Chapter 51: Land of Snow Arc: Chapter 50

Title: Dreaming of Sunshine

Summary: Life as a ninja. It starts with confusion and terror and doesn't get any better from there. OC Self-insert.

Author's note: Nemesis Jedi starring as Horatio Caine. You make me giggle so much. XD

So I had a job interview. Failed to get job. Lots of time to write fic, still.

Sidestories has Naruto's POV of this chapter, if anyone is interested.

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Chapter 50

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In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. - Albert Camus

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The path widened a bit after we exited the tunnel, and all the vehicles pulled to the side by the sheer drop away cliff. The other side was a much more gentle rising slope covered in puffy white snow.

I kept half an eye on Yukie, where she was sullenly having her stage make up applied, and the rest of my attention focused outwards. Stationary targets were easy targets.

The surroundings were quiet. There wasn't any body but us for as far as I could sense. Granted, my range wasn't huge, but it would give a fair warning for a sneak attack.

Then chakra surged through the ground and I sprang out of the way like a startled cat.

I was prepared for an attack, because that was usually what a chakra surge meant, and my team reacted to my reaction.

The chakra didn't change, didn't morph into a jutsu, but the snow hissed and melted away to reveal four parallel iron rails.

"The railroad!" Sandayuu exclaimed, bending down to examine it. "There's chakra running through the rails and it's melting the ice." He looked grim. "They're coming. We'll be in trouble if we get caught here. We need to run."

Using the rails themselves to melt the ice was a clever solution to what had probably been the foremost danger to the trains, but it meant nothing good.

"No one clears the tracks unless they're going to travel them," I said.

Sandayuu started jogging up the snow bank, sinking heavily into the uncompacted snow. The rest hesitated, and waffled, but followed him. I noticed the camera man took his camera with him.

I ran up the snow after them, using chakra to stay on top of it. But… even with the people gone, it was sort of obvious that we were there. The cars were still parked there, the snow was disturbed… it wasn't exactly a pristine location.

I hesitated, then ran through the hand seals for the False Surroundings genjutsu, wiping the signs of our presence away.

Sasuke gave an approving nod, and we darted over the top of the hill, ducking low and finding places where we could still see.

Seconds later we heard the train, a deep growl that I hadn't heard in years yet was still so instantly recognisable, and then the ground started rumbling and shaking, vibrating all the way to my bones. The train roared out of the tunnel, heavy monstrous steel spread across two tracks with a huge, evil looking snowplough on the front.

The genjutsu covering the snow shattered and broke.

"Ninja on board," Sasuke said.

"I count maybe twelve ninja. Maybe more," I said, unable to keep a hint of worry out of my voice. That… wasn't good. Not good at all.

The train ground to a halt with remarkable efficiency. I did recall, vaguely, that trains didn't - couldn't - stop quickly because of momentum and inertia, but it seemed that either they'd known we were here already, or they had some way over overcoming that. Either was likely, really, considering that we already knew the rails were chakra conductive and chakra could seemingly break all laws of physics.

I cast an apprehensive look at Sensei. With so many civilians we couldn't run. Hiding had obviously failed. But we looked to be seriously out numbered here. We'd had enough trouble fighting three of them.

Grudgingly, I admitted that getting reinforcements was a good idea on their part. We'd already shown we could deal with three, so, coming back as is would have been silly. And they could get reinforcements a hell of a lot easier than we could.

"Koyuki Kazahana," a male voice said, with that peculiar mechanical echo that said it was being amplified through a speaker system. "I know that you are here."

Yukie went about three shades whiter. "Dotou."

Oh, dear.

There was a long pause, as they waited for a response. Then, Dotou spoke again. "Fetch her."

Chakra surged as they body flickered out of the train. Eleven of them, all wearing pale blue chakra armour, aligned in front of the train. Including the three we'd already met.

"Show them how hopeless resistance is," Dotou said.

I half considered starting an avalanche to try and thin their numbers, but there wasn't much snow in front of us, and any other location would increase the danger of friendly fire while still being less effective. Not really a good idea.

But by that same token, I'd probably have to be careful about how I used my explosive tags.

"Stick together," Kakashi-sensei murmured, even as he slid his headband up. "Watch each others backs."

