InuYasha Fan Fiction / Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Brave New World ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

AN: Wow! I was so impressed by the response to this story! You guys are awesome ^_^ And while I know I'm not really supposed to do this, I thought I'd address a few questions left in the reviews from chapter one. So don't tattle on me, okay? ;]
-Yuna's Reincarnation-1: I'm not totally sure what the pairing will be yet. I'm leaning toward Neji/Kagome, but some other guys that I'm considering are Shikamaru or Kiba :]
Foxluna: Your reviews always make me smile ^_^ But you'll find out about the Inuyasha gang a little later on ;] (check the ending AN for a small spoiler on that!)
Bloodcherry: Awesome question! But it's a specific event that changed the course of time and that will be explained in later chapters :]
Kenjo: Don't worry, no Sasuke pairing. I'm with you though. I'm tired of him.

Disclaimer: I don't own, please don't sue!

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Brave New World

Chapter 2

The forest was quiet as the small team from Konoha moved through the foliage to complete their mission. There had been reports of unidentified foreign shinobi in the area and it was their mission to confirm whether or not the reports were correct. The Fourth Great Shinobi War had only recently come to an end and the last thing that anyone wanted was to find out that another country was moving in on them.

Neji glanced around him to check the positions of the team members that he was leading. A hint of nostalgia settled in his chest seeing Tenten and Lee running alongside him along with their medical escort, Sakura Haruno. Neji had been chosen to lead the mission due to the tracking ability that the Byakugan granted him. If there truly were enemies in the area, he would find them and the capable team would quickly dispatch of them. Holding up a hand, Neji signaled to the team that they would stop to rest for a moment.

Sakura stretched her arms above her head as they stopped in a small clearing before pulling a bottle of water from the small bag on her back. “Am I the only one who finds it sad that we have to do reconnaissance in the forest outside of our own village?” She asked.

“Everyone is still on edge from the war,” Tenten answered. “Though I don't know who would be foolish enough to come this far into Fire Country and roam the area right outside of Konoha with only one or two people like the reports said.” Tenten gratefully accepted the bottle of water that Sakura passed to her.

Neji surveyed the forest once more before settling onto a large rock for the moment. “We were sent to look for specific shinobi, but there have been small teams patrolling the forests since the war regularly.”

“How have your hospital duties been, Sakura?” Lee questioned in a change of topic. While not as persistent as he had been years before, Lee still vied for the attention and company of his long-time crush and friend.

“Things have been going well,” the pink-haired girl said with a smile. “The shift rotation takes some getting used to and the hours are long, but the payoff is worth every minute.”

Standing once more, Neji caught the attention of the others. “We'll continue to the east where the reports specified before doubling back and heading home.” When the others nodded their understanding, all four took off simultaneously.

The forest had been quiet for the entirety of their mission thus far and Neji had to maintain his focus so that he wouldn't become lost in the sounds and general calm that the forest offered. His mind and emotions had calmed considerably since his youth and his friends pointed out this fact often. And with nothing but small animals and insects to be seen scurrying about, Neji was hopeful that he would be able to report back to the Hokage that any enemies that may have been in the area were gone.

He was about to signal to the team that it was time to return home when something caught his sharp eyes in the distance. Motioning to the others to approach with caution, Neji focused on trying to determine what it was that he saw. It was obviously a large and very old building, but there was something inside that was unsettling. There was a single room in the building which he could not see into. The walls were an opaque and glowing white.

The team stopped together outside of the old building and took in the appearance. The wood was old and splintered, some of the steps were rotted away, and the roof looked to be caving in at certain places. “Are there possible enemies inside?” Tenten began in low tones.

“I'm not sure,” Neji answered truthfully.

“Wait…you're not sure? So why did we stop?” Sakura asked disbelievingly.

Casting the younger woman a sideways glance, Neji answered, “Because there's something in this building. It's something that my Byakugan cannot see.”

All three shinobi looked from Neji to the rundown building before reaching for a kunai to have handy just in case.

“Sakura,” Neji addressed. “You stay outside and keep watch with Lee while Tenten and I check the rooms.” Receiving a nod, Neji motioned for Tenten to follow him.

The floors creaked slightly with every step and at times seemed like they would give way to their weight at any moment. Each room that they checked was vacant and led them to the conclusion that the building had been a Buddhist temple at one point in time, but it was obvious that there hadn't been a resident monk in some time.

When the duo came to the door that led to the opaque room, they were greeted with an odd sight. Deactivating his Byakugan, Neji examined the doors a little more closely. The sliding wooden doors were sealed with a single sutra over the crease where the doors met. But it wasn't any kind of exploding tag that they had seen before; the sutra read `Purity.' And as odd as the sight was, what really caused their brows to crease was the light blue glow that the scrap of paper gave off. Tenten looked to Neji for direction on what action they should take.

