The season was over. Dried sakura crunched under his boots as he walked through the forest that had once seemed so alive. A slight shift in the breeze warned him of something in the air. Raising his hand, Ibiki caught a dried flower that had just fallen off a branch. Not looking at it, he closed his fist and heard the same sound his boots made as he walked.

A nearby tree has a freshly made mark on the underside of a branch indicating a Konoha strike team had passed recently. The mark would be gone within a few days, a special gel had been applied to the surface of the tree promoting the rapid regrowth of bark. It did not take him long to catch up with the pursuit ANBU team.

The glade had recently been walled off by a combination chakra barrier/doton technique, the ground felt too cold, even for the approaching season. Two of the masked nin were unconscious, one of whom was only wearing fragments of a mask which were partly lodged into his face. The medic was working in a frenzy to keep him stable, from her particular style and the slight bulge in her right sleeve he knew it to be Tsunade's assistant Shizune, nobody else wore a poison dart launcher quite like the one she did.

"Status?"

Taking off a mask decorated with five chevrons was an Aubrame Ibiki was familiar with. Shizune did not pause her healing, but Ibiki knew from her patient's breathing that he was past the worst of his injuries.

"Captain Ibiki." Aburame were hard to read. In most cases people with little emotions still showed signs, but the entire Clan was comprised of people who defied human description. "We followed the thief this far, most likely she's in one of Orochimaru's old hideouts around 2 kilometers to the west. This was as far as we got. We were prepared for her genjutsu, but not the three Oni she summoned."

For a moment Ibiki considered taking the Aburame with him, the man appeared relatively uninjured. 'No, this is something I have to do alone.' He told himself, though part of him still doubted.

"Stay with your team. Give me one of your tracer bugs, if I'm not back in an hour come after me and drain the chakra out of every living thing you find until you put her down."

"Understood sir." The tracer bug flew of a hole in the man's ear and onto Ibiki's pants before crawling into his back pocket.

Orochimaru's bases in the Land of Sound were monuments to simplicity, modeled after rabbit warrens in layout and design, though many rabbit warrens fall prey to snakes. The entrance was hidden by the overgrowth, which made it doubly hard to find as it was already hidden under a false door made to look like roots. A rear entrance, most likely the main entrance had been destroyed when the base was abandoned.

Reaching for the latch to unlock the interlacing wooden beams made to look like roots; his fingers felt something in the recess. With a slight pang he discovered it was a sakura in bloom, out of season from all of the fallen flowers. Letting it fall to the ground, he pulled the switch and watched as the roots moved as though alive. They could have been alive; word was that Orochimaru had unlocked secrets of the First Hokage's Wood Release. That mattered little to Ibiki though. His pathway clear, he walked down into the fort before the roots closed shut behind him.

At the bottom of the stairs was a rotating floor he recognized from other hidden forts. Undisturbed dust and dirt lay on the ground to show any unwelcome footsteps, the floor was on a rotating wheel in the ground allowing for a clean floor to show itself when the base was secure. Seals in the wall were even cleverer; they were part of a sensor network that would detect any attempts to walk on the walls or ceiling with chakra. Holding back his chakra, Ibiki walked the halls until he found passages lit by torches.

A faint echo in the air, like a woman crying, or playing an instrument; with Tayuya, it was difficult to tell those two apart. As he went in deeper he found three bodies lying on the floor, large bodies. Were these the Oni the other team had encountered? A room to the side of the hallway was completely trashed, racks of instruments lay scattered and broken, and ash lay where an extinguished candle had met with music sheets, though the fire had not spread.

Finally reaching the end of the long hallway, he found her. The room was large and circular and significantly different from any room in the complex. Walls looked like roots surrounding a great pool of water with a small island in the center. It was nearly fifty meters to the center from the doorway, and as Ibiki reached the door he found clothes, torn and scattered, on the ground.

Stepping inside took him a moment to adjust his eyes from the torch light of the hall to the natural light of the room. The ceiling was all roots, but they were somehow transferring light down from the trees above them. Whether artificially done or through jutsu, it was clear the hand of a genius was at work in this.

The light made clear new details, Tayuya kneeling in the center of the island, naked as the day she was born, but looking more demon than human. Horns grew from her head, her red hair changed to a pale pink. Her flesh a deep red, like dried blood. Something was wrong though. The lines of the cursed seal of heaven were still visible on her flesh, burning slowly, causing smoke to rise from her skin for a moment before growing cold. The process looked painful, accelerating and decelerating seemingly at random.

"Please, come closer." Her voice was hoarse and weak, but her tone held notes of desperation and authority all at once.

