Fire X Wind

Chapter 4 – The Ryuchi Cave

Written by: Purple pin

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to the very talented Masashi Kishimoto sensei

Translations: Foreign languages marked with asterisk (*) and translated/explained at the end of the chapter before Author's Note.

Author's Note: At the end.

".." indicates speech

'..' indicates thought

With a shattering echo the last of the boulders fell, and the noise of crashing stones reverberated in the dark cave.

Then it was quite again. In the pitch-darkness, only the occasional dripping of water from somewhere deep inside the mountain could be heard.

"Sasuke?" Someone uttered in a whimpering voice. There was a clicking sound, and then a weak beam of round light searched the entrance area, where huge stone boulders now separated the forest from this world inside. The light source continued to search aimlessly, until it found a tall figure, standing upright, with hands on the hilt of a long sword.

"Sasuke! You're here!" this time the voice exclaimed with joy. Naruto ran towards the tall figure, and when he reached it, pulled Sasuke into a tight hug, afraid his only companion would suddenly disappear on him, like an apparition.

Naruto wrapped his arms around the other's waist, and rested his head against his strong chest. He breathed a deep sigh of relief, and smelled that intoxicating aroma of Sasuke Uchiha. The smell reminded him of a pine forest in winter, crisp and clean. 'Is it even possible to smell this good?' Naruto thought to himself. It was an odd sensation that he has never experience before, and it put him into a sort of dreamy haze.

Suddenly, a pair of strong hands grabbed his arms and pried them away. Naruto felt the comforting heat shift away, and held back on, tighter this time, much like a koala hugging a tree not wanting to be taken away from it.

"Dobe, are you going to let me move?" Sasuke's mocking tone brought him back to earth. Naruto looked up a little hazily, and saw Sasuke's pale face looking down at him, with an annoyed expression.

"Uh, no?" Naurto answered dumbly, suddenly there was a sharp pain on his cheeks as some hands squeezed them. Naruto snapped back to reality. He pushed Sasuke back.

"Ouch! That hurts teme!" He winced, nursing his sore cheeks.

"hn," Sasuke grunted "didn't know you liked holding me this much."

"What? No! I...I was just...just afraid, that's all." Naruto stepped back away from the raven, to make his point. "I don't always hug people." He emphasised by flinging his hands about, making rays of beam dance erratically along the ragged top of the cave.

"What's that you're holding?" Sasuke asked, pointing at the object Naruto held in his right hand.

"Huh? Oh this, this is a torch. See, if you click it like this it turns the light on and off." He demonstrated. "Very handy, isn't it? Bet you've never seen it before in this world!" He looked a little smugly to the raven, and thought triumphantly 'yeah, at last one win to Naruto Uzumaki!'

Sasuke rolled his eyes and pulled a thick wooden straight stick from the leather pouch he was carrying on his left shoulder, and held it before his mouth. He drew some air in through his mouth, and blew out a ball of fire onto the top of the stick. Suddenly the cave was illuminated by the glowing radiance of a burning torch flame.

Naruto was bewildered beyond his wildest dreams. A boy had just breathed out fire from his mouth! How was that even remotely possible?

"Do you know magic?" Naruto asked, and thought he sounded silly. Hastily he put his emergency torch back into his jean's pockets.

"Yes, I know magic; but this is a fire based technique, not magic" Sasuke replied like this was nothing out of the ordinary.

"Can everyone in this world breath fire, like you?"

"No, not everyone. It is ability unique to my family and other kinsmen." he answered.

Looking at the stunned expression on Naruto's face, Sasuke put the glowing torch into the blonde's hands.

"Hold onto this, and I'll try to get us out of here." Sasuke said.

Drawing his chokuto out swiftly from its saya, Sasuke shouted as if commanding his sword "Chidori!*" A ball of lightning energy erupted around his right hand and stretched along the body of the blade, enveloping it in a brilliant white light made of millions of glowing electricity sparks. The blade screeched like a thousand birds, and electrons cut through the cool, still cave air like a piercing war-cry.

"Stand back." Sasuke said. Jumping gracefully into the air, he swung his sword in a left to right motion, and cut at the stone boulder.

It didn't budge one bit, still as ever.

"As I thought, these boulders have been enhanced by magic." Sasuke said turning to Naruto "If I'm not mistaken, someone knows we are here, and purposely guided our path. Be on your guard."

"Who is trapping us here, and why?" Naruto asked.

"I do not know," answered Sasuke; "but I would rather face the perils of the mountain pass a thousand times, than pass through the deep underground of the Ryuchi cave." With that said, Sasuke passed on ahead holding the flame, Naruto walked beside him, two dim figures in the gloom.