A single kunai went winging overhead, bearing down on the Snow ninja. It had come from Naruto's direction, so I knew what was coming even before it suddenly multiplied. I added a few of my own to the mix, tags fluttering out behind them.

The sudden duplication caught them off guard, as it was designed to do. Some were deflected, some skittered off of metal, some sunk into flesh, and some were lodged in the chakra armour and exploded in little poofs of smoke as they were drained of chakra. It hadn't taken anyone out, but a few people had what looked to be movement restricting injuries and that was without the other trick the kunai had.

Given the utter number advantage they had, the fight should have been over really quickly. That it wasn't was down to three things.

One, Naruto was spamming clones to even the odds. Because they were contained chakra, and not in constant contact with the armour, they weren't getting drained as fast as other jutsu would, meaning they could get a few good solid hits in.

Two, we had fantastic team work. We were watching each others backs, covering openings, negating as much of their numerical advantage as we could.

Three, not only did they lack teamwork, they seemed to actively avoid getting close to each other. Oh, they matched up ranged and close quarters fighters, but there wasn't enough space here for ranged fighting and we were effectively blocking their path to Yukie.

I narrowed my eyes thoughtfully, in between putting an arm lock on someone and swinging him around to block an ice spear jutsu that tried to attack Sasuke from the back. The armour flared and absorbed it, but the force field that materialised pushed me away. I danced under a clumsy attack, keeping him occupied as a Naruto - possibly thrown by another fighter - blindsided him with a flying kick and knocked him cold.

Bad pun.

"What happens," I said, panting. "When something that drains chakra comes into contact with something that drains chakra?"

The armour ran on chakra, that much was obvious. The circular shoulder and chest mounts with the yin-yang symbol - the taijitu - on it were probably the batteries or chakra sinks. Given the way they avoided each other, it was possible…

We weren't doing badly, but we also couldn't keep this up. Being unable to use jutsu was probably - ironically - extending the length of time we could fight, since we weren't burning chakra as quickly but that didn't mean we weren't burning it. I, for one, wasn't really used to extended taijutsu fights, anyway. Sooner or later I'd fumble, make a misjudgement, get too tired, too slow…

Something needed to change.

Something did change, but not necessarily in the way that I wanted.

"Yukie!" Naruto shouted. "What are you doing?"

My heart sunk with dread and I nearly found myself trapped in an ice prison for my split second of distraction. I twisted and flipped awkwardly, feet sliding over ice, bending myself around the spires that sprung out of the ground in a feat of agility, flexibility and acrobatics that would have impressed me if I'd had time to note it.

"If you keep fighting, you will die," Yukie said. I couldn't see her, but her voice carried surprisingly well over all the fighting, despite being so quiet. "Just go home."

"No," Naruto snarled, and orange flooded the area, several dozen more clones appearing out of thin air. They surged forward.

I took the moment of being screened by the extra bodies and get some height so I could see what was going on. Sensei was there, fighting Nadare and two others, and there were the actors and, oh, there were the film crew - filming. Priorities! - and, shit, there was Yukie.

I saw as Fubuki broke away from the rest of the Snow ninja, pink hair visible against the snow, and scooped her up to carry her back to the train.

The tide of the battle had turned. Instead of them trying to get past us, it was now us trying to get past them.

Orange surged forward as Naruto rushed the train, but one of the Snow ninja pulled up a wall of slick, heavy ice, and they redoubled their assault to keep us busy and unable to move. Several of them slipped away, back to the train, but it wasn't enough and we were pushed to keep fighting and we just weren't getting anywhere.

Then a heavy chugging sound started to fill the air and I realised that the train was starting up, starting to move, and we were about to lose the princess - had lost the princess - and, even though it probably would have been possible to create an avalanche further down to block the rails, or at least take out the bridge, it was too far for a single kunai throw and then there were two Snow ninja on me and I couldn't get free -

Then they fell to the side, and I sucked in a breath of air so cold it burnt my lungs.

"Alright?" Kakashi-sensei asked, mismatched eyes staring down at me like he was trying to catalogue injuries.

"Yeah. Fine," I rasped, scrambling to my feet. There were only two Snow ninja still conscious and Sasuke was holding them off. Kakashi-sensei darted away to help him, and I scanned the battlefield before realising something.

"Where's Naruto?"

"On the train," Kakashi-sensei said grimly, dropping the last ninja with a swift knife hand strike to the neck. Once again, I admired how brutally efficient he could be, once he decided to.

