Author's note: Couple of things I'd like to mention. 1) Remember, you all asked for this version to be written; no take backsies now. 2) I did say that not all deaths were set in stone. 3) You all seem to have forgotten one crucial thing that happened in The Long Run after they ran away from the cannibals ... 4) Prepare yourselves. 5) Again, you all asked for this version.

EXTRA WARNING AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER FOR POSSIBLE SPOILER.

Thanks to the following reviewers: solitare1; Richon; Weebio

Warnings: Angst, no two ways about it

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Kishimoto owns it.

Saying I hope you'll like it sounds a bit sadistic given the angst in this chapter, but oh well.

Chapter 43

"Wait!" Karin suddenly said right as they were about to enter the forest again.

"What?" Gaara demanded, whipping his head around. Evidently he was past the point of remaining polite.

She didn't let his clipped tone bother her. "We actually might have to split up for this," she said, stretching her fingers before grabbing ones of her knives.

"Splitting up doesn't sound like such a great idea," Sasuke retorted. "The last thing we need is losing yet another person of our group."

"I know that, trust me, I'm not happy about this," she riposted and frowned. "But what if Naruto-san and Konohamaru-kun do manage to find their way back to the car? They won't see either one of us there and might decide to come look for us."

"And we might keep missing each other like that," Sasuke realised and grimaced, rubbing the back of his neck.

He didn't dare to hope that Naruto had actually found his way back to the car already, but what if that was what would happen? If all three of them were in the forest while Naruto and Konohamaru arrived at the car, they might keep missing each other if Naruto went looking for them next. Splitting up was never a good idea, especially not when they were currently only with three left, but they didn't really have much choice now. Somebody had to remain in the car just in case Naruto and Konohamaru would show up.

"There are flares in the smallest bag," Sasuke recalled. "Pretty sure that one got shoved to the back of the boot."

"The compound has flares?" Gaara asked, distracted momentarily by the information.

"Not that many," Sasuke replied and shook his head. "So we only take some with us if we're doing long runs like this one. There should be a red one and a white one stuffed in that bag."

"I could go back to the car," Karin suggested and shrugged when both men stared at her. "What? Somebody has to be in the car just in case they find their way back and out of the three of us I know Naruto-san the least well. I wouldn't even be able to start guessing in which direction he might have gone into; something you two might know. It only makes sense that I'll be the one waiting in the car then."

Sasuke couldn't say he was a fan of letting Karin return to the car on her own, but they couldn't afford to dawdle too much anymore either. With the cannibals locked up in the hospital – possibly burning alive but he wasn't going to think about that now – the only threat present right now were some zombies. Karin was far from weak and unlike some other people at the compound she did have extensive experience fighting off zombies. If she stuck to travelling through the road in the town, it was likely she wouldn't encounter the undead at all even.

"Shoot off a red flare if you're in trouble," Sasuke told her. "The white one if Naruto and Konohamaru do show up. We should be able to see them even when we're in the forest."

"Will do." She nodded and turned around. "Stay safe."

"You too." Sasuke watched until she disappeared around the bend in the road and turned to Gaara. "What do you think Naruto would look out for first: shelter or water?"

If it had been only Naruto who had gone missing, Sasuke would have assumed he would have searched for shelter first; neither Naruto nor Gaara were known for caring much about drinks or food after all. With him carrying Konohamaru, however, Sasuke wasn't actually sure which Naruto would seek out first. Something to hide in would keep the kid safe from zombies, but on the other hand Konohamaru hadn't been able to eat nor drink much since they had met him; who knew how long he had been hiding without any food or water before they came across him?

Gaara pursed his lips together; his green eyes flitting over the expanse of trees in front of them. "He would probably search for shelter first," he replied after a moment. "Water would be better for the kid in his current condition, but considering it's only now turning lighter I doubt Naruto would have risked getting attacked in exchange for possibly finding water."

"So we need to be on the lookout for something that acts like a shelter, got it," Sasuke said and inhaled deeply. "Let's go then. Best case scenario we might either come across them or Karin will send off a flare."

"Maybe," Gaara muttered, but didn't sound very optimistic about those possibilities.