The cave opened wider as they walked deeper and the temperature dropped considerably. This was in fact an underground passageway into the heart of the mountain. Naruto felt they were going deeper and deeper under the earth from the gradual decent they've been making.

They came to a rock shelter, and beyond that barely fifty meters away stony grounds gave way to the rocky shores of a vast underground lake that stretched from one side of the cave to the other end. Past the lake, the cave lead on into the dark. It appears this lake was the source of the stream that flowed all the way to the entrance of the cave.

Conical columns of varying sizes of crystallised clay hung from the ceiling of the cave. The columns were multicoloured, showing the presence of different minerals and chemical elements. Water dripped from the tip of some of these columns into the lake below, occasionally making small round ripples appear on the smooth surface. The lake was like a large black mirror, hiding its own secrets under its velvety exterior

"Let us sit and rest and have something to eat, here under the rock shelter." said Sasuke.

The proposal was welcomed; Naruto propped the torch between two rocks so that it continued burning, and they sat down to eat in the torch light. Sasuke took a package wrapped in cloth from inside his pack, opened it and divided its contents between himself and Naruto. They hungrily ate the food and shared some water from the waterbag. Naruto noticed that what Sasuke gave him was a dry, soft and crumbly biscuit like a butter shortbread made of wheat, sesame and oats, rolled into it were some sweet meat and nuts. It actually tasted rather nice, and was quite filling.

After they have sufficiently quenched their thirst and satisfied their hunger, Sasuke was the first to stand up followed by Naruto, then indicating with his right hand he said "lets cross this lake to reach the other side by walking along that rocky ledge." To get to the other side of the cave, they would have to cross the lake somehow. A narrow strip of rugged, rocky black formation could be seen jutting out here and there above the water's surface. These stones lay in random locations, but they weren't too far apart and effectively stretched from one end of the lake to the other, providing a sort of natural walkway for getting across.

Naruto looked at the rocky formation and internally squirmed, he was not very fond of that idea at all. The rocks were rugged, and looked slippery; moreover, he didn't like being so close to the water. If there was one sport he didn't excel at back at school, it was swimming. Not that he was a whinny scaredy-cat, anything else, running, climbing, hell even sky diving, he would do at the drop of a hat.

"I hate this pool, this place. I'm afraid of it, of what I don't know, but there's something here, something not quite right." Naruto felt his hair standing on end.

"Scared are we?" Sasuke mocked with a smirk.

"No way teme!" Naruto retorted. Surprisingly, Sasuke's teasing eased his stress a little.

Sasuke picked up their torch and held it in his left hand followed by Naruto closely behind. They walked past rocky pebbles of the shore, and reached the edge of the black lake. The raven haired young man walked to the start of the rocky formation, it was not a perfect path, as some steps were missing or parts of the ridge was hidden underwater.

Sasuke stepped onto the first few rocky ridges and tested it to see whether it was stable; feeling it was solid and steady, he turned back to Naruto and nodded, indicating that it was safe to step on. Naruto tentatively stepped on, and they started picking out a path among the rocks, occasionally jumping from one rock to the other. Sasuke walked at the front while Naruto following closely behind.

They continued in silence taking careful steps, Sasuke occasionally glanced around for any signs of danger. Nothing happened though, except for the occasional water dripping onto the lake, it was eerily quiet. They were now almost half-way across the huge lake.

Suddenly there was a loud plop, and a yell, and then someone grabbed onto Sasuke's left foot making him loose his balance and fall into the water. Submerged in the icy water, Sasuke grabbed the thing that dragged him down and two faces emerged from the water. An annoyed raven and a very embarrassed blond whose gold locks were plastered to his face surfaced.

"Clumsy dobe," Sasuke muttered.

"Oh, haha, I'm sorry," Naruto laughed "it was very slippery, and I couldn't see very well, so I slipped." It amazed Naruto that Sasuke looked good even with his hair dripping wet.

"If you've finished staring, let's get back on our feet." Sasuke said turning away, swimming back to the rocky formation.

Before Naruto could reply, something long and slimy grabbed his feet underwater, but all he could do was gargle and gulp-up water. Shouting a loud cry, Naruto's arms flailed around as he tried desperately to swim away from his captor.

Sasuke sensed the disturbance behind him, and turning back saw a long sinuous tentacle had crawled; it was slimy, scaly, purple, and wet. It had caught hold of Naruto's under water, and was dragging him down. Sasuke cursed under his breath, and took a big gulp of air, before diving into the water to follow Naruto into the watery depths.

