Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope ~ Anonymous
.
.
The ship rocked violently underfoot and I stared at the chaos on board, feeling completely exhausted. My chakra levels were lower than I expected, having been drained by that usurped shadow jutsu.
I wasn't the only one fighting chakra exhaustion, either. Kakashi-sensei's chakra levels were low and flickering and he was leaning heavily against the wall.
Just what we need.
"Let's go inside," Kakashi-sensei murmured. "I suspect people are going to want an explanation for what just happened."
"Shouldn't we… keep watch?" I asked hesitantly. We weren't all that far away from the iceberg, after all, and an attack while we were on the boat could be devastating.
"They won't be ready for a round two quite so soon," Sensei said. "That much I don't think has changed." He caught my confused look. "I'll explain in a minute."
One of the cabins on the upper deck was a sort of dining/meeting room, with a long table surrounded by chairs and benches. We tucked ourselves away in there.
"Are you alright, Kaka-sensei?" Naruto asked, frowning.
"Ah, I just used too much chakra," Kakashi-sensei said with a grimace. He flicked a glance at Sasuke. "Let that be a warning against using techniques you just copied; sometimes they take more out of you than you think."
Sasuke nodded shortly. After having copied and used Lee's taijutsu without having undergone the training to build the muscle necessary for it he'd probably already discovered that.
"You said they wouldn't be attacking again so soon," I prompted.
"Right," Sensei exhaled. "The explanation for that starts with the chakra armour."
"Chakra armour?" Naruto repeated, puzzled.
Kakashi-sensei nodded. "The Land of Snow is one of the few places that is known to have mines with chakra conductive metal. Normally, metal like that is very rare and expensive, and only the very best ninja or clans will be have weapons made out of chakra conductive metal. However, Hidden Snow have complete control over the mines in Snow Country, which gives them access to a very large amount of it. They use this to make their armour, which has special properties."
"Chakra absorption," I said. "It completely negated Genjutsu… and Ninjutsu …"
It was possible there was an upper limit for what it could absorb, meaning higher ranked jutsu would still work, if weaker than normal. It was also possible that the environmental effects of jutsu still had power - Fubuki had been affected by the heat from Sasuke's fire jutsu.
"Right," Kakashi-sensei confirmed. "They use the armour to absorb and nullify any chakra that you use against them. It can work as a barrier around the body to protect them, and they can use it to strengthen their own techniques."
"That's why when you copied it…" Sasuke said. There was a faint crease of a frown between his eyes.
Kakashi-sensei nodded.
"About that," Naruto said, frowning. "I thought that ice was like… a Bloodlimit. That's what Haku had, right?"
"You probably didn't notice because you were busy fighting, but the jutsu that the Snow ninja used were more like earth jutsu than what Haku used. He created ice out of nothing, while they were just manipulating the ice that was already present. That kind of thing is much easier. The second reason is that their armour helps them, though I don't know how. That kind of knowledge is heavily guarded."
It must have offset the chakra cost or something because they'd been throwing those jutsu around pretty easily.
"The other thing I know is that the armour works best in the Land of Snow itself." Sensei shrugged. "It's one of the reasons they're not more of a danger. It's possible that they need to recharge or repair the armour frequently, because they're unable to participate in drawn out battles or launch follow up attacks, even when that would be the best option."
"So they're going to be even stronger when we get to Snow Country?" Sasuke asked.
"I don't know," Kakashi-sensei admitted. "They've clearly been improving since the last time I was here. At the very least, they would be able to recover faster."
Well, that wasn't really good news. But then, being able to have full, up to date information on your enemies was a very rare situation indeed. We had something which was better than nothing.
"What's a Hexagonal Crystal?" I asked suddenly, remembering what Fubuki had asked Yukie for.
"That… is a good question." Kakashi-sensei stared at the wall for a long second. "I really shouldn't be telling you this, but it might be relevant to the current situation. Just keep quiet about it, okay?"
We nodded.
"I came here ten years ago as part of an ANBU reconnaissance group. There were rumours that the Daimyo was building and inventing battle puppets… chakra armour… all kinds of things. They were unsubstantiated, but obviously rumours like that worry Hidden Villages, even those as far from here as Konoha. Unfortunately, while we were here, Dotou attacked, so we were never able to fully investigate." His voice was impassive, but he was leaving out large portions of the story, which indicated that it wasn't nearly as straight forward as he was saying.
That explained where he had met Nadare, anyway, and how he knew so much about the chakra armour itself.
"We did find a location that was locked with an odd key. Hexagonal in shape, probably very dense in nature. Crystal, if I had to guess. We had no time to attempt to open it, or to search for the key, so I don't know what was there…"
"But it's what Dotou is looking for now," Sasuke finished, trading glances with Naruto.
I wasn't entirely sure that giving a child the secret key to … whatever it was, was the safest of choices, and it seemed like it was a plot that really belonged on the other side of the silver screen. Assuming she even had it, and it wasn't a mistake on their behalf.
"Well, we're already supposed to be protecting the princess," I said. Protecting her because of what she had wasn't any different.
"True enough," Kakashi-sensei agreed easily.
