A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller. ~ Paul Klee
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"He went through the roof!" Naruto shouted, pointing upwards.
I squinted through the jagged hole torn in the ceiling. I couldn't see Dotou, but Yukie's pink coat was much easier to pick out against the dark night sky.
"He's flying?" I asked tentatively.
"Must have had wings," Sasuke said. "She did." He jerked his head at Fubuki, where she was lying on the ground.
"Do we know where they're going?" I asked. Because, well, chasing them was going to be damn difficult. There were no marks of passage, and who knew how fast or far they could travel. From here, we couldn't really even tell what direction they were going in.
Naruto bit his lip. "The Rainbow Glaciers," he said. "That's where they said the weapon was. I bet he's taking the key there."
"That's… worrying," Sasuke said grimly. I agreed silently. Their chakra armour was bad enough, I didn't want to have to fight whatever weapon they had.
"We need to go after them," Kakashi-sensei said. "Anyone injured?" He cast an assessing look over us.
I shook my head. Exhausted, yes, but not injured. We'd been fighting and running and fighting… and it looked like we were going to be doing a lot more running and fighting before this was done.
"Let's go, then," he said. "Once we get to the forest, you can eat as you run."
That was a good idea. Food was important in recovering chakra.
We abandoned the castle, and managed to get out without running into any other ninja. The fact that there was the sound of fighting and explosions going off in other parts of the building told me that either Naruto's clones were still at it, or we'd overestimated the amount of time that it would take for the ex-samurai to get here.
We hit the forest outside the castle and took a moment to orientate ourselves.
"Someone's already been this way," I said. It had taken a second to set in, because those weren't footprints, they were wheel tracks, but it still meant someone had passed this way.
"The Director," Kakashi-sensei said, without even looking to see what I'd seen. "You can still smell the smoke from his pipe."
Well, no. I couldn't. But Naruto nodded, like he could, and I just took their word for it instead of arguing.
The Rainbow Glaciers weren't close to the castle. It was a good three or four hour run before we even saw them in the distance. I felt exhausted. It had been at least fourteen hours since the fight by the train, and we'd been in constant motion since then. And we'd been patrolling all morning before that, even if nothing had happened.
Yay, ninja. More all-nighters than a university student with an assignment due…
Chakra made it easier, but we were starting to run low on that, too.
"I think they're already there," I said, swallowing heavily as a beam of light shot up into the air out of the centre of the Glaciers. Even from here, I could feel the huge surge in chakra. Not really a good sign.
"We need to hurry," Naruto said in agreement.
The Glaciers were, well, hard to describe. There was a flat basin of a shallow valley, with a tiny shrine in the middle ,and the edge of the basin dish was surrounded by six huge towering pillars that were wide in one direction and thin in the other so they almost looked like pieces of walls more than pillars. We were coming towards it from a steep, nearly sheer cliff face, which gave us a chance to analyse it, but not much cover once we started to move.
The ground underneath the shrine and pillars was so thick with chakra conducting metal that it made my teeth ache, and the air had so much chakra in it that I was surprised that it wasn't visible.
Dotou was standing next to the shrine, obviously having used the key to activate it. It was channelling chakra into the ground, into that abundance of metal, which was then getting carried outwards and away.
"Ley lines," I muttered. That was more of a spiritual concept, but it was close. Why it was happening was a question that I couldn't even begin to answer.
"Where is it?" Dotou muttered to himself, circling the small shrine. "Where is the treasure?"
Something was obviously happening. The shrine was putting out chakra… or was it taking it in? The snow around it was steaming, and the pillars were beginning to melt, torrents of water sluicing down off their faces.
"Where is it?" He shouted, turning to Yukie where she sat huddled miserably to the side. She was on the other side of the clearing to us, and the open spaces meant that circling around unnoticed was going to be impossible.
We could wait, but every minute we lost was time that that thing was activated. Whatever it was, and whatever it did.
"Focus on keeping the princess out of danger," Kakashi-sensei said. "I'll take care of him. Everyone ready?"
We nodded.
"You better believe it," Naruto said fiercely.
We moved. Dotou was facing away, but either he sensed us, or something else gave us away, because he turned and saw us.
"Leaf ninja," he sneered. "Why must you always interfere?" His hands clumsily ran through seals. "Well, no more. It's over now. Ice Release; Black Dragon Blizzard!"
His black chakra armour crackled and surged with power, the chakra sink on his chest starting to glow, and then black lightning gathered in his hand. We twitched, ready to evade, to jump out of the way at a moments notice.
But he didn't aim for us.
It twisted and writhed, a black dragon with demonic red eyes, heading straight for Yukie.