Well, shit. There was a downward turn to Sasuke's lips that said he wasn't any happier with that information than I was.

On the surface, it wasn't necessarily that bad. If Naruto was free it meant we still had someone covering Yukie.

But it meant Naruto was essentially alone deep in enemy territory and we couldn't count on him being free. I trusted Naruto, I did, but even he couldn't win all the time.

"What are we going to do?" I asked.

"Go after him," Sasuke said, with a look that flat out dared Kakashi-sensei to say otherwise.

"We need to find out where they're going," Kakashi-sensei said, scuffing a hand through his hair. He turned and headed towards where the Director and cameraman were lying underneath a large white sheet, apparently trying to blend in with the snow.

"What a fight!" The Director enthused, apparently lacking any concern for the danger they'd just been in. "Drama! Excitement! And now to rescue the princess. Yes, this is what a film is made of."

Kakashi-sensei sort of blinked at him, before seeming to come to the decision to just ignore it. "Right," he drawled. "Where's Sandayuu? I need to know where the railway goes."

Sandayuu came puffing up the snow, a set of what looked to be green samurai armour over his normal clothes. I blinked. There were other people behind him, some the stuntmen and film crew, but others that I'd never seen before. They had swords, but they looked like they might actually know what to do with them, instead of using them as props.

"The railway?" He muttered. "Well, it goes everywhere. To every major city and port. But it's almost guaranteed that Dotou will take her to the castle. It's his base of operations and everybody knows it."

"Kazahana castle?" Sasuke repeated.

"Yes," he confirmed. "Well, we expected to have more time, but we're all ready to attack. Word has been sent out to the others-"

Kakashi-sensei cut him off. "There's very little you can do against a force of ninja."

Sandayuu nodded solemnly. "Most of us are survivors of the coup itself. We know what we're about to face. But for the princess… for the hope that the future will be different… we are prepared to do this."

Sensei sighed. "We won't wait for you," he warned. "We don't have time to."

Sandayuu nodded, like that was to be expected. "Please, save the princess."

Sensei turned to us. "Get your bags."

We pulled our stuff out of the vans, strapped it on, and were off. It was good to get moving again. We didn't follow the road, instead setting a good pace across the peaks of ice. It wasn't as fast as we could go, and I chaffed a little, but intellectually I knew there was no point in rushing and arriving tired.

"Why didn't you stop them?" Sasuke asked.

Kakashi-sensei's eye flicked over to him. "You can't stop people who are that determined," he said mildly. "I could have spent longer trying to persuade him, but it would have been wasted time." He set his eye back on the path. "It will take them time to get ready and organised, and to travel. Hopefully it will be over and done before they get there. If worst comes to… they might make a good distraction."

It was harsh, but they were willingly going ahead with it. They knew the likely outcome as well as we did. Depending on what kind of force we found at the castle…

We didn't have any other options. We had no where to get reinforcements, and we couldn't leave Naruto there. That was not an option.

I hoped he was alright.

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The castle, when we found it, was an intimidating looking place, all dark metal perched atop steep slops with looming glaciers behind it. It was late evening, the sky growing dark and ominous, which only made it more menacing.

"Can we sneak in?" Sasuke asked, as we crouched in the trees observing it.

"They know we're coming," Kakashi-sensei said flatly, staring at it. "And frankly, neither of you have the stealth skills required."

Probably true, I acknowledged, but it was still harsh. To be fair Genin four months into their career generally weren't expected to have to storm enemy strongholds, but it wasn't like our team ever did normal.

"Okay, so," I said, then faltered because I didn't know. Oh, sure, I knew the standard textbook tactics for this situation but even running them through my head sounded dumb. I didn't want to say them out loud.

"We'll blow the lower wall in two places. One for a distraction, one for an entrance," he said. "Get in, find Naruto and the princess, and get out." He pulled out two spheres about the size of a closed fist. High grade explosives. Explosive tags - even my adjustable ones - had an upper limit on the amount of chakra they could convert to explosive force, so when trying to take out serious defensive structures you sometimes needed more serious firepower.

"The diversionary explosive will be set along the left wall, while we'll enter through the front right," Kakashi-sensei continued. "That means someone will have to circle around the outer walls to set the charge, then make their way back. I'll enter first and take out any opposition. You two follow and hold the area while we find Naruto."

