Ripples

Chapter 25

                              Bastion

-xxx-

Neji sighed – he had known transforming into Sasuke and trying to move out of the village would be difficult, but he hadn't expected it to be this difficult.

He and Tenten were currently being pursued by four chunins, and he was struggling to keep enough distance between them and him so that they wouldn't notice when he and Tenten dropped the transformation and turned back.

"This would be so much easier if I could actually do something..." Tenten muttered against his chest.

"You're drugged, remember?"

"I know, I know – it just sucks, that's all!"

Neji continued running in silence for a few moments – well, silence excepting the shouts of their pursuers.

"You really think this will work?" Tenten asked as Neji leapt over the wall.

"They'll suspect decoys," Neji admitted. "But they'll assume that Sakura and Sasuke will have left the village, so they'll concentrate their search on the surrounding country."

"Right...so how far do we – well, you – need to run?" Tenten inquired. "A mile or so should be enough."

"We'll do two miles to be safe."

Tenten nodded, then sighed at the sound of pursuit as their followers mounted the wall.

She would have felt so much better about this if she'd been allowed to throw shuriken.

-xxx-

Shikamaru glanced down at the woman in his arms. Even taking into consideration the fact that Ino was pretending to be a drugged Sakura, she'd been eerily quiet. He'd have expected a threat about not dropping her at the very least.

The reason for her silence was revealed when they hopped over the wall. Ino cleared her throat, then asked in a small voice, "Do you think she'll be okay?"

Shikamaru didn't need to ask who 'she' was. "I'm sure she'll be fine."

"Her fingers looked pretty bad..."

"But it was just her fingers," Shikamaru reminded her. "I think Sai and Sasuke got there before any permanent damage was done."

Something told him if there any crippling injuries involved, they would have been dealt to Sakura's interrogators. Sasuke struck him as rather unforgiving like that.

"Yeah, Sasuke'll look after her," Ino nodded, then suddenly smirked, as though she knew something he didn't.

Shikamaru's first instinct was to ask her exactly why she looked so smug, but long experience with Ino had told him he was often happier not knowing.

"Hey, Shikamaru, you better not drop me."

"Troublesome woman..."

-xxx-

"D-Do you think Ki-Kiba will be alright?" Hinata wondered as she and Shino made their way through the forest.