AC_D8: Prompt Fill: Connections in the Dark

A fill for Silent Reader's prompt “a slightly dramatic movie-esque plot (i.e. things make less then canon but sshh go with it) : enemy nin try to use a seal on Naruto to release Kyuubi but hit Harry instead. His magic goes loose and the area suddenly just makes...less sense. After all magic can inflate a woman into a balloon and back, turn a boy into a ferret and a dead body into an old bone so it can be secretly buried! (did anybody find Crouch Sr.'s body?) Basically Harry loses control and Naruto has to help him (since the reverse is possible in AtO) magic shenanigans.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“What happened?” Naruto asked, sitting up with a groan. “Where is everyone else? That attack...” He stopped as his voice echoed in the large empty hall. “Where are we?”

Looking a lot better than he felt at the moment, Sakura helped him to his feet, but her face was turned up. 

Instead of a stone ceiling like the walls around them, a stormy sky loomed above them, complete with roiling clouds. Without a glass ceiling, the stormy sky looked close enough to touch if Naruto created enough clones to stack up and touch the top. 

“Where are we?” He repeated, eyes still fixed on the sky.

“More importantly,” Sakura said. “How did we get here?”

Naruto opened his mouth to reply only to pause and frown in confusion. “I don't remember.”

Sakura nodded. “Neither do I.”

Around the large empty hall, four long empty tables and benches stretched from one end of the hall to the other. Above the tables, four distinct and colourful banners fluttered in the air. A green banner held a silver snake, a blue banner held some sort of bird, a yellow one had something Naruto couldn't really see and finally a familiar red banner with a lion.

“I know that lion,” Naruto said. He tugged out his omamori and turned it to the badge he had pinned on it's back. “This.”

“What is that?” Sakura said as she came in for a closer look.

“It was nii-san's, from his school.” Naruto explained in a rush as he moved the red and gold lion badge so that it caught the light just right to gleam prettily. “The house of the brave.”

Sakura furrowed her brows as she stared at the badge. “It's on that banner.”

Naruto nodded. “So this place must be connected to nii-san.” He frowned. “Where is nii-san? Is he in danger?”

“We'll find him,” Sakura reassured him.

“But we don't even know...” Naruto eye's widened as he caught a glimpse of something bright out of one of the large windows. “We have to follow the deer,” Naruto ran to the window and pointed at the distant flash of white. “That's nii-san's protector. If he's out, then nii-san must be there.”

“Wait!” Sakura yelled.

Naruto crashed through the glass at full speed and reached for his chakra to land safely.

His chakra didn't respond.

“Idiot!” Sakura yelled as she grabbed the back of his jacket and spun him around while throwing a large something that expanded like a balloon in the air.

They landed with a rough tumble and tangle of limbs.

“I can't reach my chakra,” Naruto whispered in horror as pain throbbed through the bleeding cuts on his hand.

“If you had waited for a moment,” Sakura said as she adjusted her elbow protectors to cover up a long raw scrap on her arm. “I would have told you about that. You need anything bandaged?”

Naruto shook his head.

Sakura frowned, unconvinced, but she said, “Now what was that about a deer?”

“Nii-san can... summon a white deer. It's made of, light?” Naruto pointed to the dark and foreboding forest ahead of them. “It went in there. I'm sure of that.”

“We have to be careful. Without our chakra, we're limited in our combat and healing options. So we need to be stealthy.”

Their stealth paid off.

Nothing disturbed them as they picked their way past ominous tall trees and sharp underbrush. The forest might have looked and even smelled quite ominous but it was actually the most boring place he'd even been in.

Sakura pulled him by the back of his coat and ducked behind a large tree. “I saw movement.”

“Then...”

“Not a deer made of light,” Sakura replied with a hiss, as she pushed Naruto behind her.. “A black coat with red clouds.”

“Sakura-chan...”

Sakura shushed him, adding a dangerous glare that made him swallow back his protest. “We might not remember how we ended up here. But one thing is for certain, the Akatsuki are still a danger to you.”

“But nii-san is in here too,” Naruto said with wide eyes.

“Then we need to find him before the Akatsuki person does.”

"Oh," a rough voice said with amusement. Above them in the treetops, an Akatsuki member watched them, clad with a bright orange face mask splattered with blood. "Sounds like you have an idea of how to get out of here. Do share, Jinchuuriki."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Part 1 of a new possible horror-esque AU or just a teaser cos I can't think of how to continue this idea right now?

Polar