Chapter 78 Crossings
The sky was overcast and a light rain was falling over what remained of a small trading town located about twenty five miles outside of the Leaf village, the town once held over ten thousand people however now it was almost empty apart from a small branch of resistance fighter which called this place home for the moment. They had set up base in a small neighborhood located on the far edge of the village near a forest where they could make an escape if needed.
"It's been so long since we have slept on a real bed." said Tenten as she lied in Neji's arm in a bedroom which wasn't their own, in a house that wasn't theirs and a village that wasn't even theirs.
"I know." said Neji as he wrapped his arms tighter around Tenten making sure to place one of his hands on her stomach were their child was growing. They both knew places like this was on the decline, all over the world in the places the demons controlled they were going around destroying any trace of humanity. Entire villages were either burned or simply torn down, the best guess anyone had was that they were doing one of two things. Either they were trying to remove places for humans to hid or they planned to rebuild the cities in their own way. Either way it was bad for them.
"We have to get up don't we?" asked Tenten
"Yes." answered Neji as he stood up.
"You can have the shower first." offered Tenten as she looked at the man she loves "Unlike you I don't have to command all of the people."
"Whatever are left after the night." stated Neji sadly as he lowered his head before heading to the bathroom and the shower as Tenten called it. The shower was nothing more than three buckets each of cold water which they had gotten the night before. For a moment Neji stopped and looked in the mirror, he looked tied with deep bags under his eyes and while he had never had a beard before he could see one forming over his thinner face. He turned and looked back into the bedroom only to see Tenten looking out though the window blinds at the street below. She too looked thinner around the face even though he had been giving her extra food because of the baby. He could see that her cloths like everyone else was dirty and had patches sown on them to fix the holes which came from long repeated use.
"Maybe it would be better for the baby if we surrendered to the demons. Then there would be food and medical supplies for the baby even if we were demons." thought Neji for a moment as he considered what sort of life his child would have. Life on the run from demons and supplies were already run out how would it be in a year or four years. "No, we will make do and we will rebuild humanity. All we need is a break to go our way, maybe Shizune will find something soon and we can force a peace."
"You better get in the shower soon Neji you have to get to that meeting." stated Tenten as she looked out over the road, she could look across the road to see one of the ninja which had stayed up to keep lookout standing on the far rooftop. She could also see some of the children playing in the neighbor front yard with a dirt and mud covered ball.
While Tenten was looking out the window trying not to think how hungry she was and Neji was pouring ice cold water over his body in the shower, Naruto and Sakura were standing in front of the front desk of a massive resort hotel in demon bear country.
"I have your reservations." stated the Large black bear located behind the cherry wood desk. "You have cabin number 125 for ten days."
"Yes, we do." said Naruto as he looked around at the massive grand hall. To the right of the main door was the reception desk and check in area. To the front was a massive grand staircase which lead up into the hundreds of hotel rooms which made up the main part of the resort. The walls were covered with oak panels and nice rugs covered the hardwood floors.
"We also have your reservation for dinner tonight at eight." stated the bear
"We have dinner reservations?" asked Sakura
"Just another little surprise I have for you." said Naruto with a grin.
"If I may ask Miss, why do you have a bag?" asked the bear as he looked at the bag which Sakura was carrying. Looking around it was clear that while having a bag to bring in personal items like shampoo and personal grooming items wasn't uncommon the fact that no demon wore cloths meant that bags were very small. Naruto's heart stopped for a moment because if they looked in the bag and food the map that would lead them to the demon ape capital.
"Let's just say I have someone surprises for my mate-in-waiting." stated Sakura with a perverted grin.
"I see." said the bear then maybe it is luckily that your got a cabin. We wouldn't want your personal activities to disturbed the other guests." stated the bear as he handed a set of keys to Naruto "Enjoy your stay if you need anything we are bust a phone call away."
"Thank you." said Naruto
Less than an hour later in the human world Neji was standing right beside Konohamaru and a few other members of what remained of their ninja core. They were gathering around a kitchen table with pots and pans holding down the edges of the map.
"So what is the situation?" asked Neji already knowing the general answer.
"It's bad, we spotted a group of what had to be enginers tearing down a trading post five miles to our south." Stated a scout ninja as he pointed toward a small spot on the map. All over the dirty map were small O where they had picked an area clean of resources and X were known demon forts where. More and more the map was filling in Xs and Os, they were running out of room to run and places to hid.
"Can we hit them?" asked Konohamaru "It would raise people hopes if we could hit them when we aren't running away."
