Reviewers;

St3rfire: Thanks, it's great to be back. I know that it was great to spend time getting to know my cousins . And I suggest that you keep those fingers crossed as the suspense will continue to build and build and I hope you enjoy what is coming.

Czar Joseph: Thanks, Czar. Did you know that Czar originated from Caesar? Cool huh? Anyways, I'm back and ready to head on with this third installment of my story. As for your comment on people noticing, remember that everything in these days are rumors and speculations, but it is Sakrua who will explain everything. I have a nice evil sermon for her to spew out.

Duh Bomb: It is painful for me to see my people being made anew, but I an't stop, I have to see it through. I left for a reason, but hat is now for naught; I must come back to rescue her, using all that I've got. My student, and little sister, the one I watched that died, oh how it breaks me that I must cut into your hide. (Sakrua-Naruto-Kakashi for you)

AN: I thank those of you who have waited patiently for me to return from my summer week hiatus, and that should be the longest time apart while I complete this story. Are we coming towards the end? In a way, but there is still much to be discovered and I do hope you stay until the end.

First, there is Control, then there is letting it Go, but when when all else fails, there is Trust- Spoken by OC Sakura-Quote in Fire and Ice- Chapter-TBA

Fire & Ice

Arc 3: Trust

Chapter 34: Into The Deep Snow

Naruto and Kakashi indeed made it with the tide and were able to make their way towards Port Haruno in a gentle free sailing wind that moved them steadily towards the harbor's entrance. It was a good three days to travel against the water's current, but soon they were only an hour or so from their destination and could see the entrance's creepy frozen mist off in the distance.

"Naruto." Kakashi called out and Naruto turned from the head of the sloop of war and followed Kakashi down into the hold, where they passed wooden planks on the stairs, the cargo hold full of what food they had left to spare for this expedition, and fresh water which was now much more plentiful from the ever present snow and ice. Naruto's body followed Kakashi as he continued down the middle of the ship as his eyes looked to the side, where portholes were filled with the ends of cannons and being made ready for something, even without a target at the current moment.

Kakashi stopped at a doorway to the ammunition hatch and gestured Naruto to his side. Once he had reached it, Kakashi took out a key from his pocket. It was a silver key, and looked different from the regular two pronged keys that Naruto had seen the first mate with, and after Kakashi slid it into the keyhole, he twisted it, and it opened to show Naruto the cannonballs. Naruto walked forward, but felt something off about these shots of death.

"Kakashi, what is this?" Naruto called out, his body shivering with new energy.

Kakashi smiled as he walked in and picked up one of the cannonballs, and Naruto noticed how light they were. "These, Naruto are specialized cannonballs, made lighter so that they can be fired faster and further than other cannonballs. We tested them on the strongest of walls down south and they made it halfway through the twenty feet of wall and left a huge crater all around it. It will work; of that I am sure of it." Kakashi smiled and looked to Naruto to see him handling one of them warily.

"Kakashi," Naruto spoke and stared directly at his eyes, "what are in these cannonballs besides the regular stuff?" Naruto looked on as Kakashi sighed and pulled his armor off of his gloved hand and Naruto nodded as he saw the telltale signs of magical burns on Kakashi's hands and wrists. "So they are magic-induced."

"We figured that if we used Sakura's magic inside the cannonballs, that it would be more useful, so yes Naruto. We have spent the last few weeks finding Sakura's magic wherever possible and extracting it to place inside the explosive impact of the ammunition."

Naruto nodded and walked back to the ammunition pile, and placed the cannonball upon the top of all of the others, and then walked out the door, Kakashi preceding him before they locked the door back up. They made it all of five steps before there was a shout from above and all the men moved to the closest porthole and looked out to the sight before them.

There it was, the only defense of the southern border, the great Haruno wall, as it had come to be called around the land, and there it stood, right before them between the two small cliffs reaching around the cove to connect with the land. The wall itself was two hundred feet high and looked as intimidating as could be. The pull it drew from the sea around it caused the sailors on the three ships to rally around their decks, securing the rigging as they ran from place to place, keeping the ships from colliding against the rocky shores all around them.

The soldiers stayed in the brig, either throwing up in metallic bowls, or waiting for the ride to be over. They wanted off, and they wanted it now. Naruto personally wanted to be off this rocking boat and the sudden pull of the wall's magical force only made the ships swirl around and around, trying to line themselves up before the wall.

"Fire!" Kakashi's admiral yelled and the call was repeated to the first mate and then to the captains of the other two ships. All along the left side of the ships, thirty guns, ten on each side of the sloops, shot their ammunition forward, and then the sound of a huge blast erupted along the huge ice wall, and ice shot out towards the ships, flying down into the water like huge meteors hitting the water off the island of a volcano.

Mist seeped up out of the water and covered the sight for a few seconds, but as it cleared, sailors cheered at the sight of the wall, broken a fourth way through and in need of just one more volley of explosives.

