By some miracle, Sasuke does not give in to temptation and shoot Naruto in the back as they wander, which is just as well. After another turn of the corner, they end up walking into a larger chamber with two new paths. One leads down a set of stairs while the other—

"You two realise that sound carries around here, right?" Kakashi muses as he and Sakura materialise in the hallway opposite them. "We have been listening to you two griping at each other for at least ten minutes."

Sasuke scowls.

"Aw, come on! You mean this place meets back around again in the middle?" Naruto complains.

"Looks like," Sakura says, glancing at the new hallway that branches downward. "I guess this passage leads to another lower level, and the grand door we're trying to open will bring us to the mountain." Her eyes rove over Naruto. "What happened to you? Looks like you went three rounds with an ogre."

"Something like that. It was awesome, Sakura, you should have seen it!" Naruto boasts. "There was this thing, sort of like a...hm, a druffalo but a lot meaner, and with horns and scales and—"

"Sounds like a bronto," Sakura says, giving Naruto an admiring look. "We used them to move heavy loads back home. They can be gentle, but the Carta and the nobles bred them to be savages. They'll trample any stranger they encounter, so you two are lucky to be alive."

Naruto rubs his nose. "Well, I'm that impressive."

"You still reek," Sasuke interjects. "Did you two find anything in your search?"

"Sort of," Sakura suggests, holding up a faded, ripped piece of vellum. "We found a storage room with a lot of useless junk, but I nicked this off a skeleton. Based on where we've been, looks to be a map, and I think this—" She indicates a square-shape, "—might be an armoury or vault. Maybe barracks? I bet we'll find something more useful soon."

"And if not?"

"If not, we go back to that door, I open it, and you three go on," Kakashi says.

"We'll find something," Sakura insists, and the others know better than to argue with her.

Their group reunited once more, they descend the stone staircase and meander through more underground passages and rooms.

Sakura was not wrong about there being all manner of items down here. Satchels of rations and healing herbs, as well as a plethora of keys which appear to open every door but the one they need. It is an exercise in frustration that has even Sakura's optimistic demeanour wavering.

Then come the rooms with the traps.

Flames shoot up at them through pressure panels in the floor, and tripwires send projectiles flying at them. Twice Kakashi must yank Naruto back from iron vices hidden beneath false debris, which snap shut with the force to break bone. Sakura also nearly ends up prey to a sleeping poison before Sasuke pulls her out of the way, catching her around the shoulders when she wavers.

Their eyes seek each other out, and she telegraphs a silent thanks to him before he releases her.

It is slow going after that, as between Sakura and Kakashi they try to decide how to navigate or disarm the blighted traps. There is no opportunity to rest once they escape that chamber, because almost the moment they enter the next corridor, they are assaulted by more cultists. Wave upon wave hurry forward to deal with the interlopers, forcing the small outfit to pause in their progression and deal with them. They barely have time to recover before another drove arrives.

Every new corridor brings more of the same until Sasuke wonders if they might not be fighting the unkillable dead. It is a monotonous, exhausting pattern: enter a new hallway or chamber, give a cursory examination that no one has mortal wounds, and prepare to fight the next wave of cultists.

Hours go by like that.

And then there's the drake.

A swooping scaled dragonkin monstrosity that attacks them from above the minute they enter the chamber Sakura pointed out on her map. The creature cannot fly like a female dragon can, but still leaps over great distances and scales the walls with its tensile claws. Blasts of fire bathe them from all directions.

Like the bronto, this animal's hide also appears resistant to forged blades. The party of four is forced to whittle away at it hoping something will eventually penetrate its hide.

Sakura was right about needing Kakashi to save his strength because the beast nearly kills them all. Right when all of them seem about to collapse from exhaustion and the shredding wounds from the creature's claws, the mage casts a revitalising spell to recoup their strength. He staggers to his knees, ashen-faced, but the other three can now battle the beast with renewed vigour. Despite his spell taking so much out of him, Kakashi continues to set a barrage of hexes and curses upon the beast.