He held one of the spheres out to me. "You know how to set them?"

I nodded. "Theoretically, anyway." Privately, I was amused, because, really, people said I had a reputation for blowing things up and how did they expect that to change if this was the kind of positive reinforcement I got?

"Don't worry if you have to throw it. Just make sure you prime it with a countdown long enough to get away."

I nodded. Carrying explosives would be pretty silly unless they were stable enough not to go off at every bump and jostle.

"Alright. Go. Set it off when you're ready. We'll take the explosion as the mark, and Sasuke will wait for you to return." He cast a look at Sasuke who nodded shortly. If they responded faster to the first explosion than expected, I might need Sasuke's help on the outside.

"Got it," I said easily. "Wait for the bang."

It was getting dark outside, and I was glad that the moon was close to full. The snow was starting to look eerie under the moonlight. I traversed the ground carefully, on the lookout for traps either natural or manmade. There didn't appear to be any patrols outside the castle, and I suspected that in Snow Country weather such a thing wouldn't really be practical. It was easy enough to stick to the steep cliffs and get within throwing distance of sleek, towering metal. I suspected that the entire thing was made out of chakra metal, and that trying to climb it would be a spectacularly bad idea. Usually, castles were a joke for ninja, but Snow Country just liked to be difficult.

"Here goes," I murmured, channelling chakra into the sphere just so. I felt the whirr and change and the almost hum it gave off as I armed it before drawing back and throwing to roll to a stop along the wall.

Then I booked it out of there.

I was around the corner and out of sight when the explosion went off, and half way to covering the distance to my team when the second one followed. There was nothing behind me, and I met up with Sasuke with a relieved nod before we charged through shattered metal with kunai in our hands.

The inside of the castle was all ledges and balconies in a three dimensional maze. It was easy to tell which way that Sensei had gone from the unconscious bodies on the floor.

"Come on," Sasuke said, leaping over the bodies and taking off down the hallway.

I followed, pausing at the corner to slap a seal on the wall that would bring the roof down, because it was one thing for them to know which way we'd gone and it was another to be able to follow us and our chances of getting out the same way we'd come in were pretty slim anyway.

"Goddamn," I panted after we'd strangled another corridor with judicious use of ninja wire, only to nearly slide into another squad of ninja that had descended from a balcony. "Is this Hidden Snow, or something?"

And hell, if these guys had had anywhere near the skills of the first three, or even the other eight that had attacked us this afternoon, we would have been screwed. Thankfully, being indoors stripped them of their ice jutsu, and the lack of space seemed to hamper them much more than it did us.

Then we came across Naruto fighting two ninja and didn't even pause to consider before throwing ourselves in the fight beside him.

"Clone!" he said. "Boss is downstairs with the princess!"

"How many of you are there?" I asked. At least we wouldn't be rescuing both Naruto and Yukie. In fact, it looked like Naruto was doing pretty good at the rescue thing on his own. The amount of confusion that dozens of Naruto's could provide was probably one of the reasons why we hadn't been swamped.

"Heaps," he replied with a foxy grin. "Soon as we saw you guys attacking we turned back to help out. Keep going straight ahead, there's a huge chasm thing with a long bridge and elevator cages." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "I'll hold 'em here."

I swallowed down the 'no, we won't leave you behind' because he was a clone, he said he was a clone even if he looked, sounded, felt real, it wasn't the same, and nodded. "See you soon."

Going down was cold. It was like the lower levels were in the rock-and-ice rather than isolated from them. Which was very poor planning for your luxury palace, let me tell you. But we darted through the corridors and ran into Kakashi-sensei and Naruto and Yukie, who had her necklace clutched in one hand and a kunai thick with Naruto's chakra in the other.

She still has that? I wondered. It seemed strange that they hadn't taken it from her already.

"Let's go," Sensei said, and we took off again, pace slowed so that Yukie could keep up.

I paused to slap a seal down to collapse the bridge behind us, just in time to see the pale blue of the Snow ninja uniform at the other end.

Suckers.

Of course, it can't be that easy. It would never be that easy. Naruto and Sensei both seemed to have a fairly good idea of where we were going, and it made me wonder just how many clones Naruto had scattered around the castle scouting it out for him. But we still had to cross that distance, which brought it's own dangers.