"Alright." Kakashi nodded his head, "now we just need to realign the ship and-"

"Kakashi." Naruto spoke gravely and Kakashi looked back in dismay to see the magical lightning forming along the wall's dents and craters and slowly forming back into its original shape. Kakashi yelled to the admiral and as the ships began to realign themselves, each shot forth their own volleys at the craters, usually missing the targets, but as they continued to explode, the magic could not fix itself easily enough or fast enough and as the ships continued to circle around the front of the wall, it finally burst down the middle, and a small line of water surged into the cove, as well as the current itself.

"Into the opening! Now!"

The ships were quick to pull up the sails, turning quickly with the current, and then unfurled them to pick up speed, and slid into the small opening and as they moved through the hundred foot thick wall, the sailors readied the cannons, hoping to make it through before the magic repaired the ice all around them.

As they slipped outside the tight squeeze of the already re-growing wall, the sailors below began to check the new currents as well as the armaments, checking their amounts of ammunition and as they exited the temporary chasm, they knew that they had just enough to once again leave this cove, and most were glad that this time there was minimal current leading more towards the middle of the cove than anywhere else.

Naruto himself slowly came back above deck, his feet creaking on the wet wood, and looked around himself at the cove and the city before him. To think, he had been there on those docks a little more than a year ago, with Saku-…with Alice at his side. Naruto closed his eyes as tears filled them and he rubbed them fervently.

Last time he had left Sakura when she had needed him most, and yet she had been there for him even when he thought she was another person. Now, he would come to her rescue, he would be the one to keep her content. He would convince her to not exactly use her powers; but stay next to him, and maybe one day, she would be able to one day be the Queen that he had always envisioned her to be.

As Naruto opened his eyes, the soldiers Kakashi had brought with him began to walk up to the main deck and as the last ones left the staircase, they began to fall on their knees and bring their hands together. Naruto watched as they lowered their heads to their chests and down to the wood on their knees. They were…praying?

"These men saw Sakura's hanging all those years ago," a man spoke and Naruto turned to see Kakashi walk over to him once again.

"T-they saw her die?"

"Yes, and they were the ones to pass on her story around to others." Kakashi nodded and they walked between the soldiers, who mumbled prayers completely oblivious to the sailors walking around them. "My men and I heard Sakura's last words and remember it as clear as day.

"Naruto, the order that I lead has always strived to include a mixture of knight and ninja, to be fast but durable, stealth but present, hardened killers but loyal ones. The Ninja Knight Order does not want to kill Sakura, Naruto. I chose these men for this mission because of that, and because they all wish to see and serve Sakura again.

"Sakura is the first of what we hope is an age of enlightenment, when magic and our current technology can move into the future where one who is born with magic is not killed, but nurtured and given back to the community. And now, we are here, back inside the city where this all started. We have arrived to our initial destination," Kakashi spoke as he looked and stood straight at Naruto, "but now that we are here, we need your knowledge of where Sakura has been staying. So, Naruto, lead us to her encampment."

Naruto smiled nervously and chuckled as his hand reached up as he rubbed his neck. "Yeah…about that."

As Naruto explained the situation to Kakashi, the three ships edged closer to the docks. Men opened their eyes and got up from the deck, and saw the many different ships that had been left in the last chaos to leave the city when the initial invasion had failed. But as they saw the various ships where some of the docks were broken up and houses on the water with the hulls splintering them down the middle, the ships' captains decided that in this one instance, they would unlock their troops and equipment onto the royal docks, left bare by the lack of a royal ship at its dock.

Two of the ships began to speed forward ahead of the third, and each took one side of the stone pier, furling their sails and sending down a few rowboats with some sailors to help bring them into port. The rowboats held tight arm sized pieces of rope attached to their hulls and pulled on the front of the ships, and dragged them closer and closer to the pier next to them. As the sailors jumped up the ten feet or so to the stone pier, they untied the ropes to the rowboats and pulled the ships closer, tying them off to the stone handles on the pier. Soon, gangplanks were lowered from the top decks and soldiers began to walk down onto the land itself, as cargo bays were unlocked and nets were lowered to begin the unloading preparations.

As the crates were lowered upon the docks, men began to move into the city itself, slowly as they carefully examined each and every part of the frozen city. The soldiers placed their hands along the wood of the various houses, stables, and farmhouses in awe at the still frozen over sight and feeling of the ice. This was really a city frozen in time.

As the last crates were taken out of the netting, men had reached the walls near the edge of the city and began to dig into the piles of snow to begin their preparations for the tents for the night. It was nearing the end of the day and so the ever present snow and blizzard around the region was at its weakest. It would not stay like that for long however.

Naruto moved with Kakashi through the city, slowly explaining to him how they could survive the blizzard if they were close together, remembering how close Alice was to him made him blush, but the ideology was still sound logic. So as they reached the campsite, Kakashi saw that his men had dug through the snow to make small trenches two feet down and small walls to protect against the winds.

Yells were heard and everyone stopped their current work and turned to see the ropes of the ships by the docks becoming undone and then the ships slipped back out to the cove where the wall had almost reformed itself. The men watched as the ships lined up side by side, each angling themselves to hit in the same areas as the mending wall. The bangs and explosions of the volleys soon echoed around the city as the men watched just how slow it took to take the wall down and after two heavy volleys, the chasm was once again open and the ships began to slide through.