Placing his arm out to move Tenten back several paces, Neji pulled a shuriken from his pouch and easily ripped the paper sealing the doors. Nothing happened for a moment, but both ninja took several steps away when the glowing increased before flames consumed the sutra and it fell from the doors completely along with Neji's shuriken.

Neji and Tenten exchanged serious glances before nodding and arming themselves once more as they moved towards the doors. For the age of the building, the doors slid open easily with the gentle tugs that each gave a respective door. And not for the first time that day, the two were both shocked and perplexed at what they saw.

The entire room—all four walls, ceiling, and floor—was covered inch-for-inch with sutras. But in the center of an otherwise empty room sat a young woman in a meditative pose in what appeared to be a trance-like state. Unfocused blue eyes were half-lidded and framed with thick lashes. Ebony hair pooled on the floor behind her as a few strands hung in her face. Her skin was a sickly pale and her cheeks were slightly sunken in revealing high cheekbones. She was dressed completely in white with a rope of sutras hanging around her shoulders.

Tenten began to move forward before Neji caught her arm to hold her back at the first sign of movement from the woman.

Heavy eyelids slid down only to pause for a moment before reopening slightly wider than before. Dull eyes shifted slowly from staring blankly ahead to looking at the intruders. Her face was unreadable as it retained its relaxed, dazed appearance. Her fingers twitched for a moment before one hand shakily rose from her lap as though reaching out to an unseen presence. But soon after thin arm and hand were straightened, her eyes closed once again and she began to fall forward.

As she hit the floor with a light `thud' Neji activated his Byakugan once again. Nothing seemed amiss in the room, aside from the obvious, and he released Tenten's arm before moving forward himself. Who was this woman and how long had she been in the bizarre room?

“What should we do with her, Neji?” Tenten asked tentatively as she checked the unconscious woman's pulse.

Thinking over the options for a moment, Neji answered, “She doesn't appear to be a threat for the moment. We will take her back to Konoha to be put into custody and questioned about her presence here. We cannot rule out the possibility that she's allied with an enemy.”

Tenten nodded and stepped aside as Neji moved to pick up the mysterious woman. He immediately noticed that she was far lighter than someone her size should be; this only raised more questions as to how long she had been in the room.

When the two returned to Sakura and Lee, they noticed that the two who had been on guard had their attention elsewhere. Lee was holding a closed leather bag by a strap. There was another sutra sealing the bag shut and when either Sakura or Lee would attempt to touch it, blue sparks would erupt.

“Where did the bag come from?” Tenten asked as she jumped over the rotted steps and approached her teammates.

“It fell from some kind of trap door in the ceiling there a few minutes ago,” Sakura answered pointing to the hanging door just outside of the main entrance. “We can't open it though.” She held up her slightly red and abused fingertips as testament to their efforts with the sutra.

Remembering what Neji had done with the door's sutra, Tenten took her kunai and attempted to slice through the paper. Her mind barely had time to register that both Sakura and Lee yelled out in protest before the metal blade's edge made contact with the sutra. Electricity passed through the metal and into her hand causing her to hiss at the pain and drop the weapon. Tenten tried flexing her slightly numb and tingling digits before turning to Neji once more.

“We'll bring the bag as well,” he answered the unspoken question.

As though noticing the woman in Neji's arms for the first time, Lee's eyes widened and Sakura moved forward to do a quick check on the woman's vitals.

“Her breathing is slight,” she observed. “And her heartbeat is slow…but steady.” Easily feeling the bones in the woman's wrist and hand, Sakura slid up the white sleeve to reveal and pale and slender arm. “My God…” She breathed. “She's barely anything but skin and bones.” Sakura continued her inspection by lifting the fingers of Neji's right hand and feeling defined ribs. “She's malnourished and dehydrated. We need to get her back to the village immediately.”

“She's possibly an enemy,” Tenten pointed out to the younger medic.

Sakura became serious and had an edge creep into her voice as she retorted, “Well I can guarantee you that she won't be able to do damage to anyone in the shape she's in right now. Enemy or not, she'll die if she stays like this and then we'll never know. Are you willing to risk letting a possibly innocent civilian die?”

Tenten raised her hands in front of her defensively as she said, “Okay, okay, I was just pointing it out. If she's really that bad off then we should probably head out soon.”

Neji nodded before readjusting the woman in his arms and taking off towards Konoha knowing that the others would be right behind him.

Though they would never voice it out loud, both Sakura and Tenten silently mused on how much Neji looked like a valiant hero carrying a frail damsel in distress, as though it were a passage straight from an epic fairytale. Both women had to cough and look away when Lee asked why they were blushing.

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Kagome's brow furrowed when she woke up to a rather disturbing sound; dripping. Her eyes closed tighter momentarily in an attempt to dispel the sound as imaginary, but the steady dripping continued. Cracking open an eye slightly, she was able to calm down at seeing that the dripping was coming from an IV that ran down to her arm. She then blinked open two blurry eyes and allowed her vision to clear before taking in her current surroundings.

