When In Middle Earth: The edited, revised and face-lifted edition:
When in Middle Earth, do as the Middle-Earthlings do. Sakura finds herself in the midst of Middle Earth, immersed in a war she has no part in, saving a world and people she doesn't know, and why? Because Naruto would be disappointed in her if she ever got back and told him she hadn't...
Chapter Seven:
In which competition is healthy, except when it's Sakura.
Disclaimer:
The Lord of The Rings, it's associated characters and components are copyright and property of its author J. R. R. Tolkien, the actors that played them, and the director of the trilogy of films of the same name, Peter Jackson. The character Sakura and any components associated with the manga and anime 'Naruto' are property and copyright of Masashi Kishimoto
The story continues:
When asked, later, Glorfindel would find himself entirely unable to describe the scene he witnessed.
He and his Lady had searched for some days for news of their expected guests to no avail, only for the she-elf to abruptly dismount, order him to remain where he was and promptly disappear into the underbrush. At first, he had been…if not entirely unconcerned, then certainly less so. However, when she had failed to return after some hours, and the cry of the Ringwraith had rung out through the night, he was filled with a fear deep and strong. Tying the rein of her great mount Asfaloth to the horn of his own saddle, the elf has set off into the wood, brushing aside branches and following what little tracks he could find. He dared not dismount, for fear of losing time, and yet to track her Ladyship's movements would be infinitely easier on foot. As it was, his horse was as sure footed as any of those elven-raised beasts, and he felt safer atop his mount. The light of dawn was staining the horizon when he finally came upon what he sought. Not the lady Arwen, but four hobbits, one of whom lay sweaty and feverish upon the earth.
He registered his shock at their being unattended. These could be no others than the expected ring-bearer and his companions, but if that was so, where was the Dunedán? He stilled his horse, sparing but a moment to question them, only to receive word from the fearful Halflings that the Ranger that guided them had gone in search of King's foil, and that his companion had followed him. Glorfindel furrowed his brow, knowing of no companion that the Dunedán would take with him on such a journey, and grew concerned. The hobbits were watching him fretfully. The fatter of the four, crouched protectively over Baggins (for who else could he be?) was the first (or only) to recognize his species.
"You, you're an elf," the hobbit breathed, in equal parts awe and relief.
"Are you here to help?" the smaller asked somewhat timidly.
Glorfindel kept his responses short, clipped and to the point. He had yet to find his lady and two now were missing from this party. The cries of the Ringwraiths he had not heard for some time, but that thought was not necessarily one that brought comfort. It may simply mean that their concentration was now bent upon something else, and there was a chill in the air which he did not care to feel. The elf, offering what few reassurances he could to the Halflings, quickly explained his purpose in seeking his Lady. To their next line of questioning he gave no answer, only leaving the horses with them with instruction to take both and flee should he not return in short order. Then he had marched into the trees with a single purpose in mind.
And marched straight into a scene he could never have imagined.
Knelt upon the damp ground was his missing Ranger, named often the Dunedán among the elves, Strider by men, and many names after that. His cheek was marred by a long, cruel cut and his chin tilted upward by a gleaming blade. Glorfindel's gaze travelled up that blade to the still form of the Lady Arwen, her slim pale hands clenched tight about her weapon and her head held rigidly still. But the crux of this picture was neither man nor elf, and it made him freeze in equal parts shock and horror. There was a knife, strangely shaped yet wickedly sharp, pointed directly at Arwen's slender throat. The blade was so close that should she but twitch, it would score a deep line across that white skin. And bearing that weapon…had he been less dignified Glorfindel was sure his jaw might have dropped.
It was a girl, no more than sixteen or seventeen years of age, for certain, and a human girl at that. But that was not the strangest thing. The girl's eyes were a vibrant green, narrowed and practically blazing with a fierce anger and spirit. Her hair glowed in the brightening dawn, a pink that would put many a flower to shame. But that was not the strangest thing. This girl was stood firmly on the underside of a tree branch. Upside down. Her posture reflected the same defensive position that he himself might have adopted on the ground, her feet apart and firmly rooted to the bark. He might almost have thought her the mere product of reflection, a trick of the light, if her hair hadn't been hanging down over her cheeks and exposing her neck, and the morning sun weren't glinting sinisterly off the knife held firmly in her hand.
"Don't. Move."
