dashed to the mouth of the cave. He stared out at the pines and the grass, but there was no trace of a ninja's passing. The only sounds coming from the forest were birdsong and creaking branches.

"Sasuke's gone."

Juugo was leaning against the cave mouth with his cloak wrapped about him against the chill. The man was shivering.

"He's gone?" Suigetsu repeated blandly. "Where?"

Juugo squinted up at him. "He's not the kind who says."

Suigetsu looked around the clearing one more time then sighed. He stabbed the blade down into the soil. "So, he's finally gone and left us. Hah!" he laughed. "Great! That suits me fine! I'll start getting my things together then. It's about time this band of crazies split up."

"He'll be coming back."

Suigetsu narrowed his eyes. "How do you know?"

Juugo indicated something in the cave with a jut of his chin. "He left his chokuto behind."

There was a large flat stone near the cave entrance, and Sasuke's blade was tucked beneath, bundled up in his Akatsuki cloak. Juugo coughed gently into his fist and closed his eyes. Suigetsu frowned. "You think he'll come back for that?"

"Sasuke's officially a rogue ninja. It would be dangerous to leave behind traces of camp," Juugo said levelly. "And he wouldn't leave behind clothing that could be used to track him by scent."

Juugo burst into a stream of coughs. He turned away from Suigetsu and buried his face in his hands. Suigetsu glared at him in disgust. "What the hell is wrong with you and Karin anyway?"

Juugo wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "I'm not sure I want to know."

"Well, I hope you both die," said Suigetsu gleefully, beaming at Juugo. "Out of everybody I've ever met, I hate the two of you the most, you and Karin. I hate this whole freak troop. I especially hope you die, Juugo."

Juugo scowled but Suigetsu could see he was smiling. "You're going to watch over the two of us and make sure we do, eh?"

"Yep," said Suigetsu, sitting down at the cave entrance. "Until Sasuke gets back, I'm going to sit here, and get my full entertainment out of seeing you two dying, slow, boring deaths."

It wasn't as though they actually were going to die, Suigetsu told himself, as Juugo took another wheezing breath. It was just a cold or a flu that Karin had picked up from one of the towns they had passed through to get food. He'd probably caught it himself by now. His chest was feeling a tight and he was clearing his throat more often than he usually did.

Suigetsu cleared his throat then lightly coughed into his hand.

The light of dawn filtered down through the trees. Inside the dark cave, Karin tasted blood in her mouth. She told herself that she must have bitten her tongue in the night. She had to hold out, she urged herself, she had to hold out. She refused to die at a time when Sasuke wasn't there.

The Grey Cross meeting point was outside the Hokage's office in a large white tent. As Naruto waited outside, twiddling his thumbs behind his back, he noted the appearance of the people going past him. There were a lot of chuunin blues and several jounin reds, but what struck him most was the number of people there from the Hyuuga clan. There were blank silver eyes everywhere he looked.

Naruto was beginning to wonder if he had accidentally walked into a clan meeting when a voice called his name. He looked up to see a tall figure in red coming towards him and waved, "Hey, Neji! Long time no see!"

Neji's eyes were about as expressive as pebbles, but Naruto could tell that, just for a moment, Neji had smiled. "It's been a while, Naruto, but we will have to save the catching up for later. Follow me."

Inside the tent were rows of tables with a small queue of ninjas at each one. At the sight of Naruto without a cloak and a visor there were some stares and pointing fingers. Naruto had expected that. Tsunade had sent round a message to the leader of the Grey Cross explaining that he had chosen to opt-out of the hazard suit and visor. What he hadn't expected was the looks of pity instead of the hostility he usually garnered.

"Why are they looking at me like that?" he whispered to Neji as they got in line at the third desk from the entrance.

Neji glanced over his shoulder. "They pity you for being so stupid and reckless that you're dashing towards an early death."

"Hey, easy on the stupid!" retorted Naruto.

"Ignore them, Naruto," said Neji, turning back to face the front. "They'll give you space once you start working. Space comes from respect."

The man at the counter was a silver-eyed Hyuuga. He gave out a small file to every pair that came to the desk and handed one to Neji when they reached him.

"Ah, a new member," the man said, when he caught sight of Naruto. "Wait a moment."

He leaned under the desk and fumbled in a box. When he came up, he was holding a strip of grey linen in his hands. "Here's your armband, young man."

"Thanks." Naruto took the linen and stared at it. "Hey, Neji?"

"What is it?" Neji stopped flicking through the file and looked up.

"This cross symbol, isn't this the Hyuuga Caged Bird seal?"

"Let me guess. The Hokage told you everything about the Grey Cross, but it's all gone in one ear and out the other?" As Naruto nodded frantically, Neji closed his eyes and sighed. He held out a wicker basket. It was the same kind as the one Lee was carrying on his back the other day. "Get this strapped on. I'll humour you just this once."