Sasuke couldn't blame him. Frankly he wasn't feeling very optimistic now either. The longer Naruto and Konohamaru stayed missing, the higher the chance that something might have happened to them. Naruto was definitely one of the best – if not the best – fighters Sasuke knew and if this had been any other situation he wouldn't feel so worried. He might actually have felt more worried for any stupid zombie coming across Naruto. But all those other times Naruto hadn't been hauling a kid around with him.

Sasuke didn't want to think anything bad about Konohamaru, but in a fight with zombies he was more likely to be a liability to Naruto. One on one shouldn't be a problem for someone like Naruto, but what if they ran into a group of zombies? Could Naruto keep up both fighting and keeping Konohamaru safe at the same time? It was a question Sasuke didn't want to think about too much, but it lingered in the back of his mind like poison as they started trekking through the forest.

With morning upon them, the early daylight made it at least a bit easier to travel through the woods. They didn't have to rely on touch or luck anymore to walk past the trees, evading thorny bushes with ease. As they left the road and the hospital behind, they started to encounter the occasional zombie which they quickly disposed of; not wanting to waste too much time decapitating them, they just settled for a quick stab to their brains, already moving on before the bodies even had a chance to drop down onto the ground.

Sasuke thought they were walking in the northern direction when he saw something that instantly attracted his attention.

"Hey!" he called out, wading through the long grass until he paused right in front of a section where the grass had been flattened in several places.

Gaara came to stand next to him, immediately realising what Sasuke was looking at. "Think the trail might have been made by them?" he asked quietly.

"There's a chance," Sasuke murmured, studying the broken and flattened grass blades.

They didn't look like a storm had crushed them; if natural elements had caused this, the entire field would have been bent underneath the force. Instead only a single line leading deeper into the woods looked like they had borne quite a bit of weight for a while.

"I doubt the trail was made by zombies," he continued, gesturing at the long row of bent grass. "This looks like people lay down for a while before crawling away. Unless you kill zombies or they trip, they are unlikely to lie down for that long on the ground."

"I've seen zombies dragging themselves across the ground," Gaara remarked, but it was meant more as a casual remark than as a way to start an argument.

"If that had been the case here, we would have either noticed the zombies before or we would have seen old blood or guts here," Sasuke said, shaking his head.

If a zombie dragged themselves too long across the ground, there wouldn't even be much left of them after a while as the gravel or earth would simply erode their skin away until nothing remained. Not exactly a pretty sight, but it did make those fuckers a lot easier to kill if they were ground bound.

"It does lead away from the hospital," Gaara mumbled. "It's possible Naruto had to run into a different direction to avoid getting shot and decided to just keep going that way."

"Did you two ever discuss a strategy for moments like this?" Sasuke questioned while they followed the trail of squashed trail.

"There's a strategy for when you get shot at by cannibals and lose your way in the dark?" Gaara asked wryly in return before sighing, scratching the back of his neck. "Honestly, this is the first time we really lost sight of each other. When it was still just the two of us on the road and we decided to scout an area, we did a quick check around that area and then agreed on one particular meeting point if shit did go sideways."

"That's the same strategy my brother and I use," Sasuke said, pausing for just a couple of seconds to stab his katana through a girl's skull. Her last gurgle spat some still fresh looking blood out of her mouth; she must have died recently. He adjusted the crossbow on his back. "Agreeing on one place gives us both some peace of mind."

He and Itachi actually had had to use such an agreed upon spot a couple of times before. Twice because they had got separated after a group of zombies had turned out bigger than expected and once because they had had to run from a maniac with way too many weapons at his disposal, back when this whole bullshit had just started.

"Yeah, exactly. We never really encountered a situation like this one before, though," Gaara sighed. "We were always either together or we knew where to meet up. We didn't think we would have to agree on such a meeting point now. Was supposed to be just entering the hospital, grab the shit and be gone again."

"But you believe he picked one direction and stuck to that?"

Gaara shrugged, smacking some annoying insects away. "It's what I would have done. Unless he was forced in a position where he had to throw off his followers, but all the cannibals were inside the hospital; I doubt they followed him all the way here."

At the mention of the cannibals, Sasuke side-eyed him. "Talking about that – I thought you were only planning on letting them deal with the undead?"

Gaara's shrug was rather stiff this time. "Saw my chance and took it," he answered clipped. "Too bad I couldn't find any propane tanks; would have solved the problem even easier but at least this way they're suffering."