The girl-child's voice rang out crisply in the clearing. There was a coldness in her face and voice that chilled him to his core. Never had he seen such a thing in a girl so young; such a vengeful, passionate anger. He moved at once to interfere. He had the element of surprise on his side, she did not see him, and an elf could move so quietly that she'd never-
-the air twanged as the knife sailed past his ear and embedded inches into the tree trunk behind him. Glorfindel stopped short, his breath shocked still in his throat as he felt the unmistakable trickle of blood seeping from the nick in his earlobe.
"No Sakura!"
At once Aragorn was on his feet, knocking Arwen's sword aside. Seeking to take advantage of the distraction, Arwen carefully tilted her head, aiming to maximize the distance between the blade and her neck. But to no avail. She was shocked to find that, without the stranger so much as glancing at her, that knife followed her movement and pressed just a little closer into her skin in silent admonishment. She swallowed and stilled, her eyes flicking to Aragorn. She didn't fail to notice Glorfindel, struck dumb on the other side of the clearing by a frighteningly accurate throw. The girl hadn't looked at him either.
Arwen tried to keep her breathing steady as she contemplated the indications of that. It was only then that she realized with a start; the girl hadn't once taken her gaze off Aragorn.
The Ranger stood now facing her with an open fear on his face. Sakura, he had named her. Could it be that he knew this child-warrior?
Sakura noticed the flicker of unhidden fear in his face, and narrowed her eyes suspiciously. She did not drop her blade. Her eyes tracked his facial expressions, watching as his eyes flickered anxiously as she followed the movement of her captives neck. The very air seemed thick with tension and poised on, quite literally, a razor's edge, in wait. Aragorn breathed deeply and adopted the same soothing voice he'd used when they first met, and placatingly held up his palms.
"Peace Sakura," he murmured consolingly. He was acutely aware that her actions were entirely justified. On some level he was profoundly grateful that she would seek to protect him so. On the majority of other levels he was remembering the way that she'd ruthlessly kicked a wraith off a tower, and was panicking for the safety of his one-and-only love. Unforunately Sakura was not privy to that information and it was entirely possible that she would make good on her threat if he didn't do something.
"She meant nothing by it," he continued, trying to keep his voice steady and reassuring. By the suspicious narrowing of her eyes, he was not hiding his fear as well as he hoped. "She is Arwen, daughter of Elrond Lord of Rivendell." He knew the name of Arwen would mean nothing to the ninja, but silently he prayed that the mention of their destination at least would alleviate some of Sakura's distrust. "She is an elf, Sakura." He added, seeking to remind her of the aid they sought.
There was an excruciating period of tense silence as Sakura considered this, before she slowly relaxed her stance - though still she did not remove the weapon. The entire clearing held its breath. She addressed Aragorn in a cautious voice. "You know her?"
He nodded quickly. "She is here to help us."
"It didn't look like she was helping you," Sakura commented, in the deceptively mild voice that Aragorn had come to recognize. Fool be him that thought that voice meant her anger abated, he thought silently. He knew her anger was not gone, but merely reduced to a simmer and just as capable of bubbling over again at a moments notice. He had to pick his words carefully. He watched her like one would watch an unpredictable wild animal. And knew what to say.
It was, he lamented mildly in his head, a bit of a dirty trick, really.
"Trust me," he pleaded quietly, "if you will not trust her."
Sakura stiffened. Her green eyes locked on his. Aragorn was no stranger to loyalty. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he had Sakura's. She would not refuse such a plea from one she trusted. And trust him she did. She had shown him that. He felt torn by his fear for Arwen's safety and his guilt over taking advantage of that steadfastness. After all, she had only reacted in his defense.
"He's been stabbed by a Morgul blade." The words burned across Sakura's memory, accompanied by the surefire knowledge that Frodo needed more than she could give him. She had no knowledge of the poison in his system or the significance of his wound. "He needs elvish medicine."
Sensing her hesitance, Arwen carefully swallowed. Mindful of the knife still hovering near her jugular, she spoke softly, "We have been searching for you for days."
The human's eyes slid sideways then, and met the elf's unblinkingly. She gathered her courage and stared back, stunned for but a moment by the youthful face that she finally saw in all clarity. How young this girl must be, and yet, how aged and world-worn her eyes were already. She held her weapon like she'd done so all her life.
Holding the elf's gaze, Sakura came to her decision. She abruptly lowered her blade.