"I wouldn't recommend it." stated the ninja as he pointed toward the map again "They have a small camp of fifty fighters located on a small hill within a half a mile of the engineers. They would be on us within minutes."
"Are they heading this way?" asked Neji
"That is where we are lucky they are heading south away from us." said the scout
"Did you find any supplies?" asked Neji
"Twelve 20 pounds bags of half rotten grain and here is the real find a weapon stash containing a half a dozen swords and three packs of kunai." Stated the scout ninja
"Good." said Neji even though everyone knew that the food would only last a few days and that half of it was rotten. "How many people did we lose?"
"We were luckily only one suicide last night and no run a ways." stated Konohamaru knowing that if we had been any runaways to find their own way or become demons the entire group would have to move once again. "Still I heard that another five families are talking about surrendering if they don't get more food and medical supplies."
"What medical supplies the only thing we have is three bottles of aspirin and some cold pills." stated Neji "We lost all but one of our medical ninjas and the one we do have was fresh out of training. And unless we find more supplies then what we find on average our food supplies will likely only last till the end of the month."
"Sir we are trying the best we can." stated the scout "But it is hard, when this town was taken the demons cleaned most of the warehouses and stores. We are looking though houses and bars."
"I know and I am not blaming you or anyone else." stated Neji as he looked at the map, they were almost boxed in on all sides, the map only showed two ways for a group of their size to get out of the area which didn't pass within a mile of a demon outpost. There were other ways but they couldn't use them since they had too many people.
While Neji was looking for a way out Naruto and Sakura where walking around the cabin located about halfway up one of the many mountains in demon bear country.
"Wow, once again I am impressed." stated Sakura as she looked around the cabin which would be their decoy home for when they crossed into demon ape country. On three of the four sides were heavy woods but the cabin itself was built in such a way that it hung halfway over an edge so that even though there was woods to their front they had a perfect view of the countryside including the massive river which snaked it's way though the landscape. The inside was constructed in the form of a log cabin with a massive stone fire place. Since the cabin was designed to hold entire families during a vacation as well as couples it had two floors a full kitchen, two full bathrooms and five bedrooms."How did you get a place like this so soon? I would bet that they are booked in advanced"
"Well, we are a pack on the high council." explained Naruto "When I dropped my name they opened one of the newly renovated cabin early."
"Still this is a wonderful view." said Sakura as Naruto joined her on one of the balcony's "Makes me wish we could actually spend the night here tonight instead of crossing that river."
"Well it will only take five days to get the demon ape capital and back we could wait a night and leave tomorrow night." offered Naruto
"No…we leave tonight because if we run into trouble I would want time to play with." stated Sakura "My only worry is that they will come by and see that we aren't here."
"Don't worry." said Naruto as he pulled out a map which had been left on the dining room table "There is so many nature trails that if they do come by we can just say we were on one of those trails."
"Really." said Sakura as she looked at the map which showed all these different nature trails, locations of hot springs and waterfalls. "We could spend a month here and not see half of these things."
"I know and some of these trails are night only trails." said Naruto
"You know once we get back I would like to check out this lover moon reflection pool." said Sakura
"So we have about half the day before dinner what do you want to do?" asked Naruto
"Let's hit the beach, we have to do some scouting before we cross it." said Sakura
"You know I always dreamed of seeing you in a bikini." laughed Naruto
"You do realize that technically we are both naked right now." stated Sakura as she crossed her arms.
"I know just saying." said Naruto with a grin.
While Naruto and Sakura were laying out their plans Tenten was working in the communal kitchen making lunch for the group. While not the best cook in the world the fact she was now almost five months pregnant meant she couldn't work as a frontline ninja and couldn't really lift up some of the heavy supply containers that only left her with a few jobs that she could do.
"So what are we making today?" asked Tenten to the other cooks who were mostly woman, children and a few elders.
"A beef stew and some corn bread." stated one of the other cooks as she filled up a three gallon container large container with 80% water before adding a small can of beef chunks and a few cut up carrots.
"I wish we had some more food to work with." added the head cook Mrs. Akimichi as Choji's mother and five star chief took a small taste of the stew "It's mostly water with some beef taste."
"Well we did get some corn today." stated Tenten
"They said it was only have rotten but most of that stuff is so rotten that I wouldn't feed it to a pig." stated Mrs. Akimichi as she thought about it for a moment, she couldn't go out and get more food and at the moment the stew needed something however if they used corn in the stew then they would be totally out of corn.
"I heard one of the scouts saw a group of demons roasting a whole pig." stated another cook as her child worked with her in the kitchen.