Absurdly Sasuke thought Gaara would have been happy in that town with the crazy priestess then if he had wanted to see something – or someone – blow up with propane tanks.

"Don't expect me to apologise for what I did, though," Gaara said curtly, gazing straight ahead. "They had it coming, plain and simple. If we hadn't done something, they would have continued to make victims and I didn't want to give them that satisfaction."

"I'm not disagreeing," Sasuke replied, sidestepping something that eerily looked a lot like a ripped off arm. It wasn't fresh or familiar looking, however, so he ceased paying attention to it.

Would he have gone as far as Gaara had and lead not only zombies into their hideout but set that same hideout on fire at the same time? He wasn't certain but he also wasn't a saint either.

He couldn't say he felt sorry for those murderous fuckers.

They were nearing a bunch of rotting trunks when Sasuke took notice of it. He narrowed his eyes, shielding them from the sunlight. Dawn had crept up and snuck away a while ago, leaving the sun to steadily climb across the sky. Birds were chittering and whistling brightly and if it weren't for the occasional zombie gurgling and stumbling around and two people missing, this would feel like a peaceful day to spend in the woods.

Sasuke thought he was just imagining it at first; his sight becoming skewed from the lack of decent sleep but no, he was seeing it perfectly well.

Gaara's limp was becoming more and more pronounced as the minutes went by.

That was no surprise, of course. Most of the time it was easy to forget Gaara had been wounded to the point of a chronic injury; he had mentioned before his leg only acted up when he was feeling particularly tired or putting too much strain on it. Running through the woods for nearly an entire night following into day on top of guiding a group of the undead in a hospital and setting fire in several places before climbing out of a room and jumping into a tree and out of it? Yeah, that was definitely putting a strain on that leg of his on top of already being exhausted.

Normally Sasuke wouldn't stick his nose into business that he didn't belong in – and Gaara had made it pretty clear multiple times before that his leg was off limits when it came to worrying over its state – but normally they also weren't already running on fumes, trying to find the man they loved and a kid they had recently met. If they had at least been able to get some good rest at the hospital, that would have been something but none of them had been able to catch any real sleep while trapped there.

Sasuke didn't want to stop searching, not even for a minute, but not doing so might prove to be too risky. If Gaara suddenly buckled through his leg at the worst possible moment …

Bracing himself for how Gaara might react, he spoke up, "Gaara, we better get some rest."

Gaara didn't even turn to look at him when he said annoyed, "We can rest once we've found them. Karin hasn't send off a flare yet, has she?"

"She hasn't," Sasuke replied and took a deep breath before continuing, "But you need to give your leg some rest for a bit at least."

That did make Gaara draw to a halt. When he turned around this time, his eyes were glittering dangerously. "My leg is fine, thank you for your concern," he said icily. "Now if you don't mind, I need to find my best friend."

Yep, he had managed to piss him off, all right?

Before Gaara could start walking again, Sasuke snatched him by his arm, barely ducking on time to avoid the incoming swing of his fist.

"Listen!" he snapped before Gaara could draw his hand back and try for another punch. "I get that you want to find Naruto as fast as possible, I fucking want the same thing, don't get me wrong! Don't even think for one fucking moment I care less about him than you do. But you've been running around without any sort of rest and I can see your limp growing worse! Now's not the time to act tough, you dick! If your leg gives out at the wrong moment, we're both fucked!"

He was panting by the time he stopped talking and he whirled around, sinking his katana in the skull of an elderly man before the zombie could even touch his back. If the grey mottled skin and missing parts of his arms and thighs hadn't given it away yet, the softness of his skull confirmed that this one was an older zombie already; perhaps roaming around since the near start. It came to an abrupt halt when Sasuke sank his katana through his skull; the blade easily protruding out of the back. When he withdrew his weapon, the zombie sagged down: his skull splitting apart when he landed smackdab on the sharp edge of a rock.

When Sasuke turned around again, he was actually surprised to see Gaara still standing there. He had sort of expected the other man to make a run for it, considering he didn't like to show any sort of weakness – no matter how stupid that notion was.

"Fine," Gaara said tersely and abruptly sat down on a log. "We'll rest for a bit and then we'll continue. He can't have got that far."