Kakashi-sensei swore and vanished, becoming a blur of blue and green racing across the ice. At that distance, that speed, he was the only one of us with a hope of making it. I tucked my hands into my kunai pouch, pulling out fists full of kunai and explosive notes and hurled them unceremoniously at Dotou. Some clattered off his armour, the metal of the knives shattering, but that didn't stop the explosive notes.
The fireball engulfed him.
"Mass Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Naruto called, and suddenly there were many more of him darting across the ice. They hurled themselves at Dotou, some of them body slamming him and being thrown off, others getting hit and destroyed. But the moves were clumsy and it was clear that however much more powerful this set of chakra armour was, Dotou himself was not a ninja.
"Hold him still," Sasuke ordered, crouching and gripping his wrist. "Chidori!"
Lightning blossomed in his grip, chirping and shrieking. He burst forward, foot cracking the ice as he pushed off, winter cloak flaring out behind him. The Naruto clones cleared a path and he flew across the ice with Sharingan enhanced precision.
Light flared as the Chidori hit the armour, obscuring vision, and the Naruto clones tumbled away in puffs of smoke. Then Sasuke was thrown back with a cry, slamming into one of the tall pillars and cracking the ice surface. He wasn't moving, but his chakra was pulsing steadily. Knocked out then.
Ice surface?
For a moment, it was like time slowed down for me as everything clicked into place. Those weren't ice pillars, they were mirrors. Giant, twenty meter tall mirrors, reflecting back the chakra inside the valley, recirculating it, heating it …
Then Naruto shouted "SASUKE!" and my attention jerked back to the fight. I threw another handful of kunai and explosives, more to buy time and as a distraction than because I thought they'd work. But there was a crack running through the chest of the armour; Sasuke's Chidori had done damage. Just not enough.
"The circle!" I shouted, hoping Naruto understood. If he hit it again, it would probably break and short out like what had happened in the castle. And the very least, it would weaken the armour.
"I got it!" He shouted back, a clone standing behind him helping him form a Rasengan. I threw another handful of kunai and notes, the explosion knocking Dotou back a step and disrupting the jutsu he was trying to cast. A ninja would have dodged, and kept going, but he wasn't and he couldn't.
Good for us, I thought.
I glanced back at Naruto to see how his progress was going and for a second I was blinded, as the first rays of the sunrise peaked over the horizon. They caught on the giant mirrors, reflected back again and again, brighter and brighter each time.
And. Oh.
The chakra in the air was visible, caught up in the spinning of Naruto's Rasengan, spiralling outwards and reflecting all the colours of the rainbow. It trailed behind him, transparent and translucent, like coloured smoke, as he ran across the melting snow.
And then he slammed it into Dotou's chest, right onto the broken chakra sink, and the focused dispersal of all that energy was so fast and violent that it made the very ground shake.
Dotou flew upwards, and uncontrolled ragdoll tumble before impacting heavily into the face of the mirror, shattering it behind him. I had no doubt that he was dead before he hit it, but it was unquestionable that he was by the time he fell and hit the ground.
"Nothing is over," Naruto panted. "Until you have a happy ending."
And all the chakra in the air was being sucked back down into the generator, down into the ground and flowing out through the veins of metal, through the ley lines, and the snow was melting… no, not just the snow, because there was grass there, underneath it, full grown and healthy like the middle of spring, not just bare and barren rock…
"If there is no spring," Yukie said, softly as Kakashi-sensei dropped down near us and set her on her feet. "Then you make it come." She laughed, softly, wondrously.
Behind them, some very familiar faces on a small rolling trailer came down the hill. It did look very much like they had been filming. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
Sasuke was awake, sitting awkwardly at the base of the mirror. Naruto had flopped down next to him, sprawled out on the grass.
"How…" Sandayuu said, looking about in amazement. He was still wearing his samurai armour, and it looked a little battered and dirty. "How did this happen?"
"It's a generator," I said, verbalising the things that I'd put together. "Not a weapon. The Land of Snow has a lot of chakra in the air, and the chakra conductive metal underground… it's probably what kept it in winter for so long… it kept trapping the cold, making it so the snow never melted…"
How clever. Using all the things that had kept the Land of Snow in perpetual winter for so long as tools to bring it into spring. Not fighting against them, but using them.
"But now, we will have spring," Yukie said.
Believe in the future.
We turned to stare at the shrine, where the voice had come from. It was glowing, reflecting off the mirrors and producing an image… a hologram. It was clear and bright and I marvelled at the technology that would be necessary for it.
If you do, spring will come. Koyuki, what would you like to do then?
I'll become a princess, a young, vibrantly dressed Yukie said, standing easily on the platform. She looked so innocent and happy. She was… maybe four or five. Maybe a little older, I wasn't sure.
