Chapter 32 The Rising Sun

The sound of water coming through the walls caused Sakura to open her eyes, for a brief moment she could not remember where she was and what happened. By the fog of sleep left her and the memories of passion of the night before came back, a smile crossed her face as she remembered everything they had done. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep until Naruto woke up and then did a repeat of the night before. Then she saw the time, she had to get up and get ready to work in five minutes, she could buy some time because Ino was in the shower and she would use it after her but she would have to leave Naruto too soon for her welcome. She slowly got up and left Naruto's embrace and moved to gather her items. This was easy considering there was only four parts to the lingerie, bra, panties and two fish net stockings. She put that away and grabbed some of the new cloths she had gotten at from the city; it was a simple red V-neck top with sand colored shorts. She had found some new boots but they were open toe instead of closed and they were not reinforced for combat. These where civilian cloths not ninja cloths. She waited until the sound of water ended and making sure, she had on her normal sleeping cloths she stepped into the bathroom. To see Ino was finishing her hair and was already fully dressed.

"Forehead I thought you would be up before me?" inquired Ino

"I didn't get much sleep." answered Sakura hoping that Ino hadn't seen Naruto when she opened the door. She did not really care if Ino knew but if Ino knew she would tell people and Hinata would find out, that would create drama. Drama on a normal day was a pain but in a bunker when they were, trying to save humanity was something to avoid.

"I can understand that." said Ino as she leaned back against the simple sink and pulled a condom wrapper out of the trash. "I found this in the trash bin."

"Shit." cursed Sakura as a memory came flooding back.

Flashback

Sakura opened her eyes in a darkened room, with a deep breath she inhaled the scent of Naruto and their lovemaking. She found that she was lying on her side with her head nuzzled in the cruck on Naruto's neck, they were wrapped up in an embrace which caused a sense of peace and safety over her. She never wanted to leave this place but a primal need took over her. She slowly undid herself from Naruto's embrace and moved toward the bathroom, as she did she had to move around the pieces of cloths they had forgotten in their lovemaking. In the darkness, she did not avoid them all as her foot came down on something.

She moved into the bathroom and found that she had stepped on a condom wrapper. She rolled her eyes and threw it into a trash bin without a second thought and went to the bathroom. When she was done she started to wash her hands, she looked up to see her hair was a mess from Naruto's hands moving through them. She then moved away from the sink and headed back to bed and to Naruto.

End Flashback

"I had that stuck to my foot and tossed it in the trash." Cursed Sakura

"So no answers forehead?" inquired Ino before laughing at her best friend. "Well I am not that surprise I kind of jumped this on you but we are friends, hell we are like sisters so this hurts. You could tell me, I would have told you."

"Sorry Ino, but I am trying to avoid drama with Hinata, you know how you like to talk." explained Sakura as Ino nodded her head.

"Well there goes my next question, it is Naruto. I thought so but you can never be sure maybe you have Kiba in the bed back there," laughed Ino at the face her best friend made at the idea of Kiba. "Well was it good?"

A smile crossed Sakura's face, which was all the answer Ino needed.

"Well then, if this happens again give me a warning I don't want to walk in on the two of you doing it. I may walk through memories but I don't want that one." stated Ino as Sakura nodded her head in agreement.

"Same can be true for you I don't want to walk in on Sai and you." stated Sakura

"Well first I need to get Sai in bed, but that shouldn't be hard if I put my mind to it. He doesn't understand women or some of the most basic human relationships but that can be worked on and he seems interested." explained Ino "How did you get Naruto to come back with you?"

"We kind of ran into each other in the hot spring and started talking and he told me that he had trouble telling when someone was interested in him." explained Sakura before laughing. "He didn't even know Ayame was a lesbian, so I gave him something he couldn't misunderstood. I got on his lap and kissed him and it went from there."

Ino laughed before shaking her head.

"Well I need to finish getting ready and so do you. You can't spend all day screwing Naruto or else all of humanity will pay the price." stated Ino "And you would want to get Naruto's out of your room, it is early enough that everyone else is likely asleep and if he walks out of your room the secret is out."