"I would love to have a roasted pig mom." said the seven year old kid who was helping his mom cook "Can we go to them?"
For the longest time the mother just looked into the face of her hungry child.
"No dear because they would turn us into demons." said the mother
"But you said most of my friends are now demons can't we join them so that I can see them again." said the little boy "Daddy is a demon, I miss him."
The mother looked down as she tried to think of what to say.
"Why don't you go out and play a little bit." said Mrs. Akimichi
"Alright." said the boy as he went out to play with the few kids his age.
"I may have an idea." stated Tenten
"What?" asked Mrs. Akimichi
"When we came into this town I spotted a bee's nest in park, maybe some wild honey on the corn bread will lighten people's mood." said Tenten "Also people may focus less on the lack of food in the stew."
"Yes, it has been a while since we had anything sweat." stated Mrs. Akimichi
"If you excuse me I am going to go check on my soon." said the mother as she moved off.
"I expected the two of them to move off by now." said Mrs. Akimichi "The boy misses his father."
"I am sure you miss your son." stated Tenten as she looked at Mrs. Akimichi who simply lowered her head.
"We all have to do what we have too." said Mrs. Akimichi "But I wonder what he is up too? Is he happy as a demon or is as evil as the others?"
"I am not sure all of the demons are as evil as we think." said Tenten "I mean you were saved by Naruto and he is now a demon."
"Still they are evil." stated Mrs. Akimichi as Tenten nodded her head.
A couple of hours later and Sakura was lying on a beach towel on the white sandy beach, she had spent over two and half hours studying the layout of the beach and of what they could see of the far bank. They had already found the spot where they were planning to cross and now they were just killing time.
"Ok if I may ask why are we laying here?" asked Naruto as he lied beside her.
"We are relaxing." answered Sakura as she closed her eyes and just felt the sun on her fur.
"I mean we aren't getting a tan we have fur." said Naruto "So why do we just lie out here in the sun?"
"It's just something you do on the beach." answered Sakura as she rolled onto her stomach. "Besides the sun does help the color of the fur."
"Really?" asked Naruto
"I don't really know for sure but that is what Ino says." stated Sakura as she tilted her head and looked at Naruto. "You seam stressed Naruto-kun, come on relax we are on vacation."
"I am just focusing on what we have to do." answered Naruto as he ran though a thousand possibilities in his head while he watched the other demons enjoy the beach, a couple of lion cubs were playing in the surf while their parents talked to each other nearby. A few yards away three female snakes were soaking up the sun and enjoying some drinks.
"Naruto roll onto your back." stated Sakura as Naruto looked at her for a moment before doing what he was told. The next thing he felt was Sakura climbing onto his back.
"Sakura-chan what are you doing?" asked Naruto as he felt Sakura's hands on his back.
"You just seam stressed." answered Sakura as she rubbed Naruto's shoulders before moving down his back applying some chakra to her hands. Her chakra entered his body relaxing his muscles and earning a slight purr from Naruto as his tails moved happily behind him. "It's time to relax."
There was no time for relaxing for Neji or any of the other of the humans as they hid in their temporary houses. On the streets below a group of twenty five demons walked down the streets.
"We can take them." said Konohamaru
"No." stated Neji as he looked around the area with his Byakugan. His people were hiding in upper floors and in basements, they had only a ten minute warning about the demons coming in so they decided to hunker down and wait for them to past them by "There is five more groups just like this one within a one mile radius."
"So we are going to take this place down?" asked a Tiger as he and lion stopped almost right in front of the house were Neji, Tenten and most of the command staff was hidding. Inside everyone held their breaths in fear that the demons would hear them.
"We have it scheduled for later this week. We hope to have this entire town torn down and whatever we can use recovered." stated the lion
"I just hope we get everything done by the Royal wedding." said the Tiger "I don't want to miss King Gamba's and Lady Hinata's wedding."
"So Hinata is getting married and to the King of the Felines?" thought Neji as the demons started moving on.
"We have to leave." said Tenten
"We will prepare everything to leave by nightfall." stated Konohamaru
"We can't do this." Said Neji
"You can't be thinking of surrendering?" asked Konohamaru
"No…but a group this large is too hard to move without being found and too big of a target." stated Neji as he thought of the over a thousand people under his command "We have to split this group up. It's the only way we can move unseen."
"You're talking about disbanding this arm of the resistance." stated a Tenten
"If we don't then we will either die off from the lack of supplies or we will be demons." stated Neji "If we are in small groups of around ten or so, we can better live off the land. Smaller groups can take shelter in a single house instead of dozens. They can remain hidden better and move though smaller gaps in the demon patrols."
