Notes: My most sincere apologies for the long wait and the brevity of the chapter. Hopefully the quality will make up for the lack of quantity. Or not. I'll try to work on it more quickly. ^.^; Enjoy!

Hinata heard Sasuke and Sakura long before they actually entered the room, but she was so busy listening for Konohamaru as well that when the other two arrived, she was almost as startled as if she hadn't heard them coming at all.

"Konoha…" she started to ask. Her voice trailed off as she saw the bloodstained goggles clutched in both of Sakura's hands. "Is he…?"

Sakura shook her head. "We don't know."

Sasuke slammed a fist into the wall and stared moodily out the window. "We're leaving. We can't stay here."

"But Naruto –" Hinata started again.

"He's coming with us." Sasuke spun around and glared at all of them impartially. "We're going now."

"But –" It was Sakura who interrupted this time.

"We don't know who these people are." Sasuke leaned forward, biting off every word. "We don't know where they come from. We don't know what they want. All I know is that we're the only ones left in Konoha who have any idea what's going on. We can't afford to let ourselves get captured. We're leaving now."

Hinata opened her mouth as if to protest, but at Sasuke's glare, she closed it again and turned to Naruto. He was hooked up to machines registering his breathing and heartbeat; when he was disconnected, an alarm would be raised. His clothes had been stacked neatly in Sakura's duffel bag; she picked it up and handed it to Sakura. "Um, if you wouldn't…" Sakura nodded. She took the bag and climbed out the window. Sasuke motioned for Hinata to follow.

"Go to the Academy as quickly as you can without letting yourselves be seen. We'll meet you there. The password is 'defense, strategy, the eye of the dragon'."

Hinata glanced down at Sakura, who shrugged slightly. Sasuke's passwords were his business, apparently. She jumped out the window, landing near Sakura. "A-academy."

It was far easier to move across town in the evening's half-light than it had been during the morning. In what seemed like no time at all, they had arrived and slipped inside. It seemed to Hinata that no attention had been attracted, but if the person watching them were a skilled ninja, how would she know?

The most easily defended rooms in the Academy were in the basement. They were also the rooms easiest to keep bottled in. Hinata shook her head. They needed mobility, not defensibility. She tugged on Sakura's sleeve and led her to a room on the upper-most floor. It was a conference room with doors in two walls and broad windows overlooking the Academy grounds. The windows had been covered with heavy black curtains the last time Hinata had seen the room, and she hoped those curtains were still there.

She was not disappointed. A cursory check of the windows showed her that the traps built into them were still active. "H-here," she whispered.

"We can't defend this place!" Sakura whispered back. "It's too open!"

"We c-can't fight anyway," Hinata told her. "Th-this way, we can r-run if they find us."

Sakura's eyes widened and she nodded. "We'll wait here, then."

Sasuke shifted Naruto's weight and peered around the corner. He couldn't hear anything moving, but he'd come to realize that meant nothing. He couldn't see anything either, but his eyesight was as useless as his hearing. Irritation combined with fatigue from the previous sleepless night, and he spent a few seconds cursing inwardly. Hoping his luck held, he darted across the street through the gathering shadows.

He crept along the side of the building as inconspicuously as he could. Considering that he was carrying an unconscious boy in a hospital gown, he wasn't particularly inconspicuous. He could see the back of the Academy; one more rush stood between him and success. Sasuke looked around carefully. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He took a deep breath.

Naruto chose that exact moment to wake up. "Huh? Sasuke?" Although his voice was much more quiet than it normally was, "quiet" for Naruto bordered on "loud" for everyone else.

Sasuke nearly dropped him. "Shhhh!" he hissed as forcefully as he dared. He had no hands free, or he would have clapped one over Naruto's mouth. The last thing he needed was to deal with Naruto's idiocy in such a volatile environment.

Naruto's eyes widened, but he made no move. "What's going on?" he asked in a stage whisper. Sasuke fought the urge to groan. Naruto probably thought he was being very quiet.

"Just… hang on, okay?" If Naruto had been awake enough to walk on his own, this wouldn't have happened. If he hadn't caught this incredibly ill timed flu, this wouldn't have happened. Sasuke looked around again. No one paid any attention to either of them. He ran towards the Academy, scrambling over the low wall and onto the grounds in a few seconds. "Stay quiet."

