Notes: Okay, to clarify some stuff as the story is wrapping up…
Remember that in the first part of the last chapter, when I'm referring to 'Haruno' or 'Sakura' I'm referring to Hana in the third person, who is using henge to look like Sakura.
The children are doing the dream thing again, meaning, Haku's worry for his father and his uncle are forcing his Byakkugan to see a "vision" of what will soon befall them. Hana's Sharingan is copying his "vision" allowing her to see the exact same thing that he is, and so, they're having the same dream at the same time.
I really don't want to end this story, but chapter eight will possibly be the very last chapter of A Change of Seasons. However, as I did in the Summer chapter, I will be adding a bonus Winter chapter, so please keep an eye out for that too.
Thanks for reading, as always, and thanks so much for all your great comments. ^_^
7
At first they thought it was the wind, blowing strongly through the valley a little further back in the depths of the skeleton forest. Then as it swelled and the ground beneath their feet started to tremble, they believed it to be an earthquake. Some even took precautions and readied their med kits. But then, an overwhelming wave of fiery, evil chakra slapped into them--it was like nothing any Cloud nin had ever encountered before. It even drove some of them insane on the spot. Shinobi began to fall back; some ran screaming and some rushed to get orders from a superior. By then, the noise had escalated to a muted roar and the shaking earth sounded as if thousands of footfalls were treading upon it, and suddenly there were thousands of fox-like creatures running out from the forests on all sides of them. The packs descended like a swarming horde over the Heaven's Guard. It was absolute chaos—people screamed in pain and yelled for help and cried in terror and cackled as they grew mad and soldiers' bodies littered the snowy ground and hot blood rained from the steel gray sky.
Uchiha Sasuke went after the first wave had disposed of or chased out everyone. The open center of the fort was dark and red and deserted. Only one or two people were there, rocking back and forth or running in small circles screeching and giggling with madness. The iron wall of the blood's smell slammed into his senses, making him briefly double over from the shock of it. He felt—perhaps for the first time in his entire shinobi career—that he might throw up. He could hear the echoes of the Cloud nins screams and the Kyuubi-bunshins' pleased growls as they chased each other back and forth through the corridors. It was here that he had to be very careful. Sasuke concealed himself with a strong illusion jitsu that encased him in a tight chakra ball which had a mirroring effect, so he blended in with the dark walls perfectly. The only times he had to stop was when there was a fight that rolled near him between a bunshin and a Cloud nin and he had to wait for one of them to win. It was always the Kyuubi-bunshin, and after it tore the throat or heart or stomach out of its opponent, it would lift glittering red eyes to his hiding place and smirk through a mouthful of ripped flesh with blood painting its face and claws and running thickly down its chin. Then it would move on and he would move on, telling himself that the next time it happened, he wouldn't stop and he wouldn't watch, but he always did.
Down and down and down, further into the winding corridors that reminded him vaguely of Orochimaru's old chambers...or the burrows of a complex anthill. The bloodshed thinned out here—it seemed that the Kyuubi-bunshin were having too much fun on the above floors to get this far. And although the scent of blood was still very strong, there was finally a give in that iron wall of stench and Sasuke breathed it in gratefully. He also had to be even more cautious, because he'd be encountering higher-level ninjas, ones that could possibly detect him and see through his jitsu. Higher-ranking officers that he might have to fight. And where he once found a thrill of challenge in that, he could now only feel a bitter kind of impatience toward it. He didn't have time for nonsense like difficult fights; all he wanted to do was find the Raikage, rendezvous with Naruto (hopefully the real Naruto, as the Kyuubi had promised), and go home so he could be with Naruto and his family where they all belonged, together.
Haruno Sakura stopped to take a break and consult her map.
She glanced at the lands and the paths and the rivers as she ate a cold sandwich of only wheat bread and cheese. This was all she had brought in the way of food—as she figured, it would take her almost three days to cross the border into the Cloud country, and melting snow in her tiny pot supplied her with endless water. Another two or three days to pick up Sasuke and Naruto's trail (maybe just one day if she were extremely lucky) and that's where her supply ended. She wasn't that concerned, since as a shinobi she was trained to live off the harshest lands, but she had been hoping it wouldn't take that long.
I'm so stupid, she sighed to herself. I got up here, and for what? What happens if I can't find them...?
No, she shook her head defiantly. You can't think that way, Sakura. You've already come so far! All you have to do is think like they do—come on, you can do this!
Indeed, she should be able to. She'd only known the idiots since she was twelve. Sakura looked at the map again, chewing her last bit of sandwich thoughtfully.