We were half way across a large room that was maybe a foyer or atrium, half lit and eerie, when the lights flared bright and revealed Nadare's three and a man in courtly robes that had to be Dotou.

"Trying to escape, Koyuki?" he asked, voice deep and disapproving.

Her hands flexed, around the crystal and kunai both. "Dotou."

Then she stepped forward.

Oh, no. I thought with dread, the world seeming to slow down. Don't, Yukie, don't.

The Snow ninja blocked us, Yukie passing uncontested through their ranks. I didn't have to look to see Naruto's betrayed face.

"I am an actress," she said softly. "Always acting other people's scripts. Never my own."

"She had you fooled, didn't she?" Dotou said smugly. He reached out, a hand grabbing for the crystal without even seeming to pay any attention to Yukie herself.

Something, something, shifted in my vision, in my understanding of the situation, like looking at a optical illusion and suddenly seeing the hidden image. Yukie's hand twitched and horror dawned on me all over again.

Not us. She had you fooled.

The kunai, clenched in her left hand and forgotten, came up and slammed into his chest.

Dotou snarled, hand coming up to grab her throat. "Damn you!"

"Nee-chan!" Naruto shouted.

"I knew," she said, even as Dotou tried to choke her. "When I returned here, I would die. That's why, at least��� It's all thanks to you, Naruto. Until the very end, I kept running away…"

"No!" He shouted. And the kunai that was lodged in Dotou's chest burst outward in a puff of chakra smoke, an orange clad form slamming into Yukie and pulling her away. The clone looked woozy and disorientated, falling to one knee above her.

"Chakra armour…" he wheezed.

"Yes," Dotou said, pulling apart his shredded kimono to reveal black metallic, overlapping plates covering his chest. "Your attack was futile, Koyuki. Meaningless. This is my advanced chakra armour. No puny knife can overcome this."

He stepped forward, towards her again.

"No!" Naruto shouted, fingers coming together in a cross seal.

And like that was the signal, we clashed.

It was a blur of confusion and fast paced, frenzied fighting but like the other ninja, being inside stripped them of their snow jutsu. There was no jutsu, no fancy tricks, just us and brutal taijutsu. The smell of smoke was thick in the air, and the roof was slowly collapsing, bits and pieces of stone and wood and steel falling all around us.

I slammed a thrusting kick into Fubuki's stomach, throwing her sliding back across the room. Her face had gone from smug arrogance to uncertainty to the very faintest hint of fear. We had retreated the first fight, and been overcome at the second and she had been over confident.

I felt the surge of ugly chakra, so unbearably hot in such a cold place that it stole the moisture from my throat - Kyuubi, Kyuubi, Kyuubi - as Naruto stood toe to toe, hand clenched in hand, with Mizore, holding him back with Bijuu enhanced strength. My body moved on automatic, dodging a piece of falling rebar, and I couldn't force myself closer, going instead after Fubuki.

Sasuke slid low, between the two of them, kicking upwards with a move copied from Lee and launching the much larger man into the air. The two of them followed him up, raining punishing blows down and I made a quick snap calculation of their trajectory.

Fubuki tried to blindside me, flickering to my left. I caught the punch across my forearm and would have winced at the impact if I hadn't been so hyped on adrenaline. Later, I'd feel that. Not so much right now.

I pulled in close instead of getting distance, knee slamming into her stomach and folding her over, foot barely touching back down before lifting again, an impossibly fast roundhouse kick snapping into her ribs. I twisted, torso angling to provide extra strength and counterbalance, and she tumbled backwards, slamming down into the ground.

I flipped out of the way, just as Sasuke shouted in exertion and slammed the last kick into Mizore, sending him crashing to the ground, exactly where she was lying.

I saw the widening of her eyes, before the two of them connected and their armour shorted out, the chakra sinks on their shoulders exploding.

"Hah," I panted, trying to breath. "So that's what happens…"

"You knew that would happen?" Naruto asked, and the Kyuubi chakra was gone and his eyes were perfectly blue but…

"Suspected?" I offered.

Sasuke shrugged. "That takes care of that," he said.

Kakashi-sensei touched down on the ground beside us, and I could see the crumpled form of Nadare on the ground behind him. Well, that was all the ninja taken care of.

Wait…

"Yukie!"

This mission is not going well.