Naruto felt cheated. He had thought the Grey Cross was a kind of goodwill service. He had thought they went knocking to check up on locked in ninja families, see how they were coping, be a morale booster and reassure them that the outside world still cared about them. To be honest, he had found it hard to imagine Hyuuga Neji on such a corps, but who knew how people had changed since the Plague had begun.

As they walked through Konoha, Neji told Naruto a very different story.

"Do you know about the Runners?" Neji began, as they began to come out of the main town and into the residential area. The streets were quiet. "I take that as a no. They're volunteers distributing packages of rice and amenities, like soap and toothpaste, to the locked in ninja families."

"Like Rock Lee," Naruto said, after a thought.

"Yes," Neji confirmed with a nod, "like Lee. And Guy-sensei too."

The first requirement for the family to declare themselves locked in was to install a flap at the bottom of their front door, like a cat flap or a letter slot. When the Runner arrived, he would ring the doorbell, push his package inside the house, and then listen for signs of life on the other side. If he heard no response or got no indication that the parcel had been collected, the Runner would paint a large grey cross over the door.

"That's where we come in," explained Neji. He took out the file they had been given in the tent and held it up for Naruto to see. "This is a list of houses marked with a cross by Runners in this district. At the beginning, the Grey Cross was made up fifty percent by my clan. We would travel – one Hyuuga and one non-Hyuuga – around the marked houses, and use the byakugan to see inside the houses of the potentially infected family and find out what the situation was. The byakugan could identify ninjas in the second or third stage of the disease from changes in their chakra system, and find out who was alive or dead."

If the family was dead, the Grey Cross ninja would break into the house and prepare the bodies for wagon collection. If they were dying, they would make a report, take it to the hospital and put them on a list for the traveling medic-nins to visit. If the Runner had made a mistake, then the Grey Cross ninja could happily paint over the mark on the door and move on.

Once the Hyuuga started succumbing to the Plague, the Grey Cross began to employ any ninja with talent for sensing chakra, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to find recruits. Neji had heard terrible stories from his cousins about what they had found behind the doors of locked in families. No doubt those stories had filtered into the awareness of the Konoha populace. That was unfortunate.

Neji gripped the strap of his basket. Naruto, training up in the Myoboku Mountains, had not heard about what Grey Cross ninjas came across on a nearly weekly basis. Neji wanted to feel bad that Tsunade had made use of Naruto's ignorance, but he couldn't and he didn't.

"Are you listening, Naruto?" he snapped.

Naruto looked round from reading one of the posters pinned on the wall. "Sure I am."

"Liar," said Neji shortly. "Try repeating what I just said."

Naruto sucked in a deep breath. "The Cross uses chakra sensors to see into locked in houses to find out if people are dead then break in to get the body out."

Neji shot Naruto a look of intense irritation. They came to a block of flats. "Good," Neji conceded, "and the official term for a member of the Grey Cross is a - ?"

"Hyuuga?"

"A Marksman," Neji intoned. "Because we follow the marks the Runners leave. Remember it. Now before we come to the first house on our list, any questions?"

"Neji," Naruto started somewhat awkwardly, as Neji checked the address in front of him with the one in the file. "If there are a lot of Hyuugas in the Grey Cross, is Hinata a Marksman as well?"

At the mention of Hinata's name, Neji flinched. His grip on the address sheet became white-knuckled. "She isn't a Marksman," he said, after a hesitation. "Hinata's at the main house."

Naruto felt a giddy rush of relief that Hinata was alive, but there was something in Neji's tone that made him ask, "How come? Is she alright?"

"She's perfectly healthy," said Neji, fixing Naruto with a steely glare that dared him to argue. "Thanks to the Konoha elders."

The Konoha elders had been against the Grey Cross being set up from the very instant it had been proposed. They feared the political influence the Hyuuga clan would gain from it. There was speculation that the Hyuugas would develop the Cross into their own private army and take advantage of the chaos of the Plague to seize control of Konoha. It was same fear the elders had had of the Uchiha clan.

On the other hand, every ninja was a weapon to its village and with the mighty sharingan now few and far between, the only great doujutsu left was the byakugan of the Hyuuga. The Konoha elders wanted to preserve it for the sake of Konoha's security. If they had had their way, they would have locked up the entire Hyuuga clan away from contact with the sick.

After a meeting between the Hyuuga clan head and the elders, they came to a compromise – only half of the Hyuuga clan would be involved in forming the Grey Cross. The other half would be locked away and protected in the main Hyuuga house. It was chosen by lucky ballot. Neji still remembered the moment he opened his slip of paper and the moment Hinata had opened hers.

"We Hyuuga Marksmen are exiled from our own clan effectively," Neji said bitterly, as they climbed the steps to the fourth floor. "We sleep in the Grey Cross tent at night. It's where we get our meals too. We'll be heading back there for lunch after this."

"At least Hinata's protected, Neji," Naruto remarked.

Neji snorted. "One of the first things you learn as a Marksman – you can lock yourself in all you like. It won't work for long."