"Alright." confirmed Sakura wanting to go back to bed and Naruto, instead she put her stuff on the small counter by the sink and turned on the shower. Her shampoo and other items were already in the shower along with Ino's. She turned the water to hot as it could go and within moments, a fine steam filled the bathroom. She put her head under the water and began what was on the surface a normal shower but it wasn't first was that she had just lost her virginity to the man she loves on any other day that would be enough to cause her to spend the whole day smiling. She could not because of the massive task that was before her.

She was so focused on what she had to dothat she never heard the door open, she would curse herself later because he hadn't sensed him like her ninja training should have. She had not even heard him until the shower curtain opened and he stepped in behind her and kissed the back of her neck.

"Morning, Sakura-chan." greeted Naruto the water began to run down his body as well as She was about to protest the interruption of her personal time but Naruto began to run his hands down her sides. He used a rather simple massage justu that any medical student would learn in their first few months, she herself knew much better ones but coming from him it felt better then all of them. "Why don't we conserve some water. We never know when we may run out."

"We are under the single largest freshwater lake in the world," countered Sakura but she made no effort to force him out, instead she leaned back into him rubbing herself against him as his hands moved up and down her. She raised her leg as Naruto ran one of his hands down her side and rubbed her ass lifting her up a bit to make it easier for him to kiss the side of her neck. His other hand moved to her breast, the warm water ran down both of them as he massage her breast. She tilted her head back and rested it against Naruto's shoulder as she felt his manhood pressed hard against her. She knew that if she said yes, they would be back in bed within moments and they would likely not even had waited to get to the bed. She wanted to say yes, her body screamed for her to say yes but she knew she couldn't.

"I can't Naruto-kun, I have to work on a cure." explained Sakura

"I know." confirmed Naruto with some pain in his voice but with understanding in his voice. "But I can help you get ready can't I?"

He never gave her a chance to refuse as he pulled one hand away from her hand grabbed her shampoo and began to wash her body. All the while running her hands down her side and cleaning her in such a way that part of her wanted to forget about working on a cure to save all of humanity and instead drag Naruto back to the bedroom and stay there all day. Finally, the last of the shampoo was washed away and he reached over and turned off the water. For a while the two of them both of them in the nude stood in the shower with water dripping off their bodies.

"So Sakura-chan." said Naruto into her ear as she leaned back into him, the hot water dripping down both of their bodies. Her knees were still weak from the waves of pleasure that had washed over her body during the shower. "Can I come back tonight?"

"No…" moaned Sakura as Naruto eyes widened a bit, then she turned her head a bit and looked at him as best as she could in the best position she could without actually turning around. There was playfulness in her green eyes. "Can I come to your place instead Naruto-kun?"

Naruto smiled at the little twist Sakura had just done to him, she was playing with him and he loved it.

"Anytime Sakura-chan." confirmed Naruto as he kissed her. She pulled away and turned to face him head on, giving him another kiss as her hand ran down his chest.

"I have to go work on saving humanity, why don't you head back to your room get some more sleep and I will see you later." said Sakura as Naruto nodded his head.

"Alright, I should sleep in my bed." Confirmed Naruto as she turned to leave his hand shot out and grabbed her hand causing her to turn toward him. "Sorry Sakura-chan, two things I forgot to tell you, first Sasuke doesn't want people to know about his sickness."

"I can somewhat understand that, we don't want to cause panic even though they knew they where safe from the red flu but why risk it." Confirmed Sakura as she tied a towel around her body, she smiled as she looked at Naruto watching her in the mirror as she worked her hair. "What is the second thing?"

"I love you." said Naruto with a smile which instantly caused a smile to come across her face before the two of them shared one more kiss before she left. Naruto himself got dressed as best he could before heading out the door and across the common room and into his own room. He fell upon the bed and smiled at the nights events and looked at his own clock, he hit the nap button and set it for two hours. As he closed his eyes, he smile grew wider as he remembered every detail about the night as he closed his eyes he heard his sister moving in her room.

"I thought the rooms where sound proof…" thought a tired Naruto but put that issue aside as sleep claimed him.

Elsewhere in the base Sakura was also smiling as she began her work on the finding a cure, to her amazement she wasn't the last person to arrive in fact it was Karin who arrived late almost 20 minutes after the agreed upon start time. Karin made no move to apologize to her two coworkers and instead went to work on her own project. All three women worked in almost total silence with the only sound that was not related to medical technology coming from the coffee machine in the corner of the room.

