3.12

3.12

I woke up to the sounds of battle, with several blazes of chakra around me. I didn’t even have time to curse my bad luck, or even process what happened in the past how many hours or days. I sprang up, tossing away the cloth covering me. I was inside some sort of improvised tent. My hands went to my pouches. They weren’t at my waist. I steeled myself, ran out.

Outside was chaos.

Ino-Shika-Cho stood together guarding the entrance to the improvised shelter. On the other side of the clearing, a group of shinobi from Amegakure fought Sasuke. Or better yet, were being toyed with by Sasuke. Sasuke’s chakra had grown exponentially. He moved faster, his attacks sharper and crueler. That was bad. I couldn’t let Sasuke use the cursed seal for long.

I burst from behind team ten, much to their surprise. Had my nightmare included Ino at the end because she was nearby? I tossed that question out of my mind. Not the time. I didn’t have kunai, Sasuke was too close for my exploding shuriken. My weight seals were already disabled. I flickered forward. Faster than anyone could react I punched, kicked and broke bones. In the blink of an eye, only me and Sasuke were left standing. I faced him, didn’t lower my guard.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Sasuke growled. His eyes reminded me of Orochimaru. “They were trying to attack you and Naruto.” Sasuke’s sharingan kept track of every single of my movements. The cursed seal covered most of his face already and I could see it already creeping toward his right hand.

I didn’t take my eyes off him. I slapped my foot to the ground. One of our coded messages. Enemy disabled, stop, safe.

Sasuke’s eyes flickered to my feet. He growled. “No.” The boy attacked, not me, I noticed. He was fast, faster than anything he could have done before. I flooded my body with chakra again. Time seemed to slow down. Sasuke was fast, but so was I.

Sasuke tried to push past me, I grabbed his arm. Emosuke hadn’t expected it. I turned around, threw him down, twisted his arm, my knee pushing against the center of his back. Sasuke struggled. I was running out of options other than to hurt him. “Stop.” I croaked out. My throat stung, felt like something tearing. I tasted iron.

The sound surprised me. Surprised Sasuke. The Uchiha heir stopped struggling. After a moment of silence he asked. “Hinata?” I got up, released him. Looked around, bewildered. The cursed seal receded, and Sasuke’s eyes turned back to normal. He held his left arm. Looked more lost than I. “What happened to me?”

I scratched my head. I could ask the same. Where are we? It looked nothing like the maze of roots and tall trees we fought Orochimaru in. I cast my gaze about. Ino-Shika-Cho still regarded us with guarded eyes. I waved at them. Naruto was asleep just behind team ten. I popped my board. Took a step toward them, Choji and Shikamaru retreated. I stopped. Wrote. “Hi guys. Where are we? What happened?”

Ino’s eyes widened, “You... don’t remember?”Thê source of this content n/o/v/(el)bi((n))

I thought about the last things I remembered. Orochimaru attacked, we got defeated, he put me on a genjutsu. I shook my head. “We fought someone strong. He defeated us, put me inside a genjutsu. That’s the last I remember.”

“You still have the scroll?” I wrote.

Naruto searched his pockets. Took out the heaven scroll. I nodded. Took it from him. Now we just needed to reach the tower at the center.

I turned to Ino, she looked back questioningly. I shook my head. “You know which direction the tower is?” I wrote back.

It turned out, we weren’t that far. Ino-Shika-Cho had dragged our unconscious behind close, but they didn’t enter the tower because of us. I owed them a big one. We didn’t delay. After tying up the enemy shinobi, we rushed the last stretch. The big metal door was closed when we arrived.

Naruto pushed it open, the six of us entered. There was no one inside. On the wall opposite to us, a poem painted by the old man Third.

“The scrolls.” Shikamaru said after reading the poem. “How troublesome.”

“What do you mean?” Naruto asked, scratching his head.

“We need to open the scrolls.” Sasuke said, to the rest’s agreement. After an exchange of nods I took both scrolls. Handed it over to Sasuke and Naruto. On the other side, Shikamaru and Ino held theirs.

At the same time, we opened it. It contained a seal. Smoke puffed out of the two seals. Naruto and Sasuke threw it away. Out of the smoke popped Iruka-sensei.

On the other side, pretty, glorious, awesome Yuhi Kurenai popped out to greet her team. Damn, even now lazy man Kakashi let me down. Even if his indifference was cool.

“Hey kids, it’s been a while.” Iruka-sensei greeted us. “You three look like you’ve been through the wringer.”

On the other side, I heard Kurenai’s cheerful voice. “You made it!”