Fiat justitia, ruatcaelum

Awaken within a dream

Sakura bolted upright, sucking in her breath and panting. A damp cloth fell from her brow and hit the hand the held hers in her lap.
The gentle plap sparked Naruto to leap as though he’d been shocked by lightning.
“You’re awake!” He leaned in and hugged her tightly, the tears his eyes had spilled old were joined with new ones on the shoulder of her hospital pajamas. “I was so scared, Sakura. You were so cold and the way the smoke got sucked back into the seal…”
He refused to let go of her, gripping her hand though he back off far enough to gaze into her eyes, “I thought the smoke had done something to you, taken something from you…”
The clarity, the concern…
“Ero-sannin looked at what was left. He thinks it was supposed to be triggered when I opened the door, but whomever had applied it messed up.” A tear crept around in the corner of one watery blue eye, “It was a death seal. A dark one that draws your soul into the abyss of death…”
Naruto sniffed and the tear stealthed further from his eye, dangerously close to escape… “I stayed here a week straight, waiting for you to wake up…” He picked up a kettle and sloshed it before he set it on a battery hotplate. “Jirya said you probably might. With any luck…” Empty noodle cups went over his shoulder, “That the seal only drained your chakra low enough to force you into a coma.”
He had found a full cup and peeled back the lid. He sniffed and wiped at his eyes as he stared at the kettle.
“Baa-chan chased me off a couple of times, but this place isn’t that hard to get into.”
Sakura put her fists to her temples and crushed her eyes shut. Willing away the echo his words picked up, the way her vision blurred as if looking through two telescopes pointed in different directions.
She moaned as her skull felt as if it were going to burst. Or cave in. She couldn’t tell.
The noodles.
Sakura could smell the noodles as hot water softened them. The odor of freeze dried shrimp she hated so badly, the dry, wooden smell of disposable chopsticks.
“Sakura?”
His voice. As if at the end of a dream-like tunnel. And a new scent. One like an ember under a pile of wild herbs. She focused on that scent and she heard Naruto’s voice become clearer.
The echoes faded and the pressure diminished.
She opened her eyes to find massive blue orbs peering into the bottoms of her own.
The double vision was gone.
“Are you alright? Should I call the nurse?”
“No, I’m fine. Just hungry.”
“Are you sure? You don’t look fine.”
Sakura forced herself to laugh, “Because I’m starving. Give up the noodles already!”
A thin smile surfaced and Naruto picked up the cup, peeling off the lid.
Sakura accepted the cup and reached out for the chopsticks as Naruto rushed to hand them to her.
“Ah!” Her hand jumped back, a thin needle of bamboo jutting from where bamboo ought not have been.
Naruto caught the sticks, stumbling over the apology.
“It’s alright…” Sakura pulled the sliver from her finger with her teeth and sucked on the wound as the steely flavor of blood subsided.
Naruto rubbed the sticks smooth before handing them back slowly.
“I’m really glad you’re alright…” He smiled up at her, his head resting on the edge of the bed, “I thought something really terrible had happened. Like maybe the smoke had taken more than your chakra. Something that you couldn’t get back…”
She hesitated as she lifted the noodles to her mouth.
“I would have sworn for a moment that you had called out to me from outside your body. As though your spirit had been torn out of you…”
Naruto no longer hid his tears; several had fallen over his whisker marks and onto the sheets.
“And I knew I had heard that voice fall into the seal, crying out to me and I couldn’t do anything to help…”
Sakura pierced the chopsticks into the cup of noodles and wiped a tear from Naruto’s cheek, “Whatever happened, I’m here now. The seal hasn’t eaten me and I’m right here with you.”
Naruto hugged her again, sighing as he reigned in his tears. “Alright… alright…”
Sakura gave him a squeeze in return, “Can you do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Can you find Sasuke? And Master Kakashi. I’m certain they’ll want to know I’m well.”
Naruto’s arms weakened for half a second before he pulled away. He nodded, smiling though his eyes said otherwise, “I have you in my arms and I’m still only second… But I’ll tell him.”
Naruto crossed around the bed and climbed out the window, vanishing as he dropped out of sight.
Sakura gripped the chopsticks and raised a mess of noodles out of the cup before she realized she had no appetite. She leaned over the bedside table, setting the foam cup aside and noticed dark spots on the hardwood floor.