Sakura herself knew that each of them was looking into the virus in different ways, Karin was charging head on into studying the virus inside human cells and gaining a better understanding that way. Ino was double-checking Shizune's work in case she hid something important in the files from the Leaf, as for herself she was looking into the demons themselves and their DNA structure to find how they are immune to the virus.

The main issue facing Sakura was her limited number of demon samples, she had in total three samples. One was Samui who was a Rhyuu, Meiko who was a kitsune and a dead man who according to Meiko was a Joroguma basically a vampire. She also had samples from both Naruto and Fu, they would be key to finding the differences between human DNA and demon DNA that allowed the demons to live through the flu while humans died.

She had hoped that there would be something that jumped out with the samples, something that was shared between the three samples that would explain how all three where safe from the virus. The thing was that all three DNA samples where so different it was hard to find anything that was similar between the three of them. In fact they were each closer to normal humans then there where to each other. Samui's DNA was very different then Meiko's and both of them where different then the vampire like demon.

She lifted her mug of coffee to her lips as the task became harder then even she thought. It made no sense, the demons samples at least the three samples she had were so different from each other she couldn't find anything that jumped out as something that would make them safe from the virus but not humans.

"Looks like I will have to do it the hard way." Thought Sakura as she restarted the tests and began to break down the DNA samples of Naruto, Fuu and herself. The computer which was top of the line was task with running so many samples for Karin, Ino and herself that each of them of had multiple samples to run and breaking down whole DNA profiles took a lot of power. So much she only had enough space in her share of computer power to run three profiles at a time. I hope that seeing differences between humans with demon chakra and a normal human will show her something.

Karui rolled out of her bed and instantly hated her choice, her head was pounding and she knew what had happened. She had drunk too much and was paying the price for that. She turned her head toward the clock only to see that it was just past 5 in the morning. Slowly she sat up and slipped a pair of sandals on her feet and headed out of the room, she needed something to make her head stop pounding and the most likely place she would find that was in the kitchen the and medicine cabinet there.

The common room was dark and there was no sign of life, she moved down the hallway and past a couple of blast doors and into the dinning room, the kitchen was right behind it. To her amazement there was lights on in the kitchen and the smell of cooking meat filled the air.

"Ah...you're up early." came a laughing voice as Karui turned to see Kiba standing there in a black pair of shorts and a deep brown shirt.

"I could say the same to you," countered Karui as Kiba gave her a questioning look. "I just needed something to drink."

"If you just needed that you could have used water from the sink." countered Kiba before a grin covered his face. "I know what you really need."

"What?" inquired Karui as Kiba moved into the kitchen and came out moments later with a bottle of golden liquid and two shot glasses.

"Some hair of the dog that bit you." explained Kiba as he poured two glasses of golden whiskey; he took his own shot while Karui looked at it. Finally she downed the drink in one go and slammed it upside down on the severing table which sat between them.

"Fine, I needed that." admitted Karui "But why the hell are you up, you drank almost as much as me."

"True, but I weigh more then you." explained Kiba as he eyed the woman up, she was dressed in a pair of shorts that stopped halfway between her knees and her hips and a white thin string tank top. Her golden eyes glared at him for eyeing her but did not snap at him. "I would estimate I outweigh you between 10 to 15 pounds, also I spread my drinks out which helped."

"That may be true," admitted Karui, the two of them where about the same height he was maybe an inch or two taller than she was. "But why the hell are you up?"

"I am checking the meat we are going to eat for dinner? Remember I am doing an 18 hour smoked brisket." explained Kiba "Besides I couldn't sleep nightmares."

"Everyone has nightmares now." Confirmed Karui with a shake of her head, a few weeks ago for a ninja to admit he had nightmares bad enough to prevent them from sleeping would be seen as a sign of weakness or embracement. Then again, a few weeks ago people where not dying in the streets on mass. "My personal one is seeing all my friends and loves one attacking me in an unending stream only as they come they become demons and in the end I become one of those things."

"Which type?" inquired Kiba as Karui glared at him with golden eyes.

"It changes." admitted Karui "It doesn't matter."

