Chapter Two.
Sakura's eyes fluttered open and she smacked her lips; the taste of the medicine she had instructed Shikamaru to make was still in her mouth. He had used more tea leaves than she would have liked, but the stuff had done the trick. Her fever was gone and aside from some stiffness, she was back to full health.
There was some guilt residing in her as well. She hadn't gone out of her way to get over her fever, wanting a bit of a break from her training and using illness as an excuse. If she had gotten back on her feet in a prompt manner, she might have been outside when the rain came. Being a slacker had saved her life, while her friends and family had perished.
Still too numb to fully accept all of that, she sat up and looked around for Shikamaru. He was sitting with his back to her door, his head down and eyes closed. Hearing her bed creak as she got up, he looked up at her. His eyes were red around the edges, and Sakura wondered if he had been crying while she was asleep.
"Ready to go check the Hokage's office?" Sakura asked.
"As ready as I'll ever be," he said. "I didn't see anyone in the window when I first looked. The place was wrecked, but being the office of the Hokage, it's likely there's a hidden door that either Tsunade or Shizune might have used to go somewhere."
"Then lets go and get it over with," Sakura said.
Shikamaru stood and Sakura followed him up the stairs. The door to her parents bedroom was shut, saving her the urge to glance inside for one last look. They had been dead for a little while, and Sakura was sure it wouldn't make for a pretty sight. Using a window at the end of the hall, they made their way onto the roof; an easy feat for ninjas.
It was early in the morning and what Sakura had taken to be dew on the roof was actually the purple substance that had caused all of this. She frantically began brushing it off her hands and onto her shorts, but Shikamaru shook his head. "Casual contact won't hurt you," he said. "You've got to be practically soaked in the stuff, or bitten, for it to take effect."
Sakura pinched her fingers together, feeling the stuff. It seemed thinner now and the putrid smell had changed somewhat…it still smelled of rotten meat, but there was a difference. "I think it might have lost its effect since it came down," she said, knowing that some substances did that. "I wish I knew what it was…people were saying that it was an attack from Hidden Rain."
Shikamaru shrugged, looking towards the mountain depicting the faces of past Hokages. "If it was an attack by Rain, then it came from the wrong direction."
"They could have launched it from somewhere else, to throw us off," Sakura said, wondering if she should even bother discussing such things with someone as smart as Shikamaru.
"They could have, yes," he said. "But if that's the case, then they didn't know how effective it would be. It hit us so hard, there's really no need to be sneaky about it. It's not like we'll be able to retaliate anytime soon…or ever."
Walking up to the peak of the roof and looking over Konoha, Shikamaru's words rung true. Far from being deserted, the streets were teeming with movement. Slow, aimless, hungry, movement. What looked like everyone in the village was out milling around; their skin tinted purple as they searched for something to eat.
Sakura had to look away from those who had found something, lest she vomit. Every dead body had with it five or six zombies crowding around it. Most got down on all fours and simply chewed at the corpse like stray dogs, while a few had ripped off a body part or a lump of guts, then retreated to a corner to dine.
"Oh, God," Sakura said, unable to hold back vomit. She turned away from him and expelled some of the medicine she had taken earlier. Her stomach hurt as she began dry heaving, and she was forced to sit down.
"You get used to it pretty quick," Shikamaru said. "I lost my lunch when I got a good look at the town too."
Sakura got up, resolving not to vomit again. Taking deep breaths, she rejoined Shikamaru at the peak of the roof. "Okay, lets go," she said, running down the roof and leaping over onto the next in the direction of the Hokages office, near the base of the cliff with the carved faces.
The rooftops were much slicker than Sakura had anticipated and she nearly slipped. Using her chakra to get a grip, she soon had no trouble making her way across the roofs of the ruined village.
When the reached the building they hoped to find somebody alive in, her heart sank. The street outside as well as what looked like the first floor, were swarming with zombies. Many had made kills in the street and were eating. She felt the urge to puke again, but fought it down.