Any further conversation was cut off as the door opened and Sandayuu's head poked in. "Ah," he said. "There you are. The Director is asking…"
"Yes, I suppose we have to have a meeting," Kakashi-sensei said neutrally.
He disappeared and soon the small room was far too crowded, with the Director and his second occupying the other side of the table. The acrid smoke from the Directors pipe began to slowly fill the room. I resisted the urge to wrinkle my nose.
"Yukie isn't joining us?" Naruto asked.
"She's in her cabin," Sandayuu said. "She is…. Unwell."
Considering her reaction during the fighting, that might have been an understatement.
"I apologise for the deception," Sandayuu began, bowing slightly in his seat. "But what I have done has been for Snow Country." Quickly, he filled the other two in on the situation. They were… less shocked than they probably would have been before the whole 'attacked by enemy ninja' thing.
The Director puffed on his pipe silently for a few minutes. "To film a movie using a real princess… that is something that happens once in a lifetime."
Priorities, I thought wryly. You were far too into your job if the threat of death and danger didn't faze you. Then again, with what my 'job' was, I didn't exactly have room to talk.
"Oh, I see," the Assistant Director said enthusiastically. "This movie will be a real hit and we'll make big bucks!"
"Thank you," Sandayuu said, sighing in relief. "I am grateful, truly."
My attention was distracted by the feeling of someone approaching the cabin door. If I listened carefully, I could even hear the padding of bare feet on the wooden floor. Yukie, most probably.
The door slid open, confirming my guess.
"Princess! I'm glad to see that you're alright," Sandayuu exclaimed. "The Director has been appraised of the situation and he agrees -"
"I won't go back to Snow Country," she cut him off, voice flat and lifeless. "I won't."
"Unfortunately," Kakashi-sensei cut in. "Hiding is no longer an option. Dotou has discovered you. He won't let you be until he has what he wants."
"We'll protect you," Naruto said earnestly. "You don't have to worry about a thing."
She snorted. "Just give it up already. No matter how hard you try, you can't beat Dotou."
You can't beat Gatou, he's too strong!
That did sound awfully familiar, didn't it? Even the names were similar.
"Lady, you don't know what we can do," Naruto said, indignantly. "You can't just say 'give up' so easily. If he's strong, we'll just get stronger! That's all there is to it!"
"Because you wont give up, you will live to see a dream," the Director said thoughtfully. "Because you are able to see a dream, the future will come. This is nice. What a perfect theme for the final chapter of the Unlucky Princess."
"Wait a minute!" Yukie said. "You can't-"
"Let's make a movie with a happy ending!" The Assistant Director cheered.
.
.
We were actually closer to the Land of Snow than I expected. If we hadn't landed on the ice berg and then subsequently been blown of course, we would have landed within the day. As it was, we were expected to dock by mid morning.
I leant on the rails of the bow - the front pointy bit - and watched the incoming land eagerly. Oh, sure, it would lead to fighting and enemy ninja and possibly a civil war, but at least it was solid ground.
Yup, I was in a good mood.
No more seasickness and maybe I'd finally be able to get the half remembered chords from the Titanic song out of my head.
"Near, far, wherever you are," I sang softly. "I believe that the heart will go on…"
I grimaced. It just didn't sound the same after translation. Not that I could remember all the words anyway, but that was one of those songs that seemed to stick with you. I did remember, one school field trip, we'd had to take a ferry somewhere. Being teenagers and on a boat, we'd amused and/or irritated the other passengers by singing that pretty much the whole way.
My smile faded and I wished I hadn't thought of that. We had enough killjoys on this boat without me ruining my own good mood.
Yukie had been… difficult, ever since that conversation. The only saving grace was that there was literally nowhere she could go, otherwise I was sure she would have tried to run away again.
Thankfully, there were no problems docking. The portside town was very small, but they had ready for us a convey of trucks and caravans. I eyed them suspiciously. Given I'd already discovered seasickness, I was pretty sure I'd find that the cars would make me sick too.
Vehicles weren't very common in the Land of Fire. You were much more likely to see horse drawn carts or carriages than cars. There were specialised work vehicles, like cranes - I remembered seeing one in the Land of Waves - but most common people never saw one and ninja weren't much more likely too. I guess they were a bit more necessary here, with the absolutely freezing temperatures.
I shivered. The ground was freezing, the air was freezing, even the chakra was freezing.
That was… interesting. I was used to Konoha, which had large amounts of free floating chakra in the air, simply because it had a lot of people using chakra. Land of Snow also had a lot of chakra in the air, but without that simple explanation.
"It's good to be home," Sandayuu said, quietly, looking out over the frozen white with a nostalgic expression.
"It's beautiful," I offered. It was in a way, clean and crisp, but very, very cold. A kind of beautiful I would appreciate much more in a photograph than up close and personal.
"It is." He smiled. "Come with me. We have one of the vans reserved for you. I'll show you where it is and show you the route we're going to follow."
The van he took us to was surprisingly spacious inside, done up like a small booth instead of the classic front seat- back seat set up.