Sasuke knows that he will continue to fight until he drops dead.

It is a joint effort that kills it: Kakashi's magic, Sasuke blinding it with his arrows, and Naruto drawing its attention by facing it head-on. Sakura deals the final blow from behind, vaulting aboard its back and using her considerable strength to snap its neck.

When the beast lies dead at their feet, Sasuke notices something trapped beneath one of the larger scales behind its head. It takes a bit of wheedling, but eventually he pulls out a round, hexagonal bit of iron.

"That looks like the lock on the door," Sakura says in surprise when he hands it to her.

"They hid it on the drake?" Naruto demands. "These people really are insane!"

"I do not envy the man who had to put this here to begin with," Kakashi wheezes. "Even a mage would have trouble with that."

"Whatever the circumstance for it being here, we can get out of this place now," Sasuke points out. "Let us go."

Sakura tilts her head to one side, considering him and then glancing at Kakashi. There is a frown tugging at her lips—her calculating face—before she decides.

"According to the map, there are no other passages leading here, and this place is well-fortified. Since we've already taken care of everything that could attack us, I think we should stop and rest," Sakura says. "Whatever waits beyond us may not know we're here. But once we go through the door in the large hall, we'll have more challenges to face. And I have a bad feeling there won't be any more chances to rest."

Naruto looks grim, and nods. Apparently, he feels the same unnameable suspicion. Sasuke suspects this is more of the Warden curse they share.

"Normally I would argue we don't have the time," Kakashi says. "But...I think I will need a moment. Or several."

"So, it's settled," Naruto says. "We take a break—and then we go kick more ass."

It is not what Sasuke might have chosen, but he cannot argue with the need for respite. His skin burns and his muscles ache from their exertions that day. If they are to make the rest of the journey up the mountain in the damned snow, he needs to be able to walk.

Kakashi goes to the edge of the room as far as possible from them but still within the wards. He has explained before, that to centre himself, he cannot be influenced by any of their energy. Sitting cross-legged, he puts himself into a deep trance, meant to help him restore his magic. Naruto, in the meantime, catches an hour or two of sleep. Sakura busies herself with sharpening her axe, trying to mend the dents in it from their encounter with the drake. Every so often she will wince and check her side—the one that Sasuke treated—before going back to work.

After the third instance of this, Sasuke goes to sit beside her.

"You should get some sleep, too," he says, lest Naruto or Kakashi be eavesdropping, but his chin juts toward the place where her hand rests.

"No, I'm fine," she replies, answering both his suggestion and unspoken question. "Besides, I found something while Kakashi and I scouted that other tunnel earlier. It will help much more than sleep."

She holds up a pewter flask. Based on the grin on her face, he can guess what the contents.

"Is that really the best idea right now?" he wonders. "We are already on a quest that makes me question your judgement. I do not think alcohol would be an added benefit."

"Please," she scoffs. "You think this is enough to get your drunk?" Her eyes flick over him judgementally. "Well, maybe it would knock an elf on his ass."

He scowls at her and snatches the flash from her, flipping open the top. He has had enough taunting from Naruto today, he refuses to take it from her too.

"I wouldn't—" she begins, but he has already taken a huge gulp.

And promptly grips his throat in agony.

"Fenedhis!" he chokes, tossing the flask away. She catches it before it hits the ground. "What foul creature defecated into this poison?"

Sakura sniggers and takes a sip without even a grimace. "Dwarven ale. If it doesn't kill you...you'll wish it did."

"Why would you drink that?" he spits, digging through his pack for a water skin or noxious herb to take away the taste. "You would be better served throwing it at an enemy and hoping it melts his face off."

"It's not so bad after the first sip. After that, all the nerves in your throat are too numb to notice."

She takes another sip, only a slight twitch betraying the effect of the alcohol on her. Then she passes it back to him. Sasuke hesitates a moment before accepting and taking the second swig.