Naruto nodded, head resting on Sasuke's shoulder. Sasuke glanced downwards. He must really be drained. He shifted Naruto's weight again, shoved the incessant worry for his teammate out of his mind, and thought about where Hinata and Sakura might have hidden. Logic suggested the basement for its defensibility, but that didn't feel right. There weren't enough of them to defend against any type of concentrated attack. They should have gone for ease of escape, then. Sasuke walked into the building and jogged up the stairs.

As he had predicted, Hinata and Sakura had hidden themselves in one of the conference rooms. He announced his presence quietly, and pushed open the door.

The door had been left unrigged, but both Hinata and Sakura were obviously to deal with any intruder. Sakura slipped her kunai back into its sheath with a nod to Hinata before going to help Sasuke with Naruto. "Password?"

"Defense. Strategy. The eye of the dragon," Sasuke returned with a straight face. His mouth was set tightly, though, and Sakura was capable of interpreting the subtleties of Sasuke's nearly expressionless demeanor through long – sort of – experience. Sasuke was annoyed at something.

Naruto, however, started laughing weakly, not nearly as observant as Sakura. "Who made that up?" He yawned abruptly.

"Uh, over here, Sasuke." Sakura tugged lightly on Naruto's jacket. "We got supplies and other stuff, so we don't have to leave if we don't want to." She was actually rather proud of the arrangement.

Sasuke started to put Naruto down, but the blonde clung to him, eyes suddenly wide and glassy. "Are you going to bury me?" he asked in a tiny voice.

Sasuke looked exasperated. "No one is going to bury you. Let go."

"But –" Sakura glanced at Hinata. Hinata shrugged.

"He'll be much better tomorrow, Sasuke."

Sasuke tried again to pry Naruto's grip loose. "Let go, Dead-last."

Between the combined efforts of Sakura and Sasuke, Naruto was finally persuaded to let go of Sasuke and go back to sleep. Sakura drew the blanket over him carefully.

"Are you sure he's getting better?" she asked.

Hinata nodded. "A lot of my cousins had this. He really is almost through it."

The sound of the door closing startled both girls into looking over. Sasuke was standing in front of it, scowling. "Don't leave it open," he snapped.

"I-I was watching it," Hinata retorted. "Nothing happened."

Sasuke blinked twice, and turned away, outwardly absorbed in setting some kind of complicated trap to thwart anyone who might open the door from the outside.

"He really is getting better?" Sakura repeated. They needed everyone they could get to fight, and she… She admitted inwardly that she needed her friend to be all right.

Hinata nodded vigorously. It took Sakura a moment to notice that it was much more difficult to see Hinata than it had been when they had first arrived. Suddenly wary that the absence of light could be due to some sort of genjutsu, she sprang to her feet, cursing herself for not noticing the gradual darkening of the room. Hinata jumped up too, eyes wide and hands automatically forming the seal to perform the Byakkugan. Sasuke too was now standing in a guard position, left hand hovering near his shuriken holder. Sakura cautiously moved one of the curtains to the side, tensed to defend herself and Naruto against whoever might be outside.

The brilliant glow of the sunset's final moments washed through the room, blanketing it in faded crimson. Sakura resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands and instead checked for anything that shouldn't be there. Everything looked normal.

"What did you see?" Sasuke hissed, keeping his voice low.

"It, uh, got dark, and I thought it was a genjutsu," she said weakly, and let the curtain fall.

"Kkh," Sasuke spat derisively. Within seconds, his attention was once again focused on the trap he was trying to set.

Grateful now that the room was dark enough to hide the blush burning her cheeks, Sakura turned back to Naruto. It was startling, really, how quickly the light went. She could barely see his outline now.

"You two should get some sleep," Sasuke said roughly. "I'll keep watch for now."

"But we-" Hinata started.

"You can't do anything in the dark, and we're not turning any lights. Got it?" Sasuke spoke as if he would physically restrain either of them if they so much as considered any further protest.

Sakura stuck her tongue out at him, again glad of the dark. What's up with him now? she wondered. He was acting oddly, even for Sasuke. "Come on, Hinata," she whispered. "We can sleep over here." Still, she was fairly certain that it was indeed Sasuke, and even if she hadn't been sure, Hinata had been using her Byakkugan before Sasuke had given the correct password. Sakura didn't think Sasuke had noticed the tiny nod Hinata had given her before she had put down her kunai.

"We'll get out of here tomorrow," Hinata whispered. She sounded so sure of herself that Sakura believed her without question, and simply nodded in return. If Hinata thought they would get out, was that certain, then there had to be something to it. Sakura wrapped her arms around the other girl for warmth as they lay against the wall farthest from the windows, and fell asleep more quickly than she would have expected.

tzuzuku…