They seemed to pool next to her bed and a trail of them ran around the foot.
Sakura leaned to the other side. The drips marched up this side and curved into the wall under the window, a few dark specks climbed the curtains and one sat as a lonesome sentry on the sill, quickly shrinking in the afternoon sun.
A stone settled into the bottom of Sakura’s heart and weighed her back into the pillow. She closed her eyes and put her hand over her brow, the sudden chill there uncomfortable.
*Has Naruto always been this serious about me…?*
A trickle of water ran down her forehead and pooled next to her eye, ice cold.
“Naruto…”
“Dear me!” A young woman, to her right.
Sakura sat up, the cold compress falling into her lap again. The woman beside her was flushed with panic, one hand over her thundering heart.
“Sorry…”Sakura picked up the compress and handed it back, “I didn’t mean to startle you. I must have dozed off.”
“Dozed off, indeed.” The nurse smoothed her skirt and took the cloth, feeling Sakura’s forehead with the back of her hand. “It would seem the fever has broken. Good, considering you were little more than a corpse when the Anbu brought you here.”
*Anbu? But why…* “I have to talk to Naruto. Does anyone know where he is?”
“Naruto?”
Sakura studied the subtly confused, almost sedated look the nurse held her with. Sakura felt the corner of her mouth tick and her hair rise.
And she spoke hesitantly, “Blonde hair, blue eyes, kind of short…”
“Uzumaki Naruto?” The nurse almost looked clueless. “Is The Exile responsible for this?”
“No. I just need to… Wait. Exile?”
The nurse nodded. “Poor dear. You must have hit your head. He’s been exiled for some time now.”
The nurse crossed the foot of the bed, “After his attack on Hokage Mountain, what else was there to be done?”
She threw back the curtains and Sakura’s jaw dropped. The whole of the mountain had been blown away, leaving only a massive Kyuubi grinning an Uzumaki grin and giving a peace sign where the first Hokage’s face should have been. Only the third and fourth Hokages remained, though they also grinned arm in arm as they reclined against the fox demon.
“The Fifth Hokage has an open bounty on him, but the untrainable prankster has grown both as elusive and powerful as the demon he harbors.”
Sakura shook her head slowly, “I am dreaming…” She bit her tongue until blood welled in her mouth and the sting brought tears to her eyes.
“I wish I were dreaming as well, with the mountain destroyed irreparably as it is. But reality is cruel” The nurse sat beside her, a one armed hug around Sakura’s shoulder, “But it has been that way for five, long years.”
“Good. She has awakened.”
Sakura spun around to behold the worst imitation of Kakashi she had ever seen. He wore Anbu armor with a bold black Captain’s mark on the chest plate and the Sharingan in his right eye. His face mask was absent, his headband wrapped around one arm and a short blade was set at the small of his back.
The nurse was suddenly not beside Sakura.
“She has, Lord Hitake.” The nurse was bowed low enough to have knelt.
“Leave.”
Sakura would not have believed anyone could move faster than Naruto to the call of free ramen.
Kakashi approached like a looming storm and his eyes burned into her with the intensity of a bonfire, growing more oppressive as he approached.
“You will tell me how you came to be as you were.”
“As I was…?’ Sakura’s mind seized, “I was diffusing a complex seal and … I broke the wrong line…”
“What seal?”
“I don’t know… Some kind of death seal…Five rings…”
The force of his glare grew, crushing Sakura beneath it, “Why did you tamper with the seal?”
“I didn’t know… I was trying to help my friend…”
“Who?”
“Naru…” *Why am I spilling my guts? This isn‘t Kakashi! This isn‘t my home! This is a DRE…*
A fist of flesh as hard as iron closed around her throat. “The name.” He didn’t shout. His voice was as ice.
“Rena… Naru Rena…” Sakura pulled at the hand as she choked out the name.
The grip tightened. Her pulled became frantic, a clawing grasp as the fingers closed gradually.
Darkness crept in around the edges of her vision and her hands became numb and weak.
Liquid fire and lightning assaulted her body from the iron grip and the core of her body, crushing her into a clear state of mind. Sakura trembled, barely able to grip the fist around her throat.
“You will not lie to me again.” The fist opened enough for Sakura to vomit and choke on her breath.
Her legs were wet and warm, the stink of urine suddenly strong.
“Lord Hitake…” An Anbu stood in the doorway, “I beg forgiveness, but the targets have been sighted. They are together.”
