A/N- Thanks for all of your wonderfully entertaining reviews and for being so patient. I know you’re all dancing in your seats by now. This chapter is rather fast-paced but I suppose that’s good because I feel really crummy and that equals crummy editing. Hopefully no one will notice.

Disclaimer: Naruto not mine. Hn.

Enjoy!

Ikigai

in Darkness

Chapter 27

Sasuke curved his hand over his left shoulder and eyed the narrow underground entrance. The cursed seal started tingling shortly before Kakashi’s ninkin lead them here. Hinata was close…but so was something else, something that should be dead.

“It appears to be abandoned,” Neji deactivated his Byakugan, “but there are pockets of chakra blocking my sight.”

“He’s expecting us,” Kakashi said. “He wants us to walk right in, then he’ll close the trap.”

“So what do we do?” Sakura whispered.

“We go in,” Sasuke said.

“Oi, Kakashi. We don’t like this place,” Pakkun muttered and the other ninkin whined. “It smells funny.”

“Funny how?”

“Old death, but not quite.”

“Ah. You can go back now. It won’t be safe in there for you.”

“Hai.”

The dogs poofed away and Kakashi uncovered his Sharingan. “Sasuke?”

“It’s been two days already,” he murmured, clutching his shoulder.

A firm hand fell on his and sharp blue eyes met wild obsidian. “Let’s not keep her waiting any longer,” Naruto said.

Pulling away, Sasuke glared at the entrance, eyes spinning into crimson. “Let’s go.”

The air was charged as they strolled down the narrow hallway, eyes flickering every which way for even a hint of danger. They could feel the gentle decline of the hall and soon darkness shrouded them completely.

Sakura reached out just as a warm hand reached back. Relief surged through her as Naruto tugged her close to his side and for once she forgot to feel disgruntled over being the only one incapable of seeing in complete darkness.

“Is this hall even leading us anywhere?” she whispered, clinging to her fiancé.

“It splits up ahead,” Neji’s soft voice boomed in the darkness.

Naruto stopped abruptly and squeezed Sakura’s hand. She looked so adorably cute, eyes wide and unseeing, depending only on him to guide her safely. Glancing between the two gaping hallways, each equally dark, he looked to Sasuke and frowned.

“Your call, Sasuke.”

Edging first into the left hall, then the right, Sasuke clasped his shoulder when the tingling increased. What would’ve been pain couldn’t seem to break through Hinata’s sealing.

“We’ll take the right,” he decided.

Naruto carefully transferred Sakura’s clutching hand to Kakashi’s vest and gave her a quick peck on the forehead. “Be careful.”

Pink tinted her cheeks at the public display of affection even if it was black as pitch because every man present could see it clear as day.

Kakashi chuckled and patted her hand. “Stick close, Sakura-chan.”

Naruto strode into the right hand corridor and stared into the darkness thoughtfully. “You sure?”

“Positive,” Sasuke said, forcing his hand to uncurl from his shoulder. “Neji.”

Silver light met blood red across the darkness.

“Get her out of here.”

Neji turned away and stepped into the left corridor. “Come back in one piece,” he threw back.

***

Their steps echoed loudly and Sakura couldn’t understand why no one had descended on them yet. The darkness made her edgy and while she trusted Kakashi would keep her safe, she would have much preferred to be clinging to an orange coat instead of a green vest.

“Stop.”

His voice ringing out beside her made her jump and all steps halted.

“What is it?” Neji asked.

Kakashi eyed the hallway before them. “Genjutsu.”

Neji eyed the corridor stretching out before him. “I can’t see it.”

“It’s probably the one he used to trap Hinata-chan. It’s very intricate,” Kakashi observed. Untangling Sakura’s hand from his vest he transferred her to Neji. “This might take a second.”

Sakura huffed, fingers curling in a silken sleeve. “I’m no use to you guys like this.”

“If Hinata is injured, none of us can heal her,” Neji reasoned. “You may be the most useful among us.”

Green eyes flickered up towards where she knew his face to be, softened by the atypical offer of comfort.

“You’re really worried about her, aren’t you,” she whispered.

He didn’t get the chance to answer, and probably wouldn’t have, when Kakashi’s “kai!” echoed through the hall. The floor instantly fell from beneath them.