Naruto wriggled and writhed against the tentacle's clutches under water, but it was futile, he could not get it to loosen its deathly grip. Sasuke took a short dagger out from his side pocket and started slashing at the tentacle. The water was strangely clear underneath, which enabled Sasuke to see clearly.

Under his rapid stabbing, the tentacle let go of Naruto, who fell further down. Where Sasuke had made deep cuts into the creature, the water foamed with a deep gluey black sap. 'Snake blood' thought Sasuke.

He swam down to where Naruto had drifted, and wrapped his arms against the other boy, facing each other, he held the other's face gently, and smacked their lips together, pulling them into a tight kiss. Suddenly Naruto was no longer suffocating, he felt his lungs expand, and his head clear with the sudden injection of oxygen. As his eyes snapped open, he saw onyx eyes staring at him, and raven locks swaying gently in the water. Their faces were so close, noses touching, air bubbles went up and some of these stayed on Sasuke's long eyelashes.

In his peripheral vision Sasuke suddenly saw a dark shadow close-in with amazing speed towards Naruto from the depths. The giant snake was not about to let go of its prey. At the blink of an eye its head, which was the size of a small cow suddenly appeared inches away from Naruto, its evil yellow slitted eyes gleamed with beastly hunger, and it opened its mouth preparing to devour the small human. The toothless cavern of its mouth opened wide, showing a long forked tongue. It bit down with great force, but instead of tasting delicious human flesh, it felt a bitter pain in its mouth. Its eyes opened alarmingly, and saw that where the blond was moments earlier, a raven now stands.

A sharp fang, roughly half a meter in length and as thick and wide as a human wrist pierced its upper lip, and black blood oozed out from the open wound. In the short moments before the snake struck, Sasuke broke their kiss, pushed Naruto back so that his body shielded the other boy from danger. With his back to the enemy, he flipped his wrist around with great force to lodge the fang into the snake's mouth.

Naruto was now fully conscious no longer lacking in oxygen. He saw Sasuke reached his hands up to his right ear a second time, taking off the other one of his fang-shaped earrings. It increased in size to resemble the fang that was now sticking out of the snake's upper lip. Sasuke held the middle of the new fang with its razor sharp edge pointed at the snake.

It would be a rough fight. In the snake's watery den he was out of his element, he was going to have to go all out this time and end it quickly before they run out of air.

The snake watched between Sasuke and Naruto, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Sasuke swam in front of Naruto, shielding him from the snake. He looked into the snake's pitiless eyes, and saw the presence of another consciousness staring back at him.

Then something strange happened, a shrill voice spoke to Sasuke and Naruto's minds, it was directed from the snake. The voice was cruel and pitiless, "...dragon boy, today is when you shall meet your end, here in Lord Manda's Ryuchi cave! And this pool shall be your watery grave. Hand over that blond boy and the Wind Necklace! Or I will torture you until you wished you were never born."

"Fight me, you stupid worthless snake spawn!" Sasuke retorted back in his mind as well. Naruto looked across at Sasuke, and saw his pupils turn into the colour of a pigeon-blood ruby, with black spiralling patterns dancing in its centre.

The giant snake attacked at lightning speed, snapping its jaws and thrusting its angry head forward. Sasuke swam forward pushing against the water, and plunged the dragon's fang into Manda's throat. With a terrible yelp of pain, the snake opened its mouth, stretched out his fangs to their greatest length and bit into the pale flesh on Sasuke's back.

The snake fell, with the dragon fang planted straight through its slimy throat. Leaving a trail of black blood behind as it dropped into the depths.

Sasuke's eyes widened in pain as his pupils faded back to its normal obsidian colour. He felt the snake venom take its toll, and his hands and feet go numb. His consciousness slipped away into a black dreamless night.

Translations:

Words appearing in earlier chapters are not listed here, please refer back for translations.

Chidori*: Literally meaning a thousand birds. This is one of Kakashi and Sasuke's signature moves, refer to Narutopedia for more information.

Author's Note:

An action packed chapter, I really enjoyed writing it, in particular the kiss scene...and the scene about the torch, Naru chan was really cute ~~
Hope you liked it, and here I take my leave until the next update.

Please review and let me know what you think or if you have questions about the plot/characters etc. Thank you!

Manda: I want to eat Naruto. How dare you kill me, you worthless piece of #$%.
Purplepin: Manners! Who said I killed you?
Manda: I'm hungry, no one comes into the Ryuchi caves, I'm starving. Sob**

Purplepin: Ok, I'll revive you with my special brand of magic potion, and you'll get another chance. How's that? In exchange, this is what I want in return (whispers in Manda's ear). Deal?
Manda: Deal!