She was in a bed with an IV in her arm and oxygen tubes running up to her nose. There was also a heart monitor making a steady `beep' with each beat of her heart. She smiled at the thought of being safe once more. But she had to wonder where her friends had gone. The last thing that she remembered was waking up in Kaede's hut with Sango by her side. Continuing to survey the room soon proved to be a bad idea, though.

The room itself was fairly dark. The only light came from the outside hallway through a small, barred window in a large door. There were no windows or vent openings in the stone room. The only thing besides the bed she was in was a small wooden chair in the corner. Where was she? What had happened? The room looked like a prison cell, but why give a prisoner medical treatment. Kagome's mind vaguely picked up the increasing beep of the heart monitor.

Pushing up onto shaky arms, Kagome sat up and began to detach the small electrodes stuck to her chest. She noticed that she was dressed in a thin, white yukata that she'd never seen before. She then removed the oxygen tubes and coughed slightly as the musty scent of the cell assaulted her nose. Kagome had never been fond of needles and decided to leave the IV as it was for now.

Slowly sliding thin legs over the edge of the bed, Kagome gripped the pole on which the IV hung as tightly as she could manage before touching her bare feet to the stone floor and attempting to stand. Her knees shook and her legs wobbled, but she was able to remain semi-upright with the pole's help. She slid her foot across the cold stone, not daring to actually lift the appendage in fear of falling, and tried making her way towards the door. Two of these steps were successfully executed before her knees completely buckled and she tumbled to the floor.

Kagome cried out as the IV tugged harshly against her fall, twisting the needle still in her arm. A shaky hand reached up trying to do something about the needle, but she was having a hard time focusing around the pain it had caused.

Suddenly, footsteps were heard coming down the hall. Someone's head blocked some of the light entering the room as they looked through the window before the door was quickly opened. A young woman was instantly by Kagome's side helping her with the IV still in her arm. Blinking away tears, Kagome noticed that the woman's hair was the oddest shade she'd ever seen on a human—pink.

Sakura easily removed the needle and pushed the IV pole away. Emerald eyes scanned the frail woman beside her looking for any other injuries before settling on the abused arm. There would definitely be a nasty bruise where the needle had twisted and punctured the vein, but it would be fine in time. “Are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere?” Sakura asked in a soft voice so as not to scare the small woman.

Kagome nodded her head as she looked at the new woman with caution. Was she one of the people keeping her prisoner? “Why am I here?” She asked softly in a voice scratchy from not being used.

Sakura faltered at the question. She didn't want to say that she was in a cell to be questioned, but there was really no way to explain away the stone and bars. “You're in an ANBU holding cell. Now that you're awake, someone should be here to question you in the next few days.”

She didn't know what `ANBU' was, but Kagome got the feeling that it was a bad thing to be where she was. “I didn't do anything,” she said in a small voice to nobody in particular.

“Then you don't have anything to worry about,” Sakura responded with a small smile. “Come on; let's get you back in bed. You're still not well enough to be walking around.”

“Who are you?” Kagome asked while allowing the woman to help her stand.

“My name is Sakura and I've gotten the Hokage's permission to be your doctor while you're in here,” Sakura answered.

Kagome was quiet for a moment before saying, “My name is Kagome.”

Sakura pulled a needle from a pouch on her hip so that she could replace the slightly bent IV needle. “We'll use your other arm this time. These are fluids that you need right now so there's really no way around this, okay?”

Kagome nodded as she watched the other woman work. She seemed confident in her motions, but she also seemed very young for a doctor. How long had she been doing this? The question of where she was came to mind once again. This couldn't be her time. What had happened in the past?

Once Sakura had placed the needle into Kagome's arm she turned to her and said, “I'll come to check on you periodically, so just get some rest.” As Kagome relaxed back into the bed and allowed her eyes to close, Sakura frowned slightly and headed towards the door.

The intimidating figure of Ibiki Morino was waiting for her in the hall. She sighed at his questioning stare. “Her name is Kagome; the bag is hers,” she said as her eyes traveled to the sealed leather bag hanging on a hook outside of the door. The leather bag with the sutra reading `Kagome' was about to cause a series of troubles for the poor woman in the locked room.

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AN: And that will be our stopping point for this chapter. I'm still excited about this story. I love Naruto/Inuyasha crossovers ^_^ Pairings are still undecided, as I said. A small base with Neji is built, but there will be similar interactions with others later on. A lot more characters will make their debut in the next chapter, so there's going to be a lot going on then! Also, I've posted a piece of character art on dA that has to do with this story. It's a small spoiler for much later chapters, but nothing huge. If you want to take a peek, the link to my dA homepage is on my profile page. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the new chapter and thanks for reading!