“They are always together.” His gaze still burned Sakura, as did his fist, “Why are you still here?”
“Pardon me, Milord; The Lord Hokage has departed to intercept them.”
Kakashi’s gaze shifted to glare at the anbu. Then back to Sakura. “You live. This time.”
Chakra smoke clouded her vision as Kakashi teleported out.
The ambu waited only a heartbeat before he, too, vanished in a flash.
Sakura then chose to resume breathing, taking a deep breath to sigh, droplets hit the back of her throat and she coughed them back up. Specks of blood. Her neck burned. Her head pounded.
The nurse peered around the corner, scanning the room. She entered cautiously, looking back and forth, wringing her hands nervously. Like a mouse in the wake of a hungry, angry cat.
She approached Sakura one, slow step at a time, as if trying to sense how close she could get before Kakashi returned to finish what he had begun.
“You are either very famously brave or foolishly ignorant. And either way you are blessed beyond that.” The nurse opened a wardrobe, pulling out fresh linens. “It has been many years since someone refused Hitake Kakashi and lived. Especially in that manner.”
“I told him what I knew… And I wouldn’t know what to tell him to lie.” Sakura’s voice rattled in her throat, raspy and shaky.
“If you insist…” The nurse set down the sheets and pulled pajama’s from a drawer.
Sakura sighed, trying to soothe her neck. Her chakra seemed distant and weak. “Please… I just want to go home.”
The nurse handed Sakura the clean clothes, “You’ll need to freshen up in a room down the hall.” She dug back into the wardrobe and pulled out a long housecoat. “I’ll be back to get you after I’ve prepared a new room.”
“Can’t I go home?” Sakura held the clothes to herself, trying not to shiver.
The nurse took her by the arm and gently guided her down the hall, as though she were an old woman.
A door opened into a small bathing room and the hand at her back pressed her inside.
Sakura sighed and set the fresh clothes down on the edge of the sink as the door closed.
*May as well play along… for now.*
The snick of a small mechanism closing pierced her mind like a knife.
Sakura tried the doorknob.
“HEY!” She threw her weight against the door. From the other side, light footfalls retreated quickly.
Sakura kicked out, then hopped back, holding her abused foot. She couldn’t even dent the steel door.
*Why am I so weak?!?* She settled for using a rude gesture and examined the room closely.
Sink, toilet, shower. The tile was built over a firm floor and the ceiling was as solid.
The walls were thick as well. *Great. Imprisoned in a hospital…*
Sakura growled to herself and slipped out of the soiled clothes. And with nothing better to do, she showered and changed into the pajamas.
The mint green clashed with her hair violently, but it was better than running around Konoha in the buff.
“Let’s see how well prepared they really are…” Sakura took a deep breath in and reached deep into her chakra well. It was deeper than she remembered, and nearly empty. But the cord of charka she found was rich and potent. She held tight to her power and formed the seals slowly.
She envisioned the hall, on the other side of the locked door. Casting her senses along the corridor in both directions. Not so much as a potted plant.
Sakura slipped the energy under the door and focused the jutsu.
With a faint ‘wumph’ her shadow clone coalesced.
Through the eyes and ears of her clone, the hall was abandoned. For the moment. With a flick of the wrist, her clone unlocked the door and Sakura opened it from within. She drew what chakra she could from the clone as it dispelled and formed new seals, still drawing on her last reserves.
A thin flash of smoke, and Sakura looked down at herself; a flat, firm, male chest. Leather vest and pants, old, worm boots.
The mirror reflected a young man’s face, black hair drawn back in a shaggy topknot and dark eyes. The lidded gaze and mild tan. The only thing she had omitted from one of her favored disguise exercises was the headband belt.
“Ryo Maru.” The voice was deep and smooth. With a mild drawl. The Shika-inspired henge was as perfect as even Sakura could manage.
Ryo poked his head out of the bathing room. The coast clear, he stepped out and closed the door. Locking it behind himself with a chuckle.
Walking down the hall, his stride evolved, exchanging the feminine sway for a shuffle.
The nurse came from the stairwell, walking with purpose. And a paralysis tag. She ignored Ryo’s lazy leer icily and strode past him without a first look.
At the locked door, she prepared the talisman and threw the door open.
It didn’t take her long to search the small room, and by the time she had raised the alarm, Ryo had left the building and her mind.