***

Naruto paused and glanced back over his shoulder. “Did you hear that?”

Sasuke tilted his head to listen before continuing on. “They triggered a trap.”

Tension zipped up Naruto’s spine and he fought the urge to turn back. Glowering at the red and white fan floating in the darkness before him, he begrudgingly followed.

“She’ll be fine, Naruto,” Sasuke murmured. “Kakashi and Neji are with her.”

He stopped again and Sasuke turned with a sigh. “What now?”

Naruto eyed him speculatively. “It’s just, we never really talked about me and Sakura before. It doesn’t bother you?”

Sasuke shrugged. “Why should it? I’m already married.”

“Hey, you can’t count all those months when she didn’t even know she was married to you,” Naruto glared.

With a smirk, Sasuke turned away. “I still got married first.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll just see who has a kid first, hah!” Naruto stomped up beside him.

Sasuke glanced sideways. “Sakura would kill you if she heard you say that.”

Naruto rubbed the back of his head. “Eh heh, heh, let’s keep this one to ourselves.”

“Hn.” They walked in cautious silence for a few minutes. “What does the winner get?” Sasuke asked finally.

Blue eyes twinkled. “One year, no-strings-attached, anytime, anywhere baby-sitting.”

“Baby-sitting?”

Naruto smirked. “Think you’ll get much alone time once there’s a baby around?”

It took Sasuke all of half a second to ponder. “Deal.”

“Good, now,” Naruto’s eyes sharpened, “tell me why you picked this hallway.”

Sasuke’s hand slid up to his shoulder. “The cursed seal is reacting to something, probably the portion of Orochimaru that Kabuto absorbed.”

Naruto eyed him warily. “You don’t plan on using it, do you?”

Sasuke’s jaw clenched.

The blonde sighed. “Fair enough. I think there’s some light up ahead.”

“I see it.”

The absence of traps was disconcerting. Kabuto was making it too easy to get this deep into the compound. If the other branch led to Hinata, most assuredly the others would have more than a few traps to weave their way through. Kabuto would’ve been prepared for him to go after her first. No amount of acting on his part was going to convince the medic-nin that Hinata meant nothing to him now.

Side by side with his brother in heart, Sasuke stepped into the first anti-chamber. Torches lined the perimeter, casting shadows along the walls and between the pillars. A figure wrapped in darkness stood between them and the only other door and Sasuke’s heart skipped a beat as Naruto breathed in sharply beside him.

“Hello, little brother.”

***

Sakura sputtered and a large hand thumped her heartily on the back.

“You’re okay, Sakura-chan,” Kakashi’s overly cheerful voice told her. “A little water never hurt anyone.”

“That was a good deal more than a little water,” Neji muttered, leaning against a wall to catch his breath.

“A little…warning…next time…would be nice,” Sakura rasped between gasps.

“Well, how was I suppose to know deactivating the genjutsu would trigger another trap,” Kakashi held his hands out and shrugged.

“Because that’s exactly what Kabuto would expect Sasuke to do,” Neji straightened. Between the two of them, a soggy Sakura was leveled to her feet.

“I don’t mind the water,” she groused, wringing out her skirt. “But I swear there was something alive in there.”

Kakashi and Neji glanced over their shoulders at the lifeless form floating in the cistern.

“Eh, heh, I’m sure you were just imagining it, Sakura-chan.” Kakashi gripped her elbow and ushered her forward. “Being without your sight does that sometimes.”

“Well, it’s really starting to get on my nerves.” She scowled. “Neji, what do you see?”

“There’s another spilt up ahead and a concentration of chakra in each branch blocking my sight beyond them.”

“More genjutsu concealing traps?” Sakura asked.

“That would be my guess,” Kakashi returned. His steps halted, pulling them both to a stop.

“Which way?” Neji asked, eyeing the split. This was taking too much time.

Sakura frowned, tilting her face into the darkness. “Left. The air is cooler coming from the left. We always keep our labs at a cooler temperature than the rest of the building and I’m guessing Kabuto would too. If he means to continue his research—.”