Let's see, she followed a few territory lines with her eyes. They'd want to be close enough to a water source, and also follow that source as much as they could...in the proper direction, anyway. She trailed a few of the fat blue river lines with the gloved tip of her index finger. Knowing how Naruto absolutely hates the cold, and Sasuke prefers not to sleep in nature if he absolutely doesn't have to... She ran her fingers along the blue lines until she found one of the longer ones that appeared to be rather close to a cave. Said cave wasn't large enough to have a name, but the river was, and did:
"The Nimbus River," she read, shaking her head. "Cute, Cloud country, real cute."
She'd check that cave first—it was her best bet. She felt almost a hundred percent sure on her decision. Silly boys, she shook her head with a ghost of a smile gracing her slightly-blue lips. Then she tucked the map back into her hip pouch and trudged off in that direction.
"We can't follow Sasuke-san's trail," Naori spoke aloud, "because it's over a week old."
"So what?" Haiyu shrugged as they continued hiking up the slope, gripping the straps of his impromptu travel pack tightly. "I can find trails that are almost a month old!"
"She's got a good point," Jun spoke begrudgingly. "It's best we follow Haruno Sakura's trail."
"Huh? How come?" Haiyu looked put-out at his lost opportunity to show off his tracking skills.
"Because she'll be able to figure out which direction they headed in," Naori spoke soothingly.
"And, in wanting to cut her time to reach them, she'll shave off parts of the old trail that aren't necessary, and lead away from their current position," Jun finished. Haiyu knew not to argue the logic, but he couldn't help a good pout over this.
"I wanted to track," he whined.
"Then go catch a rabbit," Jun snapped back instantly.
"Now, now," Naori held up her hands and smiled nervously. "There's no need for all that. We'll catch up in no time with your skills, Haiyu."
"That's right!" he puffed up visibly. "Just leave it to me!" He cackled eagerly.
"Dumbass," Jun rolled her eyes and sighed under her breath.
Hinata held her cold mug between white-knuckled fingers, staring into her wavy reflection in thoughtful silence. Kiba sat beside her, absentmindedly stroking a long-nailed hand along her thigh as he rested his chin in his other hand and glanced behind them, watching over Hana. The outbursts had eventually passed and both children had fallen into a fitful and restless sleep. The doctor and all the nurses had left them, one of them coming in each hour afterward to check on their conditions but nothing else had happened. Now it was nearing two in the morning and Hinata was fighting off her sleep, afraid that if she did sleep then something else would happen, something worse, and she would come to their sides too late to do anything except watch helplessly as someone who wasn't their mother tended to them.
Not again, she swore, her fingers clenching convulsively around the porcelain mug. They're my kids. I'll protect them.
On her left, Kiba was leaning further back toward her sleeping daughter's form. She heard the short rapid sniffs as he scented her condition from where he was. She glanced over to catch the frown marring his rough face.
"This doesn't make any sense," he mumbled.
"What doesn't?" she asked him.
"Hana… I don't know why, but I smell more blood on her," his brow furrowed in confusion. "Like she just suddenly sprung a wound up from nowhere—"
A sudden roar of white noise filled her head as all the images from the past few days crowded her memory. A wound, appearing from nowhere. Her fingers relaxed, the mug slipped from her fingertips and crashed to the white linoleum floor, spraying cold coffee over her feet and the floor as crescent-shaped shards skittered beneath Haku's bed and underneath her chair. She shot to her feet with a gasp, just on the verge of realizing something huge. She reached for it desperately, but like a receding tide it pulled further and further away from her grasp and left her with one fundamental thought: It's happening again.
"Hinata?" Kiba called to her but she ignored him and slid past the two chairs that they had pulled together between both beds and walked purposefully toward Hana's side. She could see the red blossoms of blood spreading underneath her fresh white bandages and she reached over and pulled one of them off her skinny bicep. "Hinata, hold on—!" Kiba captured her hand and lifted it away, taking the bandage with it. They both stared as a second small nick opened up before their eyes and began to bleed sluggishly. The blood swelled, and a single fat bead of it slid thickly down the curve of her arm. Hinata hurriedly removed all of the bandages and watched as seemingly random cuts and gashes appeared mysteriously along her arms, sides, stomach, and even her legs and began to bleed.
"What's happening to her?" Kiba asked in a mystified voice.
"The same thing that happened to Haku is happening to Hana, but on a lesser scale," she said, reaching back behind her and yanking her chair around and close, plunking down into it. She clapped her white hands together, rubbed them briskly, and lay them open and facing downward, spread above her daughter's body. Shimmering greenish-teal chakra radiated from her hands and spread steadily along Hana's body, covering the little girl from head to toe. Hinata didn't fully understand how Sakura had done it, but she knew from the reports that the first initial healing jitsus had no effect on Haku, and therefore would have no effect on his sister. That meant she had to continuously heal her daughter as the random cuts manifested over her sweaty flesh, until they finally decided to close. The length of time it had taken Haku's large wound to clot over was about seven hours. She could do seven hours.