"I guess that makes some sense, mine is similar but I know what I am likely to become if I become one of those demons." stated Kiba as Karui raised an eyebrow. "If you look at it, it isn't hard to guess for some of us what we would likely become. Naruto's entire family has become those fox creatures Kitsunes so it is a safe bet he would become that if he turned. Then there is Shikamaru, his clan has strong ties with deer so those deer like creature is likely with him, my clan has strong ties with dogs so I would bet on those wolf like things for me."

"That does make some sense but for most of us we don't have strong ties with anything so we could become anything." Stated Karui "I mean look at Samui she came a Rhyuu and she had a pet cat back home, by your logic she would be a cat not a dragon."

"Well maybe I am wrong then." admitted Kiba as he poured another drink for himself only to have Karui turn her own glass back up. That was all she had to say as he poured another shot for her, she downed it just like the first. "I hope I don't have to find out."

"I hope so too, I hope neither of us have to find out." admitted Karui as the door opened behind them as two figures a man and a woman walked into the room, Kiba instantly recognized Neji and Tenten. Moments after the two of them. Shino walked in unlike the others he was fully dressed in his normal ninja gear unlike the others who wore shorts, shirts and other sleeping cloths.

"Neji, Tenten, Shino what are you doing up?" inquired Kiba

"Neji and I have to replace Shikamaru and Sai on the guard station." explained Shino as he pushed up the sunglasses he wore even down here.

"And I am going to get to work on making some bronze weapons so that we can fight back." explained Tenten. "Also I don't want to sleep alone."

"I shouldn't be surprised that the two of you are sleeping together," laughed Kiba "Someone has to get lucky in this place."

"That really doesn't matter, but we do need to is make up a schedule for guard duty." explained Shino "We need to maintain a 24 hour shift watching the cameras and keeping an eye on our two demons already inside the base. We can also work out a schedule of jobs that everyone needs to do around the base."

"You know Shino, some time you can be a wet blanket," stated Kiba with a small laugh.

The sun was still below the horizon but its rays of light was already forcing back the darkness of the night as Hana Inuzuka and the rest of their small group moved through the woods. They could smell the salt from the ocean in the air as they neared the coastline. They were only a few hours away from the Daimyo's and the communication system, which would link them to the rest of the world.

"Any idea on what we will do once we make contact with the rest of the world?" inquired Hanabi Hyuga

"We find a way to organize and fight back," stated Hana as she sniffed the air.

"What do we know about this place?" inquired Iruka

"A beach side residence that the Daimyo owned and used every so often whenever he was in the mood to see the ocean. There is a small village nearby but the house is by itself so we may find the place totally intact." explained Anko as she took a breath. "I actually had a mission there when I was a genin, the house sits on a small penicillin of land which sticks out into the ocean, so the beach surrounds it on three sides."

"In other words if we are discovered while we are there we are basically trapped." stated Shikaku Nara "Ocean water and sand doesn't give much in the way of cover from being discovered."

"No it doesn't but it the only communication system nearby unless you want to try to head outside the land of fire or back north to Nysa and the demons." explained Yoshino Nara to her husband. "We will have to risk it."

"Yes and after that where do we go?" inquired Hana "We need to strike back and if we keep running sooner or later we will be taken and we are done."

"Our best bet to reform is likely the Sand or the land of Demons." explained Yoshino "The Land of Demons will be closer and wasn't hit as bad from all the reports but the Sand will have more ninjas we can hope. We will have to see who we make contact with?"

"Horrible thought what if we make contact with no one, what if they are all gone either to the virus or to the demons." Inquired Kurenai as everyone looked at her, she looked down at the small bundle in her arms, her and Asuma's daughter. "I am sorry but I have to ask, in that case what do we do. Then the choice is either become demons or die."

"Then that something that each person will have to make on their own." stated Shikaku as they kept moving each person thinking about their missing loved ones.

A few miles away moving up the beach was a handful of people who looked normal on the surface but in truth, they were far from humans.

"How long until we reach this other outpost?" inquired Utakata

"Only a few more hours." stated Tsume "There was a report of a ninja crossing over the cannel to the north, they are likely heading to the sea. So if we are by the sea we may find them and this group may have one or more of my children in it."

"Alright, but I need to get back to the Leaf sometime soon." explained Utakata "I will be there for my child's birth."