"God, Neji! You make it sound like there's no point even trying. You're sounding like the destiny bore you were at the chuunin exams," Naruto cried out, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

"The Plague is inevitable for every ninja here. Your fate is sealed the moment your throat begins to tickle and your fingertips freeze. When Tenten found out I'd been balloted into the Grey Cross, she signed up to be my partner. Her father had wanted her to go into technical support with him to help them make more equipment for the hospital. She would've been away from all the sick and the dead if only she hadn't found out about the Ballot result." Neji's face twisted beneath the visor with unreadable emotions. "I still don't understand why she signed up to be my partner, but…Everybody hoped she would pull through. I tried to hope as well, and I learned that hope in plaguetime has an inevitable end in disappointment."

The first thing Kakashi did was divide up his own ninken and distribute them amongst the Inuzuka's dogs. Whatever the Inuzukas said about being able to understand their partners, and their partners them, it wasn't particularly helpful if Kakashi couldn't talk to them, so his own ninken would act as interpreters.

Inuzuka Hana had got together some of the more patient members of her clan, the less wild, the more steadfast, to help them. Between them, they chivvied the huge pack of milling dogs into eight smaller teams.

Next, Kakashi had to teach them the smell of the infected, and for that he was going to take them one group at a time amongst the hospital tents. He introduced the dogs to wet cough patients in stage two, and asked them to describe what they smelled. He took the dogs to the patients in stage three, which was the easiest stage to identify – the dogs bristled at the smell of blood. Many of the Inuzuka dogs cowered as well, saying they could smell Approaching Death, which, no matter how hard Kakashi tried to get them to describe, they could never do so.

"It's navy and cold, with iron and…slowness," one dog apparently said, wrinkling its nose. "It's like a butterfly," said another.

Finally, he took the packs of dogs to visit a group of civilian volunteers, who had been tested positive for a latent infection. The dogs snuffled at their hands. Their whiskers tickled their palms and many of the civilians burst into fits of giggles. The sound was somewhat jarring to Kakashi's ears in the midst of hacking coughs and gurgling breaths, so he quickly and quietly ducked out of the tent.

While he was standing outside and Hana took over the handling of the dogs, there was a gentle padding of paws, and Pakkun the crumpled-looking pug appeared beside him.

"Hello, Pakkun. Enjoying the training?" Kakashi said wryly, as he bent down to scratch the dog between his ears.

"Sure I'm enjoying the training," Pakkun deadpanned, before fixing Kakashi with an expression so serious Kakashi thought he was about to get bitten. "I've been thinking about this disease sickness plague thing, Kakashi…"

"What about it?"

"When you took us into the room with the third stage patients, I thought, just maybe, but, by the time we got round to the latents, I knew I was right," Pakkun continued cryptically. He locked eyes with his master. "I've smelled this sickness before, boss."

"It's a new strain, Pakkun. You can't have."

"A new strain? That must be why it smells a whole lot more vicious than before. "

Kakashi knelt down beside the dog and locked eyes with him. "You might have smelled the old strain then. Where do you think you smelled it?"

"The place where Sasuke fought with his brother," Pakkun said. "The rain had washed most of the traces away, but there was some of Uchiha Itachi's blood left on the ground. I remember it now. It was that. Uchiha Itachi's blood. That guy was infected with the old type bacteria, and well into the third stage of it. He must have been chucking up blood all through the fight. He was probably dying where he stood."

"Uchiha Itachi had the same illness as Kimimaro? Now that is interesting," said Kakashi to himself. He stroked his chin. All of a sudden, he felt as though he saw something. A flash of inspiration. A bolt of genius. Could it possibly be that….?

"Pakkun?" Kakashi said, feeling a strange electrical thrill of energy pass through him. "Tell Hana to repeat what I did with all the other packs and that I'll be back to test all the dogs later."

"Sure thing, boss. Where are you going?"

Kakashi's eye sparkled. "To visit Tsunade and tell her just how wonderful a ninken you are."

The name under the flat number read 'Tsuruya'. Beside the door was a small window of marbled glass. A lace blind had been pulled across it. Neji tried ringing the doorbell. There was no answer. Naruto tried ringing it three times more, but not a single sound came from the flat.

Above the doorway was a grey-white cross. The paint had run and dribbled down the face of the door, all the way to the bottom.

"Ready for this, Naruto?" Neji murmured out of the corner of his mouth. "Your first marked house."

"I came back to help. I have to be ready."

Neji closed his eyes. When he opened them, the blood vessels around his eyes were bulging: "Byakugan!"

He stared through the door. After a minute of hearing nothing but his own heart, drumming as though against the back of his mouth, Naruto tapped Neji on the shoulder. "See anything?"

Neji ignored him. He dropped down to the ground and pushed open the parcel flap at the base of the door to peer inside the flat. The blood instantly drained from his face.

"We need to break down this door immediately!"

Next time: Where has Sasuke gone? What's in the Tsuruya flat? And how will knowing about Uchiha Itachi's sickness, the old strain of Mycobacterium kimimarosis, be of any use?

Thanks for reading!