"Help then," she ordered sharply. And with that, she dropped to the ground and disappeared through the trees, pausing only to rip her knife out of the tree as she passed Glorfindel.
The clearing breathed again.
"What an interesting friend you have made," Arwen remarked quietly, touching her throat. Aragorn nodded uneasily, and hastily cutting free the King's Foil, he led the elves toward Frodo.
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Feeling angry and strangely betrayed, Sakura bounded back to the hobbits. She was not entirely surprised to find two gleaming grey horses standing nearby, their reins carelessly looped over a low-lying branch. One was so pale as to be almost white, and the little sun that shone through the canopy made its coat shine. The other was darker and dappled with silver spots. It snorted softly as she passed them. Bill grazed nearby, looking small and shabby in comparison. She patted the pony gently as she strode by.
The hobbits crouched around Frodo, for once their minds not on food or how sore their feet were. It felt wrong somehow, to see them so grave and quiet. Sakura felt her face twist into a grim expression. She dropped onto her heels beside the prone hobbit.
"He looks better Stranger," Sam whispered, as if afraid to speak louder.
Sakura nodded in silence, hands already reaching for his shoulder. Gently, she parted the torn edges of his shirt and examined the wound. It was weeping still, and the edges looked almost burned. But even so, his face was less green, his forehead less clammy. His eyes flickered under his eyelids in a manner more reminiscent of deep sleep than feverish dreaming, though his fingers still twitched spasmodically with pain, and his mouth was pinched. Her fingers pressed gently against his skin and her eyes fluttered closed, focusing her attention on the probing of her chakra. A muttered curse fell from her lips. 'Kuso'.
She could feel his system fighting, but fighting what she didn't know. Almost all of the poison had been drawn out by her jutsu and yet it lingered in his tissues, burning and coiling within him like some vicious, microscopic snake. She gritted her teeth and probed deeper. She was struck numb to feel something pushing back at her. Her eyes snapped open.
"There's something inside," she said, glaring at the wound on his shoulder.
The three conscious hobbits looked at her in alarm.
"The end of the blade, like as not." Aragorn's voice startled the Halflings, and they jumped a little, but Sakura made no movement. He came striding out of the undergrowth with two elves in tow.
"It's poisoning him from the inside out," Sakura stated without looking around, in the cold, detached voice of a professional. "I could try to get it out, but it's so deep that I'd have to cut open his shoulder to do it."
Sam blanched.
Sakura continued obliviously, "But there is a pretty good chance that the shard is blocking up the hole deeper down, and removing it might do more damage than leaving it in. He could run the risk of losing too much blood to recover from. That said, I can only keep drawing out the poison, or whatever it is, for so long before my chakra runs too low for the technique to work properly. And if we haven't reached another healer by that point, he's, frankly, more or less buggered."
Glorfindel and Arwen did not understand quite what the strange girl was saying – some of her words and turns of phrase were entirely alien to them. It was abundantly clear that the girl had medical knowledge, even some degree of healing power, but to what extent they did not know. Glorfindel, who bore no little degree of skill in elvish healing stepped forward cautiously.
"If I may offer a second opinion?" he murmured in as respectful a tone as he could manage.
"I suppose that depends on how knowledgeable that opinion is," Sakura replied icily. The elf's eyes narrowed.
"Considerably so," he said, more sharply than he'd intended, "I was not chosen for this search based on speed alone."
He stepped briskly to Frodo's opposite side and dropped gracefully to his knee.
"This is no wound of a mortal blade," he muttered darkly, long fingers brushing aside the fabric of Frodo's shirt in much the same way that Sakura's had just moments before.
"It was a Morgul blade," Aragorn offered up from behind Sakura, where he placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off harshly, refusing to look at him. Glorfindel's brows drew down into a deep frown.
"Then the tip must be removed by the proper method, else it may crumble and spread its venom yet more quickly." He looked up sharply at Sakura. "You spoke of drawing out the poison. I know of no such power. It is beyond the realm of the possible, surely."
"Most surely it is not!" Pippin cried indignantly. "I saw it myself! And he looks much the better for it too." All three hobbits scowled at the elf in union, much to his surprise.
"I assure you that I can," Sakura said in the same dangerously cold tone. Like hell was she going to sit about and have her own bloody technique questioned by some pointy-eared git she didn't know.