Deciding not to say anything Ibiki approached her, removing his cloak, he draped it over her shoulders as he reached her side. Kneeling next to her he reached his hand out to brush hair away from her face to get a better look at her. She did not flinch away from the touch, her attention was directed inward; she was in pain. On the ground before her lay several sealed scrolls, an ink set with fresh pages, and the artifact stolen from the Konoha archives.

"Rikudo Sennin's Bamboo Flute."

"It wasn't his." She fingered the instrument, a meter long and ten centimeters in diameter, age-faded green seemed to change color in the light. There was something magical about its simplicity. "It belonged to his wife. Did you know that she was the first kunoichi? Orochimaru found several scrolls by her which led to him building the Sound Village in the first place."

"I did know that. She's not well known because apparently the Sennin thought too well of her to let her techniques be used for violence. She was a healer, is this why you stole her writings? Hoping to find some answer?"

"I must seem pretty pathetic." Wincing in pain and grabbing her neck, her breathing grew weak and erratic. As though soaking up darkness itself her hand began to turn black. Lifting the cloak to see, Ibiki saw black skin spread from the curse seal, which was now glowing dark red.

Picking up a scroll which Tayuya had been working to unseal, he noticed the high level sealing placed upon it. It was one of the archive's scrolls, one of her scrolls. Tayuya wouldn't be able to open it without the keyword, the sealing was rather complex and would only reveal the true nature of the sealing after the first layer had been opened.

"I hated Konoha." She was shaking, delirious, she had felt hot to the touch under the cloak. "At first it was because of your role in the Shinobi wars that killed my family, then because Orochimaru turned me into a weapon against your way of life, now because it's where that bastard came from in the first place."

"We have a lot to answer for, I know." Finally undoing the seal the old scroll wound between the staves showing page after page of notes and musical compositions. Finally he reached a page entitled 'song of healing' but found it blank of any notes. The page did not respond to the touch, had no special seals he could see. It was just empty.

Dropping the scroll to the ground, his hands dropped to his sides where he opened a pouch on his leg. A quick death, ending the pain would be a mercy. For a moment memory crossed his vision, all the people he had given that mercy too. At what point had he lost count? At what point did it no longer matter to him as just part of a job?

Crying over the empty page in front of her Tayuya nearly fell prostrate on the ground, but her pride kept her up. Rage swelled and in a fury she raised her hands to her head and attempted to rip her horns from her skull, but she was too weak. Her left hand cut on one of the horns and fell lifeless in front of her, blood catching on the page of the scroll. The thin trail of blood soaked into the silk sheet and disappeared in an instant.

"Tayuya, look." Ibiki could not believe his eyes; the page must have had a hidden blood seal. Notes appeared where none had been and a song appeared on the page. Weakly, but with a last push of hope, she lifted the flute to her lips and paused for a moment to gasp. "This song is…" As she played the tune, realization dawned on Ibiki. He had heard this song before. Removing the scarf from his scarred head he felt the holes that had been drilled into his skull, but it was not the pain of torture he remembered, but her fingers.

The room was closed to the elements, but as she played a slight breeze seemed to blow from nowhere in particular. More like wind blew around them and they were in the eye of a storm. Her breathing was labored, but as she repeated the simple tune he literally could see the chakra in her body glow. The dark aura which had surrounded her seemed to fade and her skin lightened from near black, to purple, and finally to her natural pinkish hue. As she finished, letting the flute drop to her side she fell backwards, Ibiki rushed to catch her. Lifting the flap of cloak by her neck he saw the cursed seal of heaven on her neck, the black tattoo burned weakly like the last cinders of a great fire before vanishing in a glow of pure white chakra.

Letting her head rest on the ground, Ibiki picked up the flute and scrolls in a travel bag before lifting her unconscious body and walking out of the room in quiet reverence. By the time he reached the exit he noted her breathing return to normal, she was awake.

"There's going to be hell to pay when I bring you back to Konoha. You're lucky you didn't kill anyone." She didn't say a word; she just shifted position to wrap her hands around his neck. Her body was so small in his arms, he felt her heartbeat against his chest; small but strong.

"You'll forgive the pun, but I think I'm ready to face the music. I've been running for so long, it'll be good to have a place to rest, even if it is prison."

"Perhaps." Ibiki thought of her in prison, and had no idea how cooperative she would really be.

"Are you going to visit me?"

"Perhaps."

"A conjugal visit?"

"Perha-" Ibiki felt like he had just been caught by a left hook.

"Oh I'm going to have fun with you." Tightening her arms around his neck for a moment she pulled back slightly and kissed him on the cheek twice, each time straining her neck to reach his mouth. Obliging her on the third time, their lips met and he stopped walking for a moment to savor the moment. Sun shining through the trees, calm wind blowing, birds humming. It wasn't a perfect moment, life was never perfect; but it was as good as he had ever hoped for, and that was good enough.