Telanadas

17

"Are you kidding me?" Naruto demands as the final door out of the temple opens on a spiralling stone staircase leading downward. It is lit by torches and nothing else. "We could have skipped all the freezing and the trials and just come in the back of the temple and gotten the ashes that way?"

"That would probably defeat the purpose of making a pilgrimage," Kakashi reminds him. "These things are meant to test you."

"Yeah, but one of those scenarios involved me with my clothes on."

"We are all very aware of that, thank you," Sasuke mutters.

It is a slow procession that descends the slippery, and sometimes crumbling, stairwell.

"Is it possible to get to the Deep Roads from here?" Sasuke wonders. "An underground route to Iwa might be more convenient for us than going around."

"If there is, it wouldn't be safe," Sakura replies. "Not that the Deep Roads are ever safe, but there's a difference between ten darkspawn and ten thousand."

"Yeah, we learned that the hard way," Naruto mutters with a palpable shiver.

Much to their chagrin, though their journey through the centre of the mountain is less dangerous than their trek upwards, it takes longer. There is nowhere along the way down for them to stop, and along the lone trek downward, moods and tempers fray.

They are all of them relieved when after half a day if walking, the ground levels out and leads to a narrow mining shaft. Fresh, cool air beckons beyond them. Though the sun appears to be setting, it still provides enough light to guide them out of a small path at the base of the mountain.

Once they are all safely back outside, the tiny doorway they came through shifts and fuses back up, rocks and stones drawing together seamlessly. If they had not walked through it, Sasuke would not know the entrance was even there.

"And that is why we could not have taken the back way up even if we wanted to," Kakashi tells Naruto. "Dwarven doors are invisible when closed."

"Yeah, yeah..."

The based of the Three Wolves Mountain is still cold and dreary, but it is not as dismal as the summit. Naruto wants to head for Uzushiogakure at once, but Sakura puts her foot down.

"I'm having a bath and real food and an actual bed for once," she insists. "It's been a week of pretending we don't hear each other pee, I need a night of privacy."

Sasuke makes a noise of agreement. After getting off the blighted mountain top, he wants a warm meal and the ability to scrub the blood from his various nooks and crannies. Perhaps Naruto was raised in a stable and likes the dirt, but Sasuke and his people have always been fastidiously clean.

To soothe Naruto's grumbling, they do end up heading toward Arl Hiruzen's castle. Still, the four of them keep an eye out for settlements in the area which might offer a place to stop.

As they walk, Sasuke realises Sakura has fallen into step beside him, while Naruto and Kakashi somehow linger farther and farther behind them. Wondering if it is on purpose, Sasuke makes the mistake of glancing at Sakura out of the corner of his eyes, noticing that she is doing the same.

Her cheeks turn red and she looks away.

"What?"

"Nothing," she says quickly. "I was just...I wondered if you're alright."

Sasuke makes a face. "You always ask me that. Do I seem feeble to you?"

"What? No! That's not—it's just, I get the sense that people never asked you that much."