There was a telephone wire stretching from the building they were on to the one they wanted to be in. Aside from that, the only other way was to head down the street a few blocks and hop over to the side the Hokage building was on. "Will that wire hold our weight?" Sakura whispered, pointing.
"I don't know," Shikamaru said. "I'll try it. I'm heavier than you, so if it holds me, you should be fine."
She stood in front of him as he walked towards the wire. "Are you crazy, why take the chance? Lets just go down a few blocks where there aren't so many."
Shikamaru rolled his eyes and looked bored. "There are zombies down there too. Less maybe, but it's dangerous either way. We need to take care of this quick."
Sakura gritted her teeth. Even in a nightmare such as this, with all that had happened, Shikamaru was as lazy as ever. "Alright, fine. You go first, and don't expect me to jump down there and save you if you fall."
The corner of Shikamaru's mouth twitched into a smile. "Same old Sakura," he said, walking around her towards the wire. He tested it with his foot and feeling confident, began walking across; his chakra more than any sense of balance keeping him from falling off.
The wire sagged and shook, as Shikamaru plodded along, keeping an eye to the ground in case he fell and needed to fight for his life. His passage did not go unnoticed by the dead bellow. Those who had pushed off corpses by stronger, more aggressive zombies all looked up and stretched their arms upward. When they began wailing, Sakura thought she might go insane.
She didn't recognize anyone from the crowd, except for possibly the owner of the ramen noodle stand Naruto loved to eat at so often. It was the first time she had put any serious thought about who might still be alive. She found herself making a list of priorities; ranking those who she hoped to see the most. Naruto, Ino, Tsunade, maybe even Rock Lee.
She forced it from her mind when Shikamaru reached the other side of the wire. She had no choice in who had lived or died, and would simply have to take what she got. With a sigh, she followed in Shikamaru's footsteps across the wire.
As with Shikamaru, the wire sagged and swayed a little as she walked, her chakra keeping her from falling. Looking down at the screaming, bloodstained crowd, she couldn't help but notice that they were getting closer. She also noticed the sound of the telephone wire grinding against wood as her weight ripped it from the wall behind her.
"Sakura!" Shikamaru shouted as she tumbled off the wire towards the dozens of hungry mouths bellow. She could think of nothing to do but focus chakra into her arm and fist, a technique Tsunade had shown her that would give her massive amounts of strength.
Hitting the ground knuckles first with all of her considerable might, she sent a powerful shockwave radiating outward, knocking the zombies off their feet. With them briefly out of commission, she looked to the telephone wire to see of there was any hope of her climbing up it to where Shikamaru was.
Although he was on the balcony waving for her to climb the wire, she opted against it. The zombies were getting to their feet quickly and crawling over the ripples in the ground she had made. Drawing two kunai, she bolted for the side of the building. Jumping into the air, she delivered two swift kicks to the faces of two zombies, knocking them over into other zombies. Hitting the ground running, she drove her kunai into the temple of a female zombie, pulling it out as she collapsed.
When she reached the wall, there was no turning back. She couldn't risk another ground strike this close to the building, worried she might collapse it. She briefly wondered if she should simply break through the wall, but decided not too, not knowing what was on the other side. Instead, she opted to use finesse. Focusing chakra into her feet, she ran up the side of the wall, topping out onto the same balcony Shikamaru stood on.
She sat down, catching her breath and sheathing her kunai after wiping it off. "Sakura, are you alright?" Shikamaru said, running over.
"I'm fine," she said, looking down and breathing heavily, more from terror than exhaustion. "I wasn't bitten."
"Sorry. We should've gone down a few blocks and crossed to this side where there weren't so many of them."
"Don't worry about it," she said. "You're right, we might not have much time to find whoever might be hiding."
"No, it's not alright," Shikamaru said. "It was a stupid risk and it almost cost you your life. I should've known better."
"I didn't have to listen," she said, slightly louder than she had intended. It was difficult to be heard over the wails of the zombies bellow, some of which were articulating words and sentences; not at all a comforting thought.
