The glamour of the Ryokan District died fast.
Naruto chased Yukie across a invisible border line where the slate pavement turned into cracked asphalt and packed dirt. The glowing red lanterns and smells of expensive cedar vanished, replaced by the flickering yellow of dying streetlamps and the sour, damp smell of a district that had given up.
A stray dog barked in the distance—woof-woof—a hoarse, rhythmic sound that echoed off the corrugated metal roofs.
Yukie wasn't running fast anymore. She was stumbling, her heavy cloak dragging in the mud.
She weaved past a shop with a peeling sign: House of the Sun (Taiyō no Ie). It didn't look sunny. It looked like a place where old men went to drink brown liquor and forget their names.
The air coming from the open door reeked of stale tobacco and regret, hanging in a visible, grey haze.
"Hey!" Naruto yelled, his sandals slapping against the wet ground. "Why are you running to this place? It smells like... like week-old trash!"
Yukie grabbed a lamp post to steady herself, wheezing. She looked up.
Above her head was a swaying sign for a street stall. It didn't sell lobster. It didn't sell steak.
Chikuwa (Cheap Fish Paste).
The bulb behind the plastic tube flickered with a dying buzz—bzzzt... bzzzt—casting a sickly, desaturated beige light onto the wet pavement.
Yukie laughed. It was a wet, jagged sound.
"Because this fits me better than the palace, kid," she gasped, gesturing wildly at the sign with a trembling hand.
"What are you talking about?" Naruto slowed to a jog, confused.
"I'm not a Lobster," Yukie spat, staring at the painted image of the processed fish tube. "I'm not the specialty dish. I'm the Chikuwa. I'm the cheap filler you put in the stew to bulk it up. I belong in the gutter with the fish paste."
She gagged slightly, the phantom taste of cheap, processed starch filling her mouth.
She pushed off the lamp post, stumbling forward again.
She ran past a clinic with a glowing white tooth on the sign. Hikari Dental.
Naruto watched her veer away from the light of the sign, flinching as if the idea of a checkup was more terrifying than the samurai chasing her. She was running from the pain, but she was running blindly, like a child trying to hide a cavity from the doctor.
"You're not fish paste!" Naruto shouted, frustrated. "You're the lady who shoots rainbows!"
"Rainbows aren't real!" she screamed back, rounding the final corner.
The alleyway ended abruptly.
The buildings fell away, revealing the dark, rippling expanse of the Konoha lake system. The wind coming off the water was cold, carrying the scent of algae and wet wood.
The lake water slapped against the pilings—lap... lap... lap—a cold, indifferent metronome counting down her freedom.
Yukie skidded to a halt. There was nowhere left to run.
She had run straight into a construction site. It was the skeleton of a warehouse, just a cage of raw timber beams rising out of the mud.
Naruto landed softly behind her, cutting off her escape. Sylvie landed a second later on his right, her breathing controlled, her dark glasses reflecting the moonlight on the water.
Yukie backed up until her back hit a thick wooden support beam.
Naruto looked at the beam. Painted on the raw wood in black carpenter's ink were three characters.
The ink was still fresh enough to smell—a sharp, chemical pungency that overpowered the scent of the mud.
江 — 一二
(Kō — Ichi — Ni)
Inlet Sector 1-2.
It was a zoning mark. An address for a building that wasn't finished.
Naruto looked at Yukie. She was shivering, pressed against the unfinished wood, trapped between the cold water and the ninja. She looked small. The "Princess Fūun" costume was muddy and torn. She had run to the end of the line, to a place that didn't even have a name yet, just a coordinate.
"It's over," Naruto said, his voice losing its shout. He didn't sound angry anymore. He just sounded sad. "You can't go any further."
"Don't touch me!" Yukie shrieked, pressing herself against the beam.
"STOP!"
A desperate cry came from the alleyway.
Sandayū burst onto the construction site. He was wheezing, his face purple from exertion, clutching his chest. He threw himself between Naruto and Yukie, arms spread wide.
"Don't hurt her!" Sandayū begged, looking at Naruto's forehead protector with fear. "Please! That's the client! She is fragile!"
Sandayū's sweat dripped onto the dry dirt—pat—visible in the moonlight.
"I wasn't gonna hurt her!" Naruto protested, throwing his hands up. "I was just catching her!"
Yukie grabbed Sandayū's shoulder, using him as a shield, but not for protection. She was shaking him.
"I'm not going, Sandayū!" she screamed. Her voice cracked, raw and terrifying. "You can't make me go back to that frozen hellhole! I'll die! Everyone dies there!"
Naruto froze.
This wasn't the diva tantrum from the Ryokan. This wasn't "I don't want to work."
Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated to pinpricks. She wasn't looking at Naruto. She was looking through him, at some invisible ghost in the snow.
"They'll kill us," she sobbed, sliding down the beam to the dirt. "Dotō... the armor... the snow turns red. I won't go back to the red snow."
Her teeth chattered violently—clack-clack-clack—a sound she couldn't stop no matter how hard she clenched her jaw.
Sandayū knelt beside her, his face pained. "My Lady... Koyuki..."
Naruto looked at Sylvie. Sylvie's face was grim behind her glasses.
She's scared, Naruto realized. Like... really scared.
"Well," a voice drawled from the shadows. "That was dramatic."
Naruto spun around.
Ankowalked out of the darkness of the unfinished warehouse, casually chewing on a stick of dango.
Behind her walked Sasuke. He looked completely bored. He was holding a stick of tricolor dango that Anko had evidently forced upon him. He wasn't eating it; he was holding it like a weapon he didn't know how to use.
The sweet, sticky glaze of the dango dripped onto his glove—plip—but he didn't even twitch to wipe it off.
"We bagged the Princess," Anko announced, swallowing her bite. She looked down at the sobbing woman huddled in the mud.
"Get up, your Highness," Anko said, her voice lacking any sympathy. "We're leaving at sun-up. The schedule is tight."
"I won't—" Yukie started.
"If she screams more," Anko interrupted, looking at Sandayū with a sharp, predatory grin, "we can just gag her. Standard extraction protocol for a non-compliant VIP."
She popped the last dango ball into her mouth, the bamboo skewer whistling faintly as she whipped it clean.
"Less noise, easier to carry."
Sandayū paled. "That... will not be necessary."
Yukie looked up. She saw Anko's mesh shirt and the sadistic glint in her eyes. She saw Sasuke staring at her with cold indifference. She saw Naruto and Sylvie blocking the exit.
She was outnumbered. She was trapped.
The fight went out of her. Her shoulders slumped, and she curled in on herself, defeated.
"Fine," Yukie whispered into the mud. "Take me back. Let the snow bury us all."
The mud squelched as she pushed herself up—shhh-luck—clinging to her silk robes like heavy, wet hands holding her down.
"Cheery," Anko quipped. "Sasuke, grab her other arm if she stumbles. Naruto, point man."
Naruto looked at the broken princess. He didn't say anything about the movie. He didn't ask for an autograph.
He just turned around and started walking back toward the lights of the village, the sound of the lake lapping against the unfinished shore fading behind them.