Naruto had already asked Kakashi why the ships weren't staying with them and Kakashi explained that for one, there was not enough food for that and the second was that they would return with another hundred sailors. Kakashi believed that capturing Sakura was one thing, but he had no doubt that Sasuke would somehow attack much harder to kill her and anyone else around her, once her powers were weakened. He would know about it one way or another.

Everyone went back to their work as the last of the soldiers, all two hundred of them in total, began to make their own trek up to the camp. As they did, they too past some of the houses and some decided to walk through the marketplace. And it was as they stepped on a piece of ice when suddenly there was a groaning sound that reverberated across the silent city. The men quickly backed up, and in time too, as suddenly frozen wooden beams fell from the rafters and onto the entrance to the merchant's door, and the men looked on as five pieces of the house now lay along the road, and they breathed out a sigh of relief.

But whereas the soldiers simply moved on, Naruto and Kakashi saw the wooden pieces on the road and realized something important. This city…was slowly rotting away. Nature was taking its course and while they were frozen in place, the water had seeped into the beams, weakening them and pushing them apart until they had begun to fall.

This city wasn't like Sakura's castle, made completely of ice. Wood was still susceptible to decay and Naruto knew that over time, even this great city would have to one day become a ruin where only a few things, namely the castle itself, survived. If Naruto could not get Sakura to come back, this city would be no more and her people, currently Ino's, would no longer have a place to return to. They couldn't let that happen.

"Alright men!" Kakashi yelled above the wind, as it started to become more and more violent as the blizzard began to gain force all around the region. "Set up your tents and grab your rations quickly!" A chorus of yes sir's and roger's followed and so Kakashi sat down on a small wooden crate, leaning into a larger one as Naruto opened the map and began to explain where to go to get to Sakura.

"So, it's about half a day's journey from here, Kakashi. First, we go up this pass…" Naruto said as he pointed it out on the map, not drawing it for obvious reasons. He would be the only one to know exactly where to go. "And then we head up this canyon outcropping to get to the plateau on the tops of the canyon itself. After that, there is a clear view around us until we head straight for the mountains to the north, then we just head up around them and her encampment is right here, but Kakashi, as I told you before, it's really a whole city up there."

Kakashi sighed and nodded his head, before the map blew across the crate and they quickly furled it before running for their tents, as the snow billowed up around them and the blizzard returned to its full force, pounding away at any stranglers in the area.

The sun began to make its descent across the horizon, and the soldiers each jumped inside their tents, tying them closed with the rope inlaid in the tent flaps, and yet the wind still chilled their bones, as snow pounded through the tents themselves, moving closer and closer to cover them in snow, and restore the area to a wasteland of white, as the sun disappeared beyond the blizzard and darkness became known to man once more.

As the blizzard darkened the skies and the snow became a glowing blueish white, the Queen of the land sat on the edge of her bed, her hands idly playing with the ends of the sheets as her eyes focused on something far, far away. Her eyes were deeply blackened, as if from eyeliner from the once more elusive sleep that evaded her time and time again over this past year, and her lips were dry, like she was dehydrated and had bit them for days on end. And yet, a crystal glass of water sat on her dresser, forming a small pool of water around itself as condensation took its course.

A soft knocking sounded on the door to her room, and Sakura's tired eyes looked up as the door opened to show her loyal companion Layla walk into the room. Layla took the ten steps forward before bending onto the ground, and while Sakura did not react, Layla grabbed her hand from the sheets and kissed it softly, in reverence, and yet, partially from forced obedience.

"Layla, you have returned." Sakura's voice sounded, hollow from the hard day and night she had had.

Layla smiled at Sakura and nodded, and Sakura looked to the mirror in the room, as she saw Layla's reflection, but failed to see her own. She felt…invisible to the world. The young creation stood up, and thought that after this report, she could go home, and see her two girls.

They had once again grown too fast, and were now six, and practicing with swords made of ice, fighting for their lives with the others in their age group. To think, if this war continued to be waged, they would soon be on the battlefield. Layla looked around the room, noticing the soft, dark blue firelight in the room, and shivered at the cold that even penetrated her own skin. Her Queen was growing more and more depressed as the days went on. She should leave them and rejoin with her lover, but Sakura no longer listened to even her own creations anymore, and disobedience was met with her wrath.

"Sakura-Sama?" Layla spoke up and Sakura turned to face her, making Layla cringe as she did out of reflex.

"What is it Layla? Has Sasuke passed the wall again?"

"N-Not yet, My Queen. Um, the ships we're been watching with the soldiers the Alliance is sending to kill you…they have landed inside the wall of Port Haruno."

Sakura breathed out and nodded her head solemnly. Her animals made such great spies, did they not? "Very well."

Layla waited a bit before asking. "What should we do about them?"

"Nothing." Sakura's voice echoed as she stood up and walked towards her window, where all she saw was the raging blizzard around even her city of ice. You and your soldiers will protect the walls. I will great my assassins…personally." Sakura frowned, but in her eyes, there was an anger, waiting to be unleashed.

AN: And What do you think of that? HEHE! I know, Too Much Suspense!