"let's just check inside," Shikamaru said. "If nothing else, I can get my head on straight. The noise is starting to bug me."
Sakura agreed and followed him in through a door seemingly meant to be used by shinobi who were used to making their way around via rooftops. It lead directly into Tsunade's office, where the morning light shined over a chaotic scene. Papers littered the floor, obscuring the carpet while chairs and file cabinets were turned over. Sitting at Tsunade's desk was Shizune, her bloody face buried deep within Tonton's body, eating what was inside.
Shizune looked up, her purple and blood stained face seemed to twist and brighten at the sight of human meat. Leaving the pig on the table, she stood up, knocking the chair she was sitting in over. "Meat!" she shouted, running around the desk towards the two.
Shikamaru was quick to throw a kunai through her eye socket, killing her. Sakura could almost feel her mind doing its best to reject what she had just seen. She had learned a lot from Shizune over the past year, and had always liked Tonton. Seeing them this way was too much; in a way, she was glad Shikamaru had killed her.
"Shizune," Sakura said, feeling hot tears come to her eyes as Shikamaru removed his kunai from Shizune's head. He did it gently, with respect. Somehow that made it worse to look at.
"I didn't see her when I looked through the window from across the street the other day," Shikamaru said, dryly. "I'm not sure what that means."
Sakura didn't want to think about what it meant. Doing so would mean thinking about what Shizune was before the rain fell; a person. A skilled medical ninja who cared, had been reduced to a single-minded corpse that only wanted to eat meat. "Let's just look for that secret passage you think might exist," she said, wishing she hadn't sounded so sarcastic.
Rolling his eyes, Shikamaru began searching the walls on the far side of the room, while Sakura arranged Shizune and Tonton's bodies on the floor next to one another. There was nothing to cover their corpses with, so she helped Shikamaru in his search.
They didn't find any seams in the wall, nor was there anything in the room that turned out to be a switch. "Nothing," Sakura said. "We could try searching the building…"
"We're not done yet," Shikamaru said, looking at the ceiling. "There, that panel in the ceiling." He pointed to a spot above Sakura's head. She looked up and saw that one of the ceiling tiles was slightly ajar.
Sakura dragged over a chair and was about to stand on it when Shikamaru laid a hand on her shoulder. "Careful, there's no telling what's up there."
Nodding, Sakura drew a kunai and stood up on the chair. Sliding the panel back, ready to stab, she looked to see if there was some kind if escape route through the ceiling. It was dark above the panels, but she could make out something grey and metallic just over the lip of the ceiling. She reached up, grabbed it, and pulled. Whatever it was, it was solid and seemed like it would hold her weight.
"I think we found it," she said, looking at Shikamaru. "It looks like someone could climb up into here."
"I knew there had to be something like that here," Shikamaru said. "Looks like it was used, too."
"Do you think Tsunade escaped?" Sakura asked.
Looking down at Shizune's corpse, Shikamaru grimaced and looked away. "I guess that's one possible scenario," he said. "I'd be careful crawling in there though. The Hokage might not exactly be in her right mind and she might mistake you for a zombie."
"I'll be careful," she said, hoisting herself up into the ceiling with one arm. It was dark, but she could feel the steel platform in front of her leading into the depths of the building. "Are you coming up too?"
She couldn't see Shikamaru, but something told her he had taken one last look at the body of Shizune before stepping up onto the chair. "Right behind you," he said.
Not blaming him for not wanting to be in the same room with Shizune's body, Sakura began crawling forward, mindful of spots where the platform might suddenly give out and send her tumbling down into what could possibly be a roomful of hungry zombies.
They crawled for several minutes. The steel support they moved across took many sharp angles, but thankfully didn't branch off into different paths. Sakura had no clue where she was in the building, but knew she had reached the end of her journey when her head thumped hard into the wall.