"Then it is much for the better," the elf Lady finally came forward to intervene in her soft, commanding voice. "We have yet six days to travel as the crow flies, and more than crows are on our tail. We waste time arguing, we must make haste."
'Easy for her to say,' Sakura thought sourly. 'I notice she's not offering any other-worldly healing advice.' Nevertheless, she set to preparing Frodo to move again. With care, she pulled him upright. Sam cradled his master gently while Sakura reached for his sleeve and ripped it off at the seam with a single purposeful tug. The rip caused the wary hobbits to start, but Glorfindel kept himself still and composed, much to the relief of his pride. He couldn't quite stop his eyebrows from rising into his hairline however.
Sakura ignored them all. She pulled the water canteen to her with a purpose and wet the now-detached sleeve with what was left in it. This she used to clean the wound as deftly as she could, before she produced from the pack around her waist a roll of crisp, clean bandage. Glorfindel aided her in wrapping Frodo's shoulder with a proficiency which left her reluctantly impressed, and credited him in her eyes as a healer, more surely than any talk of poison and Morgul blades ever could. And with the hobbit thus treated they prepared to leave.
The hobbits gathered their things with a quick wariness, Aragorn with grave purpose, and Sakura with a chilliness that no-one was quite prepared to brave. It occurred to Aragorn as he helped Glorfindel lift Frodo onto the back of a horse, that Sakura was angry with him specifically. She was worried for their charge, certainly; distrusting of the elves without a doubt, but angry? He winced as his guilt came back full force. He'd used her trust against her, and he bore her resentment for it.
The group moved off in silence. Frodo, atop the horse named Asfaloth, was in the centre of the group, led by the elf Glorfindel. Ahead of him Aragorn led the second horse with Arwen beside him, and behind came the three hobbits and the pony Bill. The elvish horses picked their path straight and true, headed for the Ford of Bruinen and the Loudwater, and from those banks the idyllic Rivendell.
Sakura had disappeared into the treetops not seconds after their first steps were taken. Arwen looked to Aragorn in concern.
"She is scouting," he whispered to her softly in the Elvin tongue. "It is her habit to double back and check for signs of pursuit, and to cover any tracks that may lay, and her habit again to check ahead, least danger approaches or waits."
"A worthy caution, but one person cannot do so much alone, nor all at once."
Aragorn smiled a secretive little smile, and Arwen looked on it with burning curiosity.
"Do not underestimate what she is capable of," he murmured. "You have seen but a fraction of her capabilities. Did you not see her defy gravity itself?"
"I was trying not to turn my head at the time," she reminded him in a low voice. He kissed her knuckles apologetically. "I brought it upon myself I suppose," Arwen conceded at last, after a moment of demure silence and thought. "She has the gift of magic then?" she then asked with a slight frown of incomprehension, "I thought what few humans possessed that gift were men alone. Or has the meaning of the word Wizard changed in your tongue?"
"Not to my knowledge," he answered mildly. He did not clarify to which of her questions he meant the reply.
Overhead, Sakura sent out several clones in different directions, and chomped down viciously on a soldier pill. Six days was entirely too much time for things to wrong, in her opinion.
Under her skin, her chakra thrummed gently, pulsing in time with the adrenaline still fueling her every move. The Kunoichi stood poised on a high branch, her back to the retreating group and her eyes on the rise of Weathertop. It rose like a formidable beacon over the treetops – they were not nearly far enough from it yet. On its banks, a shadow like an oversized ant scurried across its surface and into the shadows of the trees that climbed it. Sakura's eyes tingled as she let the chakra drain from them.
She schooled her features into the blank mask of a ninja and counted slowly to ten, leveling her chakra flow and reining in her emotions. She was a ninja, and she was on a mission.
And she'd be damned if she'd let anything get in the way of it. She wouldn't fail.
To be continued…
For your benefit, changes (if they're not obvious) made to this chapter include:
Glorfindel! Who has possibly the coolest name ever.
Character development! (Golly, that's a change isn't it?)
Detail! (I know! Amazing!)
Also, to those who were wondering: I was camping, with no computer and no internet, for the past two weeks :) Ergo, no updates. Sorry about that. Before that it was uni, and after this it's probably going to be uni too :( I have tests next week. I'll do my best, but the weekly updates might not be quite so…weekly for a bit I'm afraid. At least until summer holidays in 9 weeks time :)
In the mean time, enjoy Glorfindel.
~Devi1OnUrShou1der~