Hmm? What kind of princess?
A strong one, she replied, swinging her hands in a little girl dance. A kind one. A princess who believes in justice!
Strong, rich male laughter echoed throughout the valley. That's going to be very hard work.
"I did say that, before…" Yukie whispered, staring at it.
But if you don't give up, and keep believing in your dreams, one day you'll be one for sure. The hologram shifted, a male form coming into view. Sousetsu Kazahana. Gently, he clasped the hexagonal crystal around the neck of the small princess. Can you see that a very beautiful princess is standing here?
But I'm not quite decided yet, Yukie said, twisting to look up at him. There's one more thing that I want to become!
What's that?
An actress! The small princess exclaimed.
The memory of Sousetsu laughed, and so did the woman standing beside me, tears dripping down her face.
"Ah, father," Koyuki said. "I became an actress. Now, it's time for me to be a princess, isn't it?"
I sighed, closing my eyes and turning up face up into the sunlight. The chakra in the air was warm and soothing and I hadn't realised how cold I had felt up until this moment.
Or how tired.
What a crazy day, I thought.
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Eventually, we had to head back to the castle to inform everyone of the new change in leadership. Dotou's body got sealed up and brought with us for proof, but by the time we made it back, so many people were panicking about the change in weather that they were pretty much willing to listen to anyone who knew what was going on.
The Hidden Snow ninja listened to the news with grim faces and retreated. They were in a bad position; things could get very messy for a ninja village if the Daimyo didn't like you, and they'd just been trying to kill her. I wondered if their limited tactics had been a way of hedging their bets in regards to the outcome. As far as I could recall, the only people they had tried to hurt had been us.
Them leaving let us fade into the background as the last of the threats vanished. With their employer dead, there wasn't much reason for them to attack, but you never knew. Sandayuu bustled around, managing to either locate the people in charge, or simply convince them he was and got all of the film crew, actors and us lodging in one of the undamaged wings of the palace.
I was so happy with the idea of sleep that I didn't really care how he'd managed it.
The next couple of days were mostly the same. We kept out of the way as the palace was restored - quite a bit of it had collapsed, funny that - and Koyuki was so busy taking up the reigns as Daimyo that we didn't really get to see her.
Her coronation was rapidly organised, but no less beautiful for it. People turned up by the trainload, and it seemed that every spare inch of space was crammed with people - all joyous about the sudden spring weather.
"The device was incomplete," Koyuki confided in us, when she had a free moment after the ceremony. "That's why father never used it. But we have people studying it now, and eventually we will be able to refine it." She smiled. "And then someday the Land of Snow will be called the Land of Spring."
"That's good, Nee-chan," Naruto said, tucking his hands behind his head, and grinning. "I bet you can make it happen."
"Yes," she said. "We won't give up." She ducked down quickly and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Thank you."
Naruto went very red. I giggled, I couldn't help myself.
"All of you," Koyuki amended with a smile. "For everything you did…. I wouldn't be here without you."
The next day, Sandayuu approached us. He had gone from being Koyuki's manager to being her assistant, but he looked ecstatic with the change.
"Ah, there you are! Thank you. Thank you very much," he said bowing deeply at the waist.
"It was our mission," Kakashi-sensei said, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.
"Yes, well," he said, shuffling the files that he was carrying. "The Director tells me that they've finished filming now and are going to be returning to the Land of Fire."
Considering that we had come on the same boat they had, we'd been expecting to return with them. And that would depend on…
"Obviously, you were hired to protect Koyuki during the filming process and that is now over, despite being a much shorter timeframe than anticipated. Although I wont be returning with you, the Director assures me that you'll be welcome on board the ship."
"Good to know," Kakashi-sensei said. "Although, it may be difficult to get you a refund so far away."
Sandayuu shook his head. "That's not necessary." He handed Kakashi-sensei a folder. "I feel that the service Konoha provided is equal to the amount paid, despite the shortened timeframe."
Kakashi-sensei flicked through the file, then tucked it inside his vest. It was probably a paperwork or a disclaimer to the same extent.
"Oh," he added. "Koyuki wanted me to give you all these. I know it isn't much, but please, hold us in your memories."
He handed each of us an envelope, bowed again, and left.
I opened it curiously.
"An autograph!" Naruto exclaimed. "She told me she never gave autographs!"
I smiled at the picture. It must have been a rush printing, because it was of the five of us at the coronation yesterday, Koyuki all done up in her Daimyo's robes, and the courtyard filled with banners behind us.
Shikako Nara,
Happiness without an ending. I hope you find yours.
~Yukie Fujikaze
~Koyuki Kazahana
Then I realised something.
"I'm going to have to go back on the boat, aren't I?"