Sasuke sighed and looked up at the sky for a moment, watching some clouds drift by idly. He sank down on the grass in front of Gaara, watching how the man was studiously not looking at him.

"I don't think you're weak," he said wearily, pressing his lips together when Gaara hunched his shoulders, glaring down at the ground. "Gaara, I saw you lead a goddamn pack of zombies into a hospital filled with cannibals, proceed to set this hospital on fire and then fucking climb down a rope like you're doing this for sport. Trust me, I don't think you're weak at all. But injuries like yours aren't something you should just ignore. That doesn't tend to end well."

"What do you know?" Gaara said, but there was no fight left in his voice, only weariness. "You're not the one with the fucking limp."

"I'm not, but at the start of it all, I had to do a run with someone who had a chronical illness. Tough guy, never complained, but he also never wanted to admit he needed rest," Sasuke said quietly, absentmindedly wiping his blade clean on the grass. "That trait turned out to be his downfall when one day we had to run from a herd. We would have hid in one of the houses if we had known he was running on fumes by then, but he never said a thing. Until he fell down and didn't get up again."

That had been one of the first losses they had experienced in the compound. Sasuke hadn't even been close with the guy; he had only introduced himself as Isamu and that had probably been a fake name anyways, the man having remained rather quiet about his life prior to the apocalypse. Still, the guy had been a great aid during the early runs; always helpful, never complaining. Nobody deserved to die by being eaten by zombies, but he had definitely been amongst the ones deserving that gory fate the least.

"I'm not acting tough," Gaara said quietly, his thumb rubbing almost harshly across the butt of his crossbow. "But I can't afford to rest too long either. I know my limits. I know what I'm capable of. Not going to lie, my leg has been killing me since I jumped out of the hospital, but it's pain I can deal with. What I can't deal with is losing Naruto."

"You think I could deal with that?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow and sneered. "Just because I haven't been with him as long as you have, doesn't mean losing him will hurt me less."

Gaara leant forwards, his green eyes intense when he said, "I've always been there for him, okay? Yes, he could hold his own but I was there to have his back each and every time. I was there when he lost his parents, he was there for me when I was lost in a delirium after I got shot. We have never been apart for so long in this kind of situation."

He took a deep breath. "What I'm saying is, I really do appreciate your concern and I get why you want me to rest – but I need you to trust me when I tell you I know what I'm doing."

"You both are too fucking stubborn when it comes to your health," Sasuke murmured, rolling his shoulders.

"Maybe, but I can always rest when we're in the car. Finding Naruto and the kid is a bit more important right now than my bum leg," Gaara said and stretched out said bum leg, rubbing his thigh briskly. "We've been on the road longer than you ever have been; I learnt how to deal with this leg a while ago. I'm good to go again."

"You're going to crash so badly when the adrenaline wears off," Sasuke muttered darkly, shaking his head before getting back on his feet.

Gaara gave him a wry smile. "I think we'll all do. But at least that means we'll be able to finally leave here."

Sasuke supposed that was one way of looking at it.

"We're might be getting close," Gaara muttered, stabbing a young guy in the head before whirling around and driving the blade in the skull of a middle-aged woman.

"You've seen anything from Naruto lying around?" Sasuke asked surprised, kicking down a muscled guy before he quickly chopped off his head.

The head rolled towards a tree where it started mindlessly gnawing on a root peeking through the earth.

"Not yet, but we've been encountering more and more zombies," Gaara replied and grunted when he slammed a dead teenage girl backwards into a tree.

She gurgled and made to grab his head but he sank his blade into her right temple before she could claw his skin open.

"Motherfuckers," Gaara spat darkly, flicking his blade through the air to get rid of the brain matter clinging to it. "We're in the middle of bumfuck nowhere in the woods – there's no reason for so many to be walking here unless they picked up the presence of someone still living."

That was true. Zombies in desolated places like this one usually tended to enter some sort of hibernation mode; there wouldn't be any reason for them to wander around if they didn't think they would find food by doing so.

"It could be someone else living here," Sasuke still cautioned because honestly, with the way their luck had been so far during this trip they would encounter a stranger instead of Naruto and Konohamaru.