“Then Hinata would likely be in the lab,” Kakashi finished for her. Guiding her hand back to Neji, he cautiously stalked into the tunnel. “At least we know what to expect this time…sort of.”

“Most of the chakra concentration seems to be in the walls,” Neji observed.

Kakashi eyed the carved stone walls before focusing on the genjutsu. This one was far less complicated and unraveled like a ball of yarn so fast he almost missed the faint brush of metal against stone.

Diving forward, he tumbled under the dagger sharp gate that slammed down, barely getting his feet beneath him before he twisted sideways to avoid a spray of kunai. Flipping backwards over a second metal-edged gate shooting up from the ground, he twisted again and slid to a stop at the end of the gauntlet with a breath of relief. At the last second, he snapped his head back, a spear narrowly missing the tip of his nose before embedding in the opposite wall.

“Kakashi?” Sakura’s worried voice echoed through the darkness.

“Well, that was fun,” he murmured, scratching the back of his head. “Give me a sec. I’m sure there’s a release switch around here somewhere.”

Sakura’s fingers curled in Neji’s sleeve. “Do I even want to know?” she whispered.

“Probably not,” Neji returned, watching the pikes slowly withdraw into stone. At Kakashi’s all clear, he cautiously edged forward, prepared to throw himself and the currently sightless kunoichi clinging to him the entire length of the corridor if Kakashi had miscalculated.

He breathed more easily once they reached the copy-nin’s side. “It can’t be much further,” he said, pulling Sakura forward. He heard the click, felt the rush of air, and had just enough time to curse before the ceiling collapsed.

***

“Do you really think you will ever be free of me?”

An exasperated growl snapped Sasuke out of the dangerous spiral into memory and he tore his gaze away from the wraith of his past to see Naruto throw up his arms.

“For the love of—! Doesn’t anyone ever stay dead anymore?” he yelled.

Crimson eyes darted back to the figure standing across from them. Dead. He’s dead. I obliterated his heart with my bare hands. He’s….

“A puppet,” he said and blue eyes turned to him.

“Huh?”

Relief flooded through him on the tail of certainty. “It’s one of Kabuto’s puppets.”

Naruto grinned and smacked his fist into his hand. “That means he’s mine. You go ahead and I’ll catch up when I’m done.”

Sasuke nodded sharply and sprinted sideways as a crowd of Naruto’s poofed into the room to provide him cover.

Feral grins stretched from wall to wall. “Let’s dance, wannabe!” The entire mass converged on the Itachi puppet and Sasuke darted unseen through the door into the next hall. Even if it was only a puppet, Kabuto’s jutsu was potent enough to put up a serious battle. Naruto wouldn’t be joining him any time soon.

Did the others find Hinata yet? Shaking the cloud of worry and fear that threatened to dull his senses in the absence of Naruto’s reassuring presence, Sasuke pressed on into the dark corridor.

He’d never been to this compound before, and while it did bear many similarities to the others, each one was different. Besides, Kabuto had plenty of time to plan for this encounter. The puppet bearing the face of his brother was proof enough of that. Did the Sound-nin mess with Hinata’s head too? Two days was time enough to do anything and everything his worst nightmares could possibly conceive.

Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to think of lavender eyes bright with determination and fire. No, his girl was a fighter to the very end. Kabuto couldn’t break her. No one could. She was steel in silk, flame in darkness, life and death to the man brave enough to keep her. She was a shinobi of the Leaf and somewhere in this twisting maze, she was waiting for him.

Far be it from Uchiha Sasuke to disappoint his wife.

***

Sakura coughed harshly to clear her lungs of the caking dust. Wiping her hand across her face, she winced and gingerly prodded her bare knuckles. Even if she was rendered pretty much useless in the pitch blackness, she really should’ve been wearing her gloves, but then again, she hadn’t expected to be smashing stone in an underground tunnel. The two tended to not go well hand in hand.

I wonder if this is what it’s like for Hinata. She didn’t know how long they’d been in the tunnels and while her eyes never became accustomed to the darkness enough to register any kind of vision, her other senses were definitely hyperactive. The unnatural click in the darkness had been nearly deafening to her ears and the rush of motion from directly overhead felt like it could’ve blown her over. Before her mind registered what was happening, her chakra infused fist met granite and her ears rang with the resulting explosion.