"How will we stay in the fight, we only have three people trained on the long range radios and only one radio." stated Konohamaru
"There is no choice take whatever supplies we have and divide it up amongst the groups and prepare to move out by dawn." said Neji knowing that it will take time to divide up the supplies.
"Alright." said Konohamaru as he began to move off to carry out Neji's orders.
"You do know that in smaller groups we are more likely to lose people." said Tenten "If there is one or two people who want to surrenders they can convince the others."
"I now but the only way for us to survive." stated Neji
The sun was setting behind the snow topped mountains but it was still very warm summer evening in the valley were the resort hotel was located. Located along the top floor of the resort was one of the many restaurants which the bear country resort offered. The five star restaurant was known around the world for their food and their ability to host any of the demon races.
"This is very nice." said Sakura as she looked at around at the crystal chandeliers which hung above grand staircase which lead up the dining area on the top floor.
"Yes, it is." said Naruto as he looked around at the fine hand craved redwood wall panels which seemed to glow a bit from the mixture of electric and candle light.
"It is just strange to see all this different demons together without their being any real argument." added Naruto as he looked around the waiting area. He could see every living demon race apart from the ants in this one room. Everyone was going about their business as they weren't different races.
"Namikaze party of two." stated a bear as he lead Naruto and Sakura the grand staircase and up to the highest floor of the hotel building. There they found themselves standing in the middle of a grand dining hall with almost a hundred tables and crystal chandeliers with candles attached to them. Almost every table was covered with fine silk table cloths and at least one candle. The waiter lead Naruto and Sakura past snakes who were eating raw chicken severed on fine china and past horse who were eating salads with silver plated forks. The waiter lead them out of the main dining room and out into the outdoor patio were even more tables were set up. These tables while exposed to a little bit more to the slightly colder demon bear country air but they had a clear view of the river and the moon light valley.
"Here you are." stated the waiter as he lead Naruto and Sakura to a table right next to the balcony. "What can I get you two to drink."
"I'll take one of those famous self brewed beers and a glass of water." said Naruto as he remembered what his father told him about the famous bear mountain beer which was so famous that even the Demon felines royal family would drink it.
"I'll take some red wine and water." said Sakura as the waiter nodded his head
"This is amazing." said Sakura as Naruto pulled back her chair for her before taking his own chair. "I am betting they don't serve Ramen noodles here."
"No they don't." laughed Naruto as they each took a menu. "The grilled chicken sounds good but what is a risotto?"
Sakura couldn't help but laugh at Naruto who had made reservations at a five star restaurant but not knowing what the food was.
"If I under it is a mixture of rice and meat." Stated Sakura
"Oh." said Naruto as he looked down at the menu as their drinks showed up. The waiter left them as the two of them kept looking at the menu.
"This is beautiful isn't it." said Sakura as she looked toward demon ape country where the moon was rising, the light from the moon was shinning off the river.
"Yes it is." said Naruto as he looked at the pink vixen instead of the rising moon. Just seeing the smile on Sakura's face warmed his heart as his nerves built up for what he was planning to do.
"You're looking at me aren't you?" asked Sakura without even turning and looking at him.
"Maybe?" joked Naruto as Sakura turned and looked at him with a loving smile the candle light bouncing off her green eyes. They started talking not about the human war or how they were going to cross the fast moving river in just a few hours; instead they talked about what all had happened in the few months since they turned and their future. Their food had arrived and it was just as good as what the reports had said but the time with each other is what they both enjoyed the most.
"That was great." stated Sakura as she finished the fresh cod fish.
"I know." said Naruto as he took a deep breath. "Sakura-chan I have a question."
"What?" asked Sakura as Naruto placed his hand on top of hers.
"I know I am not the best speaker and I don't really know how best to say all I want to, so I am just going to say it outright." said Naruto as he took a deep breath before moving over and getting down on one knee in front of her. Sakura's eyes widened as her heart seamed to beat a thousand times a minute. "Sakura Haruno will you join my pack and be my wife?"
"Yes…yes…yes." answered Sakura before Naruto could even totally finish a combination of a human and traditional demon mating request. He couldn't even stand up before Sakura planted kisses on his lips. The sound of clapping filled the air as the other demons looked on with smiles on their faces.
Well I hope you liked this chapter and how I pretty much followed Naruto/Sakura and Neji/Tenten day and how they were different. I would like to thank everyone who reviewed and I ask that you keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75
