Saigai decided that he hated Haku's methods of transport.

The shorter boy had summoned one ice mirror and phased into it while carrying the body of his friend, reaching a hand through the rippling ice to offer to Saigai. The Uchiha had taken it only out of curiosity; this technique was Haku's Kekkei-Genkai, and he couldn't copy it, but he wanted to understand what it was in case he ever faced it in combat.

  He regretted it as soon as he touched the ice mirror. His hand went through it as if sticking a hand in cold, albeit melting, glass, limb blooming with hives, before Haku's hand pulled him inside, bathing his whole body with cold. It set his skin on fire with rashes, prickling his innards as the ice distorted space. Haku looked like he was flickering in front of him, the world seizing like a wave -

Then the space collapsed, seemingly shrinking as Haku emerged from the mirror, which now stood behind them. With a rippling of its surface, the vessel deposited Saigai into the outside world, hugging himself and scratching at the hives that had formed on his arms and face.

  He definitely preferred the flying raijin...less painful, less space-distorting, less cold.

  Haku looked over his shoulder at Saigai. "Are you alright, Saigai-kun?" He was taking in the shivering, taller boy, worried. They were standing in front of an inn with a shabby, ghostlike façade, marked with peeling, woodworm-infested signs:

潮休宿屋 | Tide Repose Inn

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just don't deal well with cold." Saigai nodded slightly in reassurance, looking up at the sign. "What is this place?"

  Haku turned around fully, gesturing for Saigai's arm. The Uchiha boy offered it as Haku began to examine the rashes, gentle and precise.

  "You're allergic to cold," Haku mused, looking up. "Why didn't you say?" He looked incredibly concerned as he checked the rash. His fingers grazed red welts, making Saigai's eyes squint, so he put his arm down and drew away.

  "Don't worry about it. Worry about her." He gestured to Inochi, who was still over Haku's shoulder, unconscious and clinging to the torn sash-ends of Haku's robes. With his Sharingan, he could see bright green chakra being drawn from Inochi's network and poured into Haku's, twisting his own chalk-white energy with threads of green. "We can always go back to Konoha when she's okay."

  Haku's eyes stared into him for a second before he nodded. "Come in."

  His wooden shoes scrunched through the dry dirt in front of the inn as he led them inside to creaking wooden floors and silver-cobwebbed walls. The door was rusted at its hinges, periwinkle paint scratched with a message, welcome to the restful tide, please enjoy your stay.

  Haku pushed the door open; it grumbled geriatrically as he wiped dust from his hand. Being dark and desolate outside, the inside of the place seemed warmer and brighter, in the manner of a tomb being welcoming and comfortable for a corpse. Saigai stared around, unimpressed and unsettled. Nobody was there. No candles were burning, there were no sounds. Spiders crawled about beams, snaring woodworms in their fisherman's nets, as wood and dust fell from the ceiling like disappointing substitutes for snow. He sneezed.

  "The storm will return," Haku said, taking a half-burnt candle from the counter and holding it in his palm as he put Inochi down on a dusty futon. He knelt on the floor next to her as Saigai approached, blowing some chakra into a flame for the candle. "It's best to wait here until the weather lightens."

  "...speaking of which, what is this place? There's nobody here," Saigai said, sitting cross-legged next to Haku. His deep purple cloak spilled over his knees; he watched Haku unclip his bag and open it, removing some senbons.

  "Abandoned inn," Haku replied. "Owner died a few years ago. Zabuza used it as a base for some time." He observed Inochi quietly, then turned to Saigai, checking on his skin, before standing. "There are some herbs that I kept here that I can use to treat you. I'll be back."

  He headed into a shadowed hallway, leaving Saigai to stare at the unconscious girl and think. She'd brought Haku back to life - cured death itself! Where the hell did someone get that kind of power...? Haku had said she was his friend. The apprentice to Zabuza was Inochi's friend.

  He wanted to laugh, shake her awake, ask her who the hell she was. They'd been classmates at the Academy; for tailed beasts' sake, they'd been comrades. She'd been the kindhearted girl who had never flinched away from helping at the hospital, from patching up whatever injuries they earned in training; the one who could barely muster the heart to hit an enemy. She'd lived with the head of the medical corps, always carrying healing herbs and bandages. She'd always smiled so innocently.

  Who the hell are you?

  She slept peacefully, though, slightly on her side, lips just barely parted with her oak-brown hair covering her face, and a hand pressed into fabric next to her cheek, like some sort of doll that had been dropped on the floor by a forgetful princess. Her mask lay next to her head, painted a brilliant seashell blue that flared in the glow of the candle.

  To think she'd be the key to saving Aiko...

  Saigai tried not to hope too much.

  "Here," Haku's voice echoed through the shadows as he returned from his venture and  sat down next to Saigai, a cup of ointment in his palm. He handed it over. "This should reduce the swelling."

  "Thanks, man." Saigai began applying the ointment liberally on the welts that had formed. "Damn cold." He pulled his cloak in, observing Haku as the apprentice felt Inochi's forehead and checked the pulse at her neck. "Is she okay?"

  "She will be, but she over-expended her chakra using her secret jutsu..." Haku mused, sitting on his heels and glancing at Saigai. "You said...you need to take her back to Konoha. But she isn't from there."

  Saigai raised his head with sudden interest. "She's not. How'd you know?"

  Haku frowned, eyes slightly narrowing as he reached into Inochi's bag and pulled out two forehead protectors, a dark green one marked with the symbol of the Leaf and a midnight blue one marked with the symbol for the Hidden Mist. As he'd thought, she hadn't thrown the latter away. 

  "We were neighbors, Saigai-kun," he said, showing the other boy the blue headband. Wide eyes stared at him. "Friends, like I said." He folded the headbands up carefully and returned them to Inochi's bag. "That was...ten years ago..." His frown stayed. "She must have found her way to the Land of Fire..."

  He shook his head, then looked up. "What is she like?"

  Saigai was startled by the question. "What?"

  "Are you her friend?" Haku restated the question, scrutinizing him. "In Konoha. Is she happy? What does she like doing? Who are her other friends?"

    It was an onslaught from within a place that Haku was trying to restrain, the questions rushing like a tide; every question spawned another, until he felt them in his lungs, in his chest. Did she still keep pet birds? What foods did she like? Did she still blow the seeds off of dandelions and make wishes and - what did she hate? Had she ever hated anything? And -

  Did Haku still know her?

  After all the years they'd thought the other dead...did they know each other? Or were they just two people who were lost in the same place? He felt sick.

  What if her actions had been a mistake? If they'd cost her too much because of his worthless existence - and was he worthless, if she'd brought him back?

  "I don't know," came the answer. "I thought we were. But maybe it was all just a dream."

  His eyes flickered with the Sharingan.

  He still couldn't tell what was in her head; not even Byakugan would help.

  She needed to tell them herself, to wake them up...

  ...if they were only dreaming.