It still tastes the way he imagines burning halla droppings and sylvan blood might taste, but she was right about it being less painful this time. There is a distinct lack of feeling in his throat this time. Luckily, her promise of the other thing is also correct: warmth spreads down his oesophagus to his gut and then beyond.

At his noise of surprise, she grins, and then the expression morphs into something gentler. Sasuke finds his own mouth pulling into an unfamiliar upward direction, and for some reason this makes her eyes sparkle. Her cheeks turn rosy and she quickly looks away, reaching for the flask again.

Over the next hour, time stretches between them as they sit in a companionable, comfortable silence. Somewhere in the midst of it, he forgets that they are in a frozen mountain, surrounded by blood-crazed lunatics, ancient beasts and whatever else lies ahead. Hands linger on each other as they pass the flask back and forth, and when she makes a particularly bad joke, he groans with something between amusement and disgust. His shoulders, so used to bearing the weight of his past, seem less burdened just then, and though he knows it is a false reprieve, he does not mind.

Still, the next time she passes him the ale, he shakes his head. "No. Any more, and neither of us will be battle ready."

"Speak for yourself! It's colder than an apostate's tit in here, even if we're out of the wind. We'll burn off the booze in no-time just trying to keep warm." A mischievous look enters her eyes then, tinged with something darker as she leans forward. "Of course, there are better ways of getting warm."

The air between them is heavy with implication. Perhaps the alcohol is affecting him more than expected, because he replies slyly, "I should have known a dwarf would be an exhibitionist."

She blinks in confusion.

"Exi...? Oh!" Sakura goes red and looks away from him, abruptly embarrassed and shy. "I'm not. At least I don't think I am, I've never..." Her gaze flicks back to their resting companions and then her back stiffens. She casts her eyes about their surroundings as if she too has forgotten where they are sitting. When her gaze lands on him again, she offers a tight smile. "I guess you have a point. I suppose it's too much to hope this place has a room with a plush bed and a roaring fire?"

She offers it to him as a lighthearted, flirtatious joke, but there is a false note in it. He knows that whatever spell settled over them before is broken now. He is more disappointed than he expected to be but understands the necessity of maintaining boundaries. Now is not the time for...ill-advised liaisons.

Whatever arguments certain parts of his anatomy would like to make to the contrary.

"We should save some of this for Naruto and Kakashi," she goes on, "if only to see their faces after that first sip."

Her eyes crinkle as she watches the other two. There is a fondness there, soft and protective, and far beyond how a person looks at mere travel companions.

"You care for them," he says, and does not understand the stiffness in his voice.

"I do. We're friends."

"No. It is beyond that," he says, trying to think of a way to articulate properly. "You love them in a way that is beyond friendship."

And what is that needling, sour sensation he gets in his gut at that notion?

Sakura does not even bother thinking about it. "They're also my family."

"You have not known them long," he points out.

"That doesn't make it any less true. They were both at Kannabi Bridge," she explains. "Kakashi looked out for me while I was wandering around the camp. I was this silly little dwarf who'd never seen the sky before, trying not to get trampled by all the cloud-heads at the camp. And Naruto was there when I woke up after...after becoming a Warden." She clenches her fist at the memory here. "They saved my life. They lived the same betrayal in battle as I did. And neither of them has family left, either. I guess...I guess we sort of adopted each other."

He frowns at this.

"And you're part of it, too, you know," she goes on, making him look up sharply. "We'd be your family, if you let us."

There is an earnestness in her words, and he knows she is being truthful. She, and the others in their outfit, would accept him without question if he wanted it.

There is something in this moment which hangs, heavy and expectant. He finds that, inexplicably, a part of him wants to confront it.

Damned alcohol, he tells himself.

But gazing into Sakura's earnest eyes, he knows that he is lying to himself.

And in that moment, Sasuke chooses to go another avenue.

_____  

Translations:

Fenedhis – a common curse word; literal translation is something like 'wolf cock', but used in this sense it's similar to 'fuck' or 'goddamn'

Sylvan – giant, walking trees which frequent forests near the elves

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