Brushing the cuts closed, she reached into her pouch for her gloves and tugged them on before cautiously feeling around the debris.

“Neji? Kaka-sensei?”

A muffled groan to her immediately left had her reaching blinding into the void before she touched something soft and solid.

“Definitely, not the best idea,” Neji muttered, sitting up with a grimace.

Another groan echoed him on her right. “But effective.”

Sakura huffed as she prodded the Hyuuga for injuries. “Well, maybe if I had a little more warning from someone who can actually see in this kami-forsaken place, then I would’ve reacted differently.”

Identical snorts of disbelief echoed on either side of her and she mercilessly poked the only one she could reach.

Neji grunted and pushed her hand away. “I’m fine.”

“Kakashi?”

“I’ll live.”

Sakura scowled towards his voice. “That’s not reassuring.”

A firm hand beneath her arm lifted her to her feet. “Nothing but bruises, Sakura,” Neji confirmed. “Let’s just keep going. I see a door just around that turn.”

Two separate pairs of hands helped her over the debris and they cautiously made their way around the corner.

Sakura tugged at Neji’s shirt. “Can you see beyond it?”

“There’s a chakra seal.”

“I suppose there’s only one way to find out then,” Kakashi said, slowly grasping the handle. “Ready?”

All three braced themselves as he slowly turned the knob, shoved the door open and leaped back. Seconds ticked by and as one they all breathed out.

“Well, that was kind of anti-climatic,” Sakura said.

Neji stiffened suddenly and before she could ask him what was wrong, he jerked away from her, his sleeve slipping through her grasping fingers.

“Neji!”

A large hand grabbed hers and she instinctively clutched it as Kakashi pulled her into the room.

“Cover your eyes, Sakura,” he ordered and she did just before a flare of light flashed through the room. Kakashi released her hand and she hesitantly cracked her fingers, wincing at the piercing illumination of the previously dark room. Forcing her eyes to adjust faster than was probably safe, she located Neji leaning over an examine table, fists clenching the edge hard enough to break bone.

She hurried over and caught her breath at the sight of leather bindings strapped to slender limbs. Glancing at Neji, she saw his eyes closed, Byakugan deactivated and the slightest tremble shaking his shoulders. Meeting worried mismatched eyes, Sakura turned once more to look into the pixie face on the table.

Hinata’s features were smoothed into a picture of serenity, absent of strain and fear. Forcing her hand to not shake, Sakura pressed two fingers to her jugular and swallowed hard.

“No pulse,” she whispered. An inhuman scream erupted from the man beside her and he turned and slammed his fist into the nearest machine, sparks and metal flying. Before she could even snap out of her shock, Kakashi was on him, grappling and twisting his arms behind his back.

Forced to his knees, Neji panted, eyes wide and stark with feral madness. “It’s not her! It can’t be!”

“Neji, calm down,” Sakura kneeled in front of him, healing chakra flaring into her hand. If she had to, she would knock him out.

“It’s not her!” His eyes clashed with hers and beneath the weight of silver desperation, Sakura froze. What if….

“How do you know,” she asked softly.

His eyes sharpened and madness edged back beneath a certainty felt to the deepest core of his being. “It’s not her,” he whispered. It couldn’t be. He would know. He would feel that piece of him torn apart, all hope erased and smothered, but all he felt right now was fear and rage. If she was dead, the fear would be gone and only fury would remain.

“We were wrong once before,” Kakashi murmured.

Sakura looked up into knowing mismatched eyes and felt her own panic ease into something sharper and more easily controlled. Nodding once, she stood and tugged her gloves off. “Do you see any genjutsus overlaying the body?”

Kakashi released his bruising grip on Neji and helped him up. “No.”

Sakura cracked her knuckles and reached out to brace her hands on each side of the head. For a brief moment she struggled with the certainty that this face with its familiar curves and creases belonged to only one woman, but the determined eyes boring into her back braced her. They had been wrong once before. She had been wrong because they had no other proof and even two years after identifying those burnt remains as Hyuuga Hinata, the niggling doubt in the back of her mind never disappeared.

She wouldn’t be wrong this time.