It might be strange to live in such a desolate area, but on the other hand it did lessen the risk of encountering herds or other people. With enough stock, a small place in the middle of a forest might actually be a good place to wait out the apocalypse.

"Maybe, guess we'll find out soon," Gaara muttered and after viciously kicking in the head of a zombie crawling towards him, they left the place, walking alongside a small brook.

The sight of a shoddy wooden cabin half hidden underneath some low hanging branches had Sasuke's traitorous heart beating quicker in response, even though it wasn't certain yet that this would be the place where they would find Naruto and Konohamaru. They had been walking in the same direction ever since finding the flattened grass and this was the first cabin they had encountered. They had to be here, no? Surely, Naruto wouldn't have tried to go even deeper when he didn't even know these woods.

Green eyes met black ones and in unspoken agreement they broke out in a run, aiming straight for the dilapidated cabin. Calling it a cabin was being generous; even the shed Sasuke and Naruto sometimes retreated to looked like a cosy home in comparison to the four walls and misaligned roof that made up this place. Had it been a child's poor attempt at a hideout? A hunter's retreat who apparently had been all thumbs? It didn't matter as long as this was the place Naruto had retreated to, together with the kid.

His heartbeat was loud in his ears when they stopped right in front of the cabin's door. The door itself appeared like it had been kicked down several times; the wood caved in around the middle. A crack on eye level showed a small part of the opposite wall in the dim room. Sasuke couldn't see Naruto through the crack but that didn't have to mean anything, he told himself even as his stomach twisted uncomfortably. Naruto could be sitting or lying down, he could be asleep, he could be standing right next to the door …

In unison Sasuke and Gaara grabbed their weapons. Even with the both of them hoping they would find Naruto here, they weren't going to be idiots and just burst inside without something to defend themselves with if they happened to be wrong.

God, he really hoped they weren't wrong.

Gaara placed his hand on the door, exchanged one glance with Sasuke and then he pushed it open; the door creaking as it swung backwards. No bullets flew at them, nor did a bat came to smack them down, so Sasuke stepped inside, quickly followed by Gaara.

There was a chair right across from the door, missing a leg; a table laid in pieces in the right corner, a random shirt thrown on top of the mess. There was only one other piece of furniture present in the cabin: a stained futon.

And right in front of the futon sat Naruto; his back towards them. Thin legs lying across the futon showed that Konohamaru was here too and Sasuke allowed the rush of relief to fill him, feeling almost lightheaded with the sheer happiness he felt at seeing Naruto and Konohamaru alive.

"Naruto, thank god you're okay! We've been looking …" Sasuke began to say, but trailed off when Naruto didn't even do so much as twitch.

Growing instantly wary, he looked at Gaara, whose eyes were showing the same kind of alarm.

It couldn't be … There was no way Naruto could have been … bitten. Right?

Swallowing – the sound too loud in the small cabin – Sasuke approached Naruto and after hesitating he reached out and touched Naruto's shoulder. "Naruto, please say something."

Naruto didn't react.

"Naruto, you need to say something right now," Gaara said sharply, coming to stand next to Sasuke before he crouched down. "Did you get bitten?"

"I – I didn't," Naruto croaked out finally; his head moving a bit to the left.

"Okay, then in that case let's go back to the car so we can leave," Sasuke urged but stilled when Naruto's hand reached out towards the futon.

The futon upon which Konohamaru laid – looking a lot more flushed and miserable than Sasuke remembered him being. His eyes were moving wildly underneath his closed eyelids; the gauntness of his cheeks somehow even more pronounced.

He couldn't see at first what Naruto was doing until Naruto lifted his hand in the air, holding up Konohamaru's arm. The sight of it had Sasuke's stomach twisting violently and ice replaced the blood in his veins as he stared in horror at the little arm clenched in Naruto's trembling hand.

Right there in the middle of Konohamaru's arm, mocking them all: a large bite mark.

AN2: Extra warning: kid character bitten by zombie.

Yeah, you all seemed to have forgotten about this part in The Long Run: Konohamaru did get bitten when they were running from the cannibals. That part did not change at all. Prepare yourselves for the next chapter ...

Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.

I hope to see you all back in the next chapter! Please stay safe and take care of yourselves!

Cuddles

Melissa

P.S. For more information about my upcoming and posted stories, please visit my profile.