The going is tough even for a ninja. It gets hotter the higher they go, and harder to see. Light floods Naruto's eyes and his eyes turn to slits. Whenever Jiraiya looks back at him he seems unnerved. Naruto is mystified until he spots his reflection against a sheer cliff face. He looks a little like the fox, his face scrunched up until the scars expand into whiskers across his face.
But Naruto thinks the fox is a power they might need, which is scary, because... well, a nin like Jiraiya shouldn't need backup. Wherever they're going, a nin like Oltotsi shouldn't need backup either; he's seen her hands move in practice, and she is no pushover. He wonders if that's why Jiraiya didn't look too upset by his appearance. Maybe even a bit reassured.
Whatever sign Jiraiya was picking up on, Oltotsi was too. Her mouth tightened until it was a flat line, a line echoed by the creases in her forehead. It didn't feel ominous to Naruto as he basked in the sunlight during a brief stop for water. That is, until there were no more birds singing, and the sparse bushes and grasses looked brown and almost cooked.
By the time they reached the path's end, near noon on the second day, sweat was pouring off all three of them. Jiraiya shoved jerky at each of them, admonishing them with a "you need the salt, idiot" when Naruto complained he was too thirsty for it. "And drink some water," Jiraiya chided.
"Geeze, don't bother with a kind word or anything," Jiraiya just huffed and walked off. Naruto was sick of being tense.
They started up again the next morning, the sun a dream behind them. The mountain sloped up sharply under Naruto's feet, and when he slipped for the second time, he stopped to investigate. Carefully brushing away the dirt, now a thin overlay, he saw... something hard and slick and a little warm. Clawing at the remaining grime, Naruto looked down into dull, deep blackness. He imagined things moving in the dark, but when he blinked they were gone.
He looked up as if breaking a trance only to Jiraiya's foot inches from his face. "Hurry up, slowpoke," he rumbled from a distance somewhere above Naruto's head, framed by the sun and visible only as a halo of dirty gray spikes.
"Yeah, yeah," said Naruto, pushing himself up and shooting ahead, brushing off images of an unfathomable dark.
It took Naruto another day and night, staring up at the thick ice caps of the mountain to figure out why it was so hot. "Glass," he mumbled to himself. Not ice caps – solid glass. Looking at the rainbows refracted across the ground again and again, he felt very silly. No wonder it was so hot.
"Yes," said Oltotsi, coming up behind Naruto and saying the first words she had spoken since they had reached the stretches of uninterrupted dirt and glass. "The Shattered Mountains should crack and break, but instead they stand defiantly, defying all life to grow here. It is said they are cursed – all who journey here will be lulled by the heat and sink into a sleep of 1,000 years. That is, if their bodies do not wither away first." Her face was tight with tension and beautiful in its extremity of emotion. Why had she brought them here?
"I need you. Both of you, actually. Together, we're all to stubborn to give in. With three of us, we can all watch each other, stay awake and alert." A shadow of her old grin passed over her face. "All three of us are stubborn as mules."
They reached the heights as the sun was setting, shining in their eyes through the glass. It was so bright that Naruto almost missed the body, jammed into a crevice. Oltotsi stopped and scanned it anxiously, but it was a sack of bones, with barely a trace of cloth left.
"Don't give up," Jiraiya said gently. "He was always resourceful when I knew him."
"You knew him long ago," Oltotsi murmured. She squared her shoulders and stepped up to the crevasse leading up to sheer cliff face bounding up far above their heads. Naruto couldn't see where it leveled off, and he doubted that he could even get up there, let alone be in good enough condition to fight... whatever.
"How are we doing this?" pondered Jiraiya, rubbing the back of his neck. The sun cut lines into his face, forecasting his old(er) age.
Even as he spoke Oltotsi was unraveling a rope from her belt, light but strong cord. Ignoring Naruto's question of "And what the hall are we going to anchor that to?" she pulled out a long stick, almost a staff, splotched with a trailing dark stain down one side. With a quick bite and a ripping motion of her canines to the base of her thumb, her jaw pulsing, she swiped blood onto the staff.
Before Naruto could register any hand motions she made, there appeared a giant... furry-like thing. "It is called a koala." Oltotsi tossed the rope up to the "koala," who caught it easily, regarding them with still black eyes standing out from its soft gray fur.
The creature - "Kanda" Oltotsi had called him – climbed to the next level of the mountains easily, claws digging into the glass, shattering it by sheer dint of size; Naruto could have easily fit into one of the hole created by Kanda's claws.
The rope bit into Naruto's skin, looped about his waist and pulled tight. He wanted to whine, but bit it back; now wasn't the time.
Kanda disappeared as the gained the ledge. Around them on all sides was clear, translucent glass, unstained by smog or blood or any sign of humanity. Naruto wasn't sure why they had come here; there were no enemies here. He looked around, bathed in the heat of the setting sun magnified by glass untouched by dirt. It was so warm, and he was so warm already. Naruto covered his face with his hands, trying to block out the light. If only he could just... sleep. Finally rest.
Wait. What?
Naruto shook himself vigorously, only to see Oltotsi and Jiraiya watching him and each other grimly, eyes flicking back and forth. He nodded an affirmation: yes, he was awake, and would be on his guard from now on. They moved forward, with Oltotsi like a bad omen, "It will only get harder the further we go." It was already hard enough.