Closing her eyes, she eased her chakra into the cold body, slithering along cranial curves and dried out blood vessels. It was impossible to pin a time of death, tissue and cells seemingly frozen halfway between regeneration and destruction. Familiarity tweaked a memory too distant to identify, so she directed her chakra up towards the eyes. Tracing nerve endings and retinal tissue known to her like the back of her hand, Sakura’s stomach dropped with growing dread and she jerked back, unwilling to see more.

No one could duplicate such a complicated mass of melded tissue, nerves, and chakra channels. Even the most skilled medic would….

A choked laugh escaped her lips and she slapped a hand over her mouth. Dancing emerald eyes turned to the two startled men beside her and she swallowed her elated giggles.

“I’m an idiot,” she said.

Neji and Kakashi glanced uncertainly at the body then back to her.

“Okay,” Kakashi drawled out, instinctively bracing himself for a swift, chakra-enhanced backhand.

Sakura merely rolled her eyes. “This is Kabuto we’re dealing with! He’s got more forbidden medical jutsus under his belt than most people encounter in a lifetime. He must have melded the chakra channels and nerve endings to emulate Hinata’s physiology, but the tissue and cells are frozen between regeneration and destruction and that only happens—.”

“When dead cells are temporarily reanimated,” Kakashi finished for her.

Neji’s eyes fell to the immaculate copy of his cousin. “Is it possible that he,” he swallowed, “that she….”

Sakura grasped his shoulder and squeezed hard enough to make him wince. “It’s not her, Neji.”

Glancing at a table littered with lab equipment, Kakashi picked up a Petri dish and held it up to the light. “Hinata’s too valuable alive, even without her sight.”

“What else could he want from her if not the Byakugan?” Neji asked.

The copy-nin handed the dish to Sakura and gestured towards the microscope. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

Frowning, the rosette medic-nin placed the dish under the scope and carefully sharpened the focus. Long ago, she learned to stop thinking things couldn’t get worse because inevitably they did. This…this she could never have imagined.

“Sakura?”

The metal table beneath her fingers screeched and bent in protest and she pulled away from the scope, drawing a deep, calming breath into her lungs. “Ovum.”

“What?” Neji grabbed her arm and jerked her around. “You mean—.”

“Test tube Hyuuga,” she said, meeting his eyes unflinchingly. “He harvested Hinata’s ova.”

Silver eyes widened. “All of them?”

Sakura looked away. “I don’t know. He could be keeping most of them in cold storage and that could be anywhere in this maze. Without her here for me to examine….”

“Then we better find her,” Kakashi said. Neji and Sakura looked up to see him slap an explosive tag onto a wall. “Kabuto isn’t one to burn his bridges if it can be avoided.”

Neji reached around Sakura and gingerly picked up the Petri dish. “What are the chances these are…will….”

She covered his hand. “He must have only just started. They haven’t been fertilized yet. Right now, they’re just cells.”

He breathed out slowly and his fingers tightened around the dish. Not even knowing who the genetic father could be, if these tiny specks really had been Hinata’s children…. No, there’s no way he could’ve brought himself to destroy them. If she’d ever found out, she never would’ve forgiven him.

“You’re certain?” There couldn’t be a shred of doubt.

Verdant eyes squarely met his. “Positive.”

He dropped the dish and crushed it under his sandal. Grim satisfaction curled in his chest with the feel of crunching glass. Until he could find the man himself, provided anything was left after Sasuke was through with him, destroying his twisted dreams would have to suffice.

But would it be enough? If Kabuto had really harvested all of Hinata’s ova, would she retain her value in the former Avenger’s eyes even when she could no longer bear him children? Swallowing against the lump in his throat, Neji slapped an explosive tag onto one of the support walls. There was no time for an extensive search in the twisted maze for something so small and possibly non-existent when they yet had to find Hinata.

A sharp pang of fear and regret stabbed him in the chest when they finally turned their backs on the lab to continue their search and leave more tags throughout the tunnels. Somewhere in this labyrinth might be Hinata’s only chance for the family she’d always wanted and soon, it would die in stone and fire.

Hinata-sama, forgive me.

For those who slept through biology, "ova" is the plural of "ovum" and are female reproductive cells or eggs.

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