"What are you doing?" Kiba asked her, staring at the green glow apprehensively, as if he felt something about it that he didn't like. Maybe it was the bitter determination that radiated out of her chakra which was steadily filling Hana's sleeping figure.
"I'm taking care of my daughter," Hinata answered simply.
He was close; he could sense her strong presence somewhere within this hallway. Sasuke leaned against one hard stone wall and gulped in slow, careful breaths as he mentally took inventory of himself: nothing was broken, as far as he could tell, and he'd managed to get through the five consecutive battles with nothing more than some deep scratches and one shallow sword wound on his left thigh. Even though he hadn't had a chance to bandage them, the wounds seemed to be clotting anyway. He recalled the stab wound he received from the Raikage yesterday (was it really only yesterday? It seemed like such a long time ago…) and how incredibly fast it had healed, as if a med nin was right there with him, accelerating his stamina, blood circulation, and cell growth. And although it was absolutely impossible, he had no other explanation for his accelerated healing rate. Even now, the fact that all his blood loss should have made him light-headed and his fatigue from wasted adrenaline should have caused some slight exhaustion, he felt nothing—he corrected himself—he felt perfectly okay, as if they weren't there at all. As if someone was pouring healing chakra into him right at this very moment.
I don't have time to stop and think about this, he shook his head to reorganize his thoughts. I have to find the Raikage's cell, free her, then somehow meet back up with—
"Oi! Sasuke!"
His heart stopped. His eyes got impossibly wide. Sasuke slowly turned, trying not to let his hope swell up in his chest, telling himself that he just wanted the dobe beside him so badly that he was just hearing voices.
He wasn't.
"I've been looking all over for you!" Uzumaki Naruto ran up flashing a toothy grin. Sweat beaded his forehead, and his blonde locks were soaked with it. No red eyes, no pointed ears, no claw-like nails, no fangs, and no chakra tail. Just Naruto, with his disarming grin and playful sky blue eyes (looking a little weary but that was it) running like he'd just fallen behind in the hallways and had finally caught up. "Man, it's a mess up there!" he shook his head, stopping in front of the Uchiha and bending over, putting his hands on his knees and leaning over to catch his breath. "I guess I took it a little too far, huh?"
Sasuke could only stare, gaping openly. The Kyuubi had told him this would happen, but to have Naruto—the real Naruto—actually here, right in front of him, he didn't know how to react. He wanted to grab him and crush him into a hug and swear breathlessly that he would never let the other man go ever again. He wanted to actually jump up and down and throw up his arms and whoop in exuberant joy that Naruto was alive and okay. And even another part of him wanted to punch the blonde hard in the nose for making Sasuke feel alone and helpless and terrified. He wanted to do all of that and more, all at once. Instead, he lifted a trembling hand to Naruto's scarred cheek and pushed a sweaty strand of hair away from his face so he could see it close-up, without the fangs or the red eyes. His black-amber eyes bored into the blue ones, silently trying to assure himself that this was the real Naruto and that everything was falling back into place and would be okay again. Naruto seemed distracted and not wholly there—Sasuke supposed it was because he was still controlling all those bunshin—but it was his dobe, through and through.
"I'm glad you came back to me," he said softly, having to force the words past a lump that had risen from his gut and lodged itself in his throat.
"What are you saying, Sasuke?" Naruto laughed, sounding a bit nervous. "Of course I'd come back. I never really left if you want to get all technical about it…"
Sasuke laid both of his hands against the cool sides of Naruto's face and lowered his lips to the other man's. "I know we don't have time for this," he whispered thickly, his eyes burning with tears that wanted to fall with his relief, "but I have to do this, or else I'll go insane."
"Did you really think I wouldn't come back to you?" the blonde touched his lover's hands tenderly, giving him a half-bemused and half-pleased grin. "Silly Sasuke, you should know me better than that. We're going to get out of here together."
"Shut up," Sasuke breathed, taking in everything before him, letting Naruto's presence soothe him, "dobe."
"I…" Naruto leaned up, closing his eyes, "am not…" his fingers tightened in Sasuke's, "a dobe."
They kissed, softly and wonderfully, and the battlefield around them was temporarily forgotten.
Are you ready, then?
You don't know how long I've been waiting for this.
I can imagine.
You do realize that once you let me out, you will no longer be able to return to those you care for. You will no longer be you.
Is that concern I hear?
If you die, I am fated to die with you. I don't need to be put down by something as pathetic as a broken heart.
Trust me--that won't be what kills me.
I'll believe it when the time comes.
Whatever, just don't kill everyone.
Now you're asking for the impossible.