They pushed onward doggedly, in the end tying the rope around all three of them, so that as long as one person was still going, the other two would as well. Naruto was feeling more stable now, and was just fighting to get to the end, wherever they were going. Everything stopped mattering but that, the rush to go forward and break free.
When Naruto next opened his eyes, it was completely dark, and his leg was burning, and he couldn't breathe right. Straightening himself up and clawing desperately at the rope pulled taut about his waist, his eyes strained to see through the night; though in the daytime the mountain was flooded with light, right now the moon was a vague pale shadow behind the thick glass peaks, not yet up to its full height.
When he was finally free, he reached down to his leg, fingers brushing around gingerly in the dark. There was a kunai there, buried not quite to the hilt. He started when his fingers brushed warmth, the body of someone else. The fingers were long and thin and warm, the fingers of a young person, the fingers of a woman. "Ol- Olt-" He cleared his throat. His voice was hoarse and dry. "Oltotsi?"
There was no response, but her fingers were gripping his pant leg so tight that he had to pry it off with both hands. Unrestricted, he took his shirt off and pulled the kunai out, pressing down as hard as he could and binding the wound up as best he could. Naruto shivered in the dark, and shook Oltotsi gently at first, and then harder and harder. She wouldn't wake up, and he worried at a nail, wondering what to do. He looked around for and found Jiraiya, slumped over in a sprawl, arms splayed out in supplication.
No amount of shaking would wake Jiraiya up either, and Naruto kicked him - just a little bit, just enough to wake him up, not that it wasn't satisfying too. But when it didn't work, Jiraiya only snorting a bit, unmoving, Naruto slumped down next to him. This was so depressing. He was never going to be able to wake them up, and they were all going to die here, and somehow it didn't really seem to matter anymore, not even to Konoha's most indomitable ninja. Naruto slowly toppled over, sinking down into a peaceful oblivion.
Except he woke up again, the moon clear and radiant over his head. His leg was bleeding again, and pulsing in that worrying way that he new presaged infection. With each heartbeat, he was able to think clearer. He looked over at Oltotsi's unconcious form, stretched out with purpose towards the spot he had passed out. Naruto took up the kunai and gingerly scratched the back of her leg, only just breaking the skin. There was no response, but pushing harder, he broke through skin, fat, deep into the muscle, blood welling out. Naruto slumped over once again, this time knowing as he passed out that he wouldn't be able to wake up again.
Fortunately, he didn't have to. Naruto woke up to the sight of dark translucent glass stretched out in front of him, and to a dull ache in his calf, a pain of healing instead of infection this time. He knew that his bandage must have been changed, or he would have been able to smell it from here. Oltotsi popped into his field of vision, her hand as it was before, long and slim and competent, quick fingers snapping a few times in his face before dragging him up.
Jiraiya was up too, bedraggled and cradling his arm to his side, but conscious. Oltotsi nodded to each of them and they set off once more, marching like soldiers in a file. This turned out to be a good idea when the path narrowed, and it was a tight squeeze. Naruto's bones clicked as he shouldered by, and Jiraiya had to shuffle sideways through the tighter spots, a weird crab walk that made Naruto grin even though there was nothing funny going on.
Pushing past a series of crystals jutting out of the ground, they reached a cluster that eventually gathered together above their heads, leading down into the ground. "This looks almost... constructed," rumbled Jiraiya, voice bouncing leadenly off the walls.
"Yes," agreed Oltotsi. "That's because it is." She walked forward, past the arching entrance – and Naruto could see now, the marks of a entryway now, the arching frame, the structure to smooth to be natural. For the first time, Naruto felt a foreboding chill. Oltotsi in trouble? Fine. Big giant mountains? Fine. Big giant cursed mountains? Only to be expected, really. When was there not someone to rescue on a big rushed dash through the forest and up a sheer cliff? But this? Naruto stood stock still, firmly resisting the impulse to either dash away madly or to grab Oltotsi by the neck and demand an explanation. He resisted doing the latter mostly because he knew his ass would only be kicked if he tried.
"Old man," he hissed. "Old pervert! What the hell is this?"
They watched together as Oltotsi became completely invisible in the gloom down below, until not even a shadow of her was still visible. Only then did Jiraiya lean over and murmur, "The man we are looking for... was very creative. And powerful. And didn't like to be disturbed."
"So what, he created a cursed mountain to occupy? One that kills people? What the hell!"
"No. Boy, shut up, you're starting to get shrill. The curse was here before, obviously. He just took up residence in an old place." Jiraiya stared down into the passageway as though he could see clear down to the bottom. "A place not meant for humans, powerful or not."
And then rising up from the tunnel came a hollow cry. Naruto started forwards, but Jiraiya grabbed him tightly by the arm, face stony. They stood at the entryway, listening to the short staccato sounds of sobs rising up.
Me talking: So it's finally finished. At least, this part. The next chapter is like... 25% finished. And it has sex. Like. 1000 words of it. Oh dear. A word of warning: I don't discriminate by gender or sexuality, so pretty much any type of pairing is fair game for what I feel like at the time. So... boy/boy, girl/girl, or girl/boy are all options. I'll always post a warning and never put the actual sex stuff on but rather on my lj, linked in my profile. Peace!