"This is the path we will be taking," Sandayuu said, placing an inked map down on the table. "It follows the old railroad tracks, though they don't get used anymore, unfortunately. The first town where we will be stopping is here. Several of my old comrades will be meeting us. There is a tunnel through the mountains not far from it where we will be stopping to do some filming." He tapped the map. "We'll probably get there just after lunch time, though filming will probably take most of the afternoon."
Which meant we probably wouldn't get to the village until sundown. Lovely.
I studied the map. The distances weren't far, as the crow went - which sometimes was also the path the ninja went - but the terrain meant that the cars would have to follow a very winding path which dramatically increased the distance. Added to the slow speed of travelling on ice and we wouldn't be going very fast at all.
"The castle is… here?" I asked, motioning. Land of Snow wasn't very big. While it could take a ninja a week to get from one end of the Land of Fire to the other, here, I was pretty sure we could cross the entire country in a day, mountains included.
"Indeed," Sandayuu said.
"Should we patrol?" Sasuke asked, looking at Sensei. "The Snow ninja are going to come back."
"Most likely," Kakashi-sensei agreed.
"And the princess has already proven to be a flight risk," I said. "We really don't want to lose her again."
Kakashi-sensei blinked. "We'll be in the mountains of Snow Country. Where would she go?" He asked, baffled.
"Running away isn't about going somewhere," I said patiently. "It's about trying to get away from something."
Some things you couldn't run from. But that never stopped anyone from trying. And it certainly seemed to be the mindset that Yukie was in.
"There are a lot of places for ambushes," Sasuke noted, looking over the map. "Passes, tunnels, crossroads…"
We spent a bit of time sorting out where the most likely spots for ambush were and how we were going to patrol. I quickly volunteered, because after the ship I didn't really want to try the cars. Sure, outside might be freezing, but it didn't make me sick.
As expected, the convey didn't move very fast, and it was after one before we came up to the tunnel through the mountains. The cars stopped briefly, apparently for a toilet break or for the drivers to discuss exactly where they were going to be filming. I caught a flash of pink out of the corner of my eye, and watched as Yukie slipped from her trailer into the snow.
"I'll talk to her," I said to Sasuke, jerking my chin in her direction and sighing.
It only took a few quick jumps to get a head of her. The side of the bank was sewn with thick, hardy trees and I almost felt at home.
"There's nothing out here," I said, sitting myself on one of the horizontal low hanging branches in her path.
She ground to a halt, staring at me in surprise.
"Cold, wet, miserable… you'd freeze within a day," I said, conversationally. "If you'd headed back down the road, you might have made it to the port we arrived at… If you'd gone forward you might have made it too the village… but in this direction there's nothing. Just pure, bleak, winter."
"Why are you doing this?" she asked, frustrated. "Why won't you just leave me alone?"
I sighed. "It's our mission. As ninja, we don't give up on missions. We don't quit. There are dozens of ninja rules covering that idea alone. But more than that…" I looked down at her. "I'm a human being. If people are hurt or in trouble or oppressed, and there's something I can do… shouldn't I do it? Shouldn't I help?"
"You can't save the whole world," she scoffed. "You can't save anybody."
"You never know until you try," I said, shrugging. "But… This isn't the first time we've done this."
"Done what?" she asked, confused at the sudden change of subject. "Chased someone down?"
"That too," I agreed. "But what I'm talking about… is more than that. Our first big mission… was to a place called the Land of Waves. Tiny place. It's a series of islands, not really big enough to call a country, but they do it anyway. They don't really have a proper feudal lord, or anything, but because it's an island community, they're pretty heavily dependant on shipping to bring them goods and food."
"I don't really care," she said.
I continued as if I hadn't heard, swinging my legs a little. "Then this guy comes along. Gatou. Some big shot head of a shipping company. Started squeezing them for money, blocking trade, all kinds of nasty stuff. Things were getting pretty bad there."
She looked interested despite herself. "So they what, hired you to kill him?"
"Nah," I said. "They started building a bridge."
I smirked at her shocked look.
"They figured, if Gatou controlled the waters… then they just had to find another way. It might possibly be the longest bridge in the Elemental Nations, but they built it."
"They wouldn't have got away with it," she said sullenly.
"Yeah. They nearly didn't," I agreed. "Gatou hired some ninja to take the bridge builder out. In return, they hired us to protect him. Eventually, things came to a head, Gatou died, the bridge was built and Wave Country started to rebuild. How's that for a happy ending?" I tilted my head. "Well, for us it was a happy ending to a mission. I guess for them it was a happy beginning."
"There's no bridge here," she said.
I studied her. "It wasn't about the bridge itself. It was about the people coming together to fight back, not just sitting around waiting for the end to come. If you think about it like that… in Snow Country, that bridge is you."
She didn't respond. I shrugged and hopped down off the tree. "If you're ever in Wave Country, look up the name of the bridge. It might clear up some things."
"The name of the bridge?" She muttered, bemused. I'd probably confused her more than persuaded her, but well, whatever worked I guess.
I straightened my cloak and ushered her around. "Come on. Let's go back to the vehicles. It's warmer inside."