Hot 'N' Dangerous

Chapter 27: Sakura Blooms

I groaned and blinked my eyes open to see an alcove of tree roots above me, Did I die? Did they bury me already?, I thought, confused.

"E-elvira! You're awake!" Sakura stammered.

I heard the relief in her voice, "W-what happened... did we all die? Where are we?" I asked, holding my head.

"N-no, we're not dead, I hid us away under all of this foliage, I was scared that he might come back," her voice trembled.

I nodded and winced as I tried to get up, "Don't move yet, I just bandaged your wound!" she said, too late.

"Yeah, thanks for the heads up," I grumbled and tried again to get up, this time successful.

"U-um, Elvira, I... I saw something... on your back when I was bandaging your wound," she twiddled her thumbs nervously.

"What did you see?" I inquired.

"I-I don't know how to e-explain b-but I can show you," she murmured and beckoned me over to Liz's side.

She pointed at Liz's right forearm where Orochimaru had bitten her.

I gasped, "Do we all have that?" my eyes were wide with shock.

Sakura nodded, "Yours is right between your shoulder blades," she said and prodded the place where my mark was supposed to be.

It tingled unpleasantly, What is this? This mark..., I thought and ran my hand over it.

Liz moaned painfully too and she turned her face towards us, "Confused?" I asked.

"Very much," she mumbled back and sat up slowly, leaning against the tree behind her.

I explained everything to her, gesturing at her mark and mine on my back, "What about Sasuke? Is his on his neck?" she asked urgently.

I nodded and we all went over to inspect, Sasuke tossed in his sleep and his forehead was burning up, Sakura had already placed a towel on it too help but the fever refused to die down. I pulled back the collar of his shirt to see the mark, inky black like a tattoo. It looked similar to the Sharingan pattern. Three comma-like shapes connected by a line, forming a circle, almost like a windmill.

I sat back down in the grass and murmured a quick jutsu to prevent me from feeling any pain from my shoulder wound, I can't heal anything too much or I'll run out of chakra, I will have to depend on my weapon more than my jutsus, I thought, planning out our next few days assuming that Naruto and Sasuke could wake up by today. Suddenly, three familiar chakras appeared in my chakra sensing range. I looked at Liz, who gave me a peculiar look.

Liz doesn't recognize them... they might be the three ninjas that I sensed when we first met the Sand shinobi, I realized.

I spoke aloud but deathly quite, "Sakura, did you set up any traps?" I whispered in her ear.

She nodded, mute.

I nodded back and confirmed a plan with the others, "Got it? Follow my lead," I whispered.

We sat quietly, listening for any movements in the bushes as we pretended to be busy tending to Sasuke and Naruto. We finally sat back and put on the act of taking shifts watching while the others slept. Sakura stayed vigilant while Liz and I pretended to sleep, alert and awake even though our eyes were closed. We deepened our breathing gradually to assume the slow rise and fall of someone's sleeping body. Slowly, as she watched Naruto and Sasuke, she faked the fatigue of someone who was nodding off. Rustles of movement could suddenly be heard, while Liz and I stayed 'asleep' Sakura pulled out a kunai and turned to check out the area. A small, red squirrel had leaped out of its tree and was foraging in the underbrush. It began to come closer towards us until at one point, Sakura threw her kunai at it, startling it. It turned in the opposite direction and ran away, squeaking its complaint.