"Ouch!" she said, rubbing her sizable forehead. She felt Shikamaru's head briefly bump her rear and heard him recoil backward, nearly falling off into the soft tiles of the ceiling bellow. "It's the end."
"Look for a handle or a button or something," Shikamaru said.
Sakura ran her hand over the wall, feeling the rough wood. There was a gap near the bottom she slid her fingers under and pulled. The wall swung upward, revealing that it was a little door, big enough to admit one human if he or she crawled.
Light flooded the area and Sakura had to blink. Before she was able to see, she felt a pair of hands grip her by the shoulders and pull her though as though she weighed nothing. The next thing Sakura knew, she was flat on her back, winded, looking up at Tsunade.
Her sensei was holding a kunai and looking down on her with a scowl. Sakura thought she might be a zombie for a brief moment, but there was no purple tint to her skin. Tsunade looked form Sakura to Shikamaru and lowered her blade. "Sorry," she said, sitting down on a stool.
Sakura sat up and looked around. The room she was in was lined with monitor screens depicting various spots all over Konoha. While the video images were not a pretty sight in the least, the room was tidy and surprisingly spacious. There looked to be a door for a bathroom, a small kitchen, and boxes of what looked like food. "What is this place?" Sakura asked, standing.
"It's basically a panic room," Tsunade said. Her face was ashen and her normally bright eyes seemed dull and red-rimmed. "If there's some kind of disaster, the Hokage can, if she so desires, retreat to here and issue orders as need be, hence all the screens you see."
"How long have you been here?" Shikamaru asked, climbing into the room.
"Since Shizune…" Tsunade began, only her eyes began to tear up and she buried her face in her hands. "I couldn't…had to run…"
Neither knew what to say about Shizune, only that it might not be a good idea to mention that they had killed her. "Is anyone else alive?" Sakura asked.
Tsunade gave one hard sob and seemed to compose herself. "I don't know," she said. "The monitors…I can't look at them for very long."
Sakura could see why. Each screen was showcasing a scene of unimaginable horror. Mostly it was crowds of dead people moving, searching for food, getting into half-hearted, short scuffles. A few screens showed groups of zombies that had found food; those, Sakura couldn't look at.
"I'm sorry," Tsunade said, sounding a little bit more like herself. "I'm the Hokage and I'm falling apart. Is it only you two?"
"So far as we know," Shikamaru said.
"Well…I'm glad you're alive," she said. "I suppose you're wondering what we should do."
Sakura nodded. "I was thinking we should try to find other survivors. Maybe work on a cure…"
"No," Tsunade said. "There's no cure. They're dead. There's no cure for dead."
Sakura gulped, not expecting such an abrupt and final answer. "Alright, but…"
"Yes," Tsunade said, "survivors. We should round up anyone left alive in the village and then get out."
"That's why we came here," Shikamaru said. "I've been all over town, traveling by rooftop, and Sakura was the only person I was able to find. The only reason we're here now is because we guessed lucky."
Tsunade crossed her arms and looked at the two of them. Sakura wasn't sure if it was pride or skepticism on the woman's face, and perhaps it was a bit of both. "I'm glad your training, or luck as it may be, got you here, don't get me wrong, but…" she pursed her lips, wondering if she should utter her thoughts. "I can't believe, out of all the shinobi in Konoha, you two are the only ones who made it."
Sakura and Shikamaru looked at one another, unsure of how to take Tsunade's sentiment. Shikamaru shrugged and Sakura gave a weak smile. "We found it hard to believe too," Sakura said.
"Then it's settled," Tsunade said. "There must be other survivors. They've either escaped or are in hiding. First, we'll search all the likely places, thoroughly. If we don't find anyone, we escape and see if anyone else did the same."
"Right," both Sakura and Shikamaru said, nodding in unison.
As Tsunade and Shikamaru began discussing search patterns and tactics, Sakura cast a dark glance at the monitors. She decided she'd better get used to the sight, as she'd be looking at it up close and personal very soon.
To be continued…