"Don't worry we will be back before that happens." stated Tsume as the Daimyo's massive beach house came into view. "The next outpost is a couple of miles down the coast, past that damn house by maybe two or three miles or so."

The water was breaking over the front of the ship, the Mist ninja called it the bow but Moegi didn't understand why that would be the case. They had moved through the night and the sunrise was breaking over the horizon as casting golden light over the water. It was rather beautiful with the blue water and the towering cliffs which covered most of the coast in this area it was worthy of a smile under most cases but not this morning. They were on the run and they had just saw their teammate get turned into a demon by some kind of plant. They had been picked up by some mist ninjas before they themselves had been turned into something other then humans.

Konohamaru had remained silent during the entire night just looking out over the black as night salt water ocean. They made a turn and headed toward a series of small islands which tree line poked out of the sea. As they got closer it became clear that that it wasn't a series of small islands but in fact a single large island which was covered with swamps. The sun was just rising as the boats went under the thick cover of the trees, which filled the swamp.

"We are safe from being spotted from the air now." reported the driver of their boat as they moved through the maze of waterways. They passed by a long abounded ship and even a house raised on polls, an old man waved to them as they passed. Both of them pulled pieces of bronzes and held it so that the others could see it.

"Confirming humanity." explained the driver as both of them put the metal away and with a wave they moved past the old man and headed deeper into the swamp. As they did more and more houses in a similar fashion appeared, a small town of maybe a dozen homes appeared out of the swamp all of them where on poles and there was maybe 30 people in the entire village.

"Where are we?" inquired Moegi

"An island off the coast of the Land of Swamps. True to its name this place is full of swamps, alligators, snakes, bugs and mad people who call this place home." Stated the mist ninja who guided the boat past a small group of houses where the native lived. There where man and women, children and elderly who lived as if that there wasn't a virus or demons trying to take over the world. Instead they worked to make a living off fishing, farming on the little dry land they could find and gathering wood for fires.

"Aren't they afraid of the virus or the demons?" inquired Moegi

"The virus never reached here and this place, no one who was infected reached here." explained the Mist Ninja "Until our ship arrived to make this place into our base, they had no idea that anything was going on."

"How? With so many people dying could they not know?" inquired Moegi stunned that so many people could die without the entire world knowing.

"If you go far enough away from civilization you would be amazed what people don't know about the outside world," countered the Mist Ninja. "They don't even have electricity here and only one or two people in a generation leave this place. With no immigration, aside from the random criminal or missing ninja who doesn't want to be found is it a surprise they don't know what is going outside their village?"

"I guess that makes sense," said Konohamaru as they made another turn only to see a medium sized ship sitting under a thick curtain of trees and more camo netting. The ship was a shallow bottom boat but still large enough to be an ocean going vessel. It had rust along the side,

"Welcome to our base." said the mist ninja as they and the other boats moved alongside the rusty hulk, flapping as best it could in the damp air was a blue flag with the symbol of the Mist village in silver. A couple of people in worn out ninja gear stood on the deck and along the shoreline.

"What is the pass word?" yelled a voice down from the ship.

"We don't have one!" yelled the driver back causing the man who had challenged him to laugh.

"Did you kill some SOB demons?" inquired the man on the ship.

"I was assigned to protect the escape route this time but we did pick up two refugee ninjas from the Leaf, we didn't lose anyone so we don't have to leave." explained the driver as the man on the boat, he looked down at the two Leaf genin. "Not much to look at but we will take what we can."

"Right now being human is enough." Said a woman's voice as her boat pulled in alongside.

"Lady Mizukage." said the man on the ship as he gave a slight bow to his Kage.

"Now, what has been happening around here?" inquired the Mizukage

"We have spotted some demons in the air but only two and they were all moving along the coast not toward us." reported the man on the ship. "But the real news is that our recon force has found something of great interest and a target that needs to be hit as soon as possible."

"What target?" inquired the Mizukage

"We may have found the home village of the demons." explained the man as the Mizukage and the returning Mist ninjas looked at him stunned. "And since they have sent so many of their fighters trying to remove humanity they are next to defenseless. It is time to strike back and strike back hard."

Well I am back from my vacation and I hope you enjoyed this chapter, until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75