"Tsubaki, over here!"
Tsubaki's eyes widened in shock as Sasuke's weary figure appeared above her at the top of the stairs. The stream of water flowing down from the upper levels abruptly swelled into a torrent as she climbed four steps at a time, making the ascent far more tedious than it need have been.
"Where have you been?" Tsubaki said breathlessly as he pulled her up. "I thought Orochimaru had captured you!"
"I got caught up in the reverse summon and landed in the dinosaurs' pen, one floor above Orochimaru's laboratory," Sasuke explained. "That gave me time to hide before the tiny ones came looking for me… It was all I could do to forcefully hypnotise one and have it give the area I was hiding in the all-clear."
Sasuke's stamina reserves were at an all-time low. Even now, it was taking him every ounce of his willpower to put one foot in front of the other, and…
"Watch your step!" Sasuke suddenly shouted.
Without warning, the stone steps turned into a smooth slide, but Sasuke slipped his arm around Tsubaki's waist and hurled a kunai attached to a length of steel wire at a stalagmite. The kunai looped around it, and the line went taut, securing them to the stony growth with a mighty jerk.
"It's Ryūchi Cave's Sage Arts!" Tsubaki yelled. "We're underground, and Orochimaru can manipulate anything inorganic around us! Nothing is safe!"
The stone walls rippled like pudding as Orochimaru squeezed his enormous bulk out of the royal crypt and into the narrow runnel, ignoring the torrent of water falling against him as he compressed his dinosaur form into the form of a feathered snake and slithered up the stairs after them.
"Sage Art: Inorganic Reincarnation!"
The cave itself was the snake's maw, and the stalagmites and stalactites, its teeth. In an instant, the walls closed in on them, crunching down…
"Sorry in advance," Sasuke grunted as he pressed a hand into Tsubaki's meaty chest, pushing her away as his Preta Path ability stole a staggering two thirds of her remaining stamina reserves. "Amenotejikara!"
In a flash, Sasuke swapped places with Orochimaru, causing the monster to impale himself on his own stone fangs. Tsubaki's knees buckled as the chakra drained from her body, and she stumbled backwards as Orochimaru's massive form teleported to her side. The white-feathered serpent's massive bulk had just barely prevented the cave's walls, ceiling, and floor from crushing them into pulp!
With a casual swipe of his flailing tail, Orochimaru sent Tsubaki crashing into a stone wall, where a tall wave of water buffeted her and knocked what little breath remained from her lungs. Overcome by dizziness from the sudden loss of most of her stamina and dazed by Orochimaru's loud roar of pain so close to her ears, she had failed to react to the monster's wild thrashing.
"Sasuke, you idiot!" she coughed, spitting out water. "Don't… arbitrarily…!"
Tsubaki had come here to save his life, so he wasn't allowed to tragically sacrifice himself for her sake! If he did, then wouldn't she have come all the way down here for nothing!?
"…Tsubaki!"
Since Sasuke had swapped places with Orochimaru, the Great White Snake now stood between them. His gigantic feathered serpent form was far too large, and the tunnel far too narrow, for him to free himself from the spikes by wriggling free, so he began melting his body into water using the Hydrification Jutsu to free himself from the spikes he had made himself…
For some reason, an ocean's worth of water was flowing into to the catacombs, so Tsubaki might as well take advantage of it and borrow its momentum!
"Ice Style: Coiling Ice Dragon Jutsu!"
Tsubaki harnessed the full might of the torrent and froze it into a flood dragon's head, redirecting the flow of ice and sending it slamming into Orochimaru, crushing his half-liquid form and half-resolidifying the dispersed parts of his body into a molten slush…
"Sasukeee!" Tsubaki screamed into the gap. "Quicklyyy!"
"Lightning Style: Raikiri!"
Electricity suffused Sasuke's body, energising his muscles and giving him the energy to propel himself up the smooth slope and carve a wide gash in Orochimaru's side, but what came out was not blood, but more white stuff…
"Kiiiii!"
Orochimaru let out a shriek as his half-melted serpentine body jerked uncontrollably, bashing against the walls and causing stones and dust to fall from the ceiling. Lightning style ninjutsu seemed to have an effect on his liquid form… after all, the Hydrification Jutsu was still weak to electricity.
"Don't take any more chakra from me," Tsubaki said breathlessly as she grabbed Sasuke's hand and pulled him up. "I'll die, I'm almost out—"
CRACK!
The tail end of the ice dragon plugging the stairwell behind them emitted a loud cracking sound; pressure was building as water accumulated in the upper levels of the catacombs. They were about one and a half kilometres below the royal palace, so once those levels filled completely, the pressure would be equivalent to that at a depth of one and a half kilometres below sea level!
"We have nowhere to run," Sasuke said emptily.
Neither of them had enough stamina left to attempt any kind of escape. Using the Transformation Jutsu to become small enough to fit through the air vents would exhaust their chakra before they could make it ten metres; the same went for using the Hiding Like a Mole Jutsu to tunnel through solid bedrock instead of soft soil…
"Hang on, we can't be too far from the sides of the mountain if they've managed to drill air tunnels to the outside," Tsubaki said thoughtfully. "I've still got a bunch of explosive tags… maybe we could blast our way out."
Tsubaki glanced between the plugged tunnel holding back a mountain's worth of water pressure and Orochimaru, who was beginning to thaw by activating his cells to generate heat…
"Go," she said, shoving a stack of paper bombs into Sasuke's arms. "I've got to maintain the ice seal and keep Orochimaru frozen, or we're both dead."
"I'm not leaving you—"
"I SAID GO!" Tsubaki screamed. "I'm not real, so it doesn't matter if I die, don't you get it!? There's only one Uchiha Sasuke, so save yourself! You're still a little virgin cherry boy, aren't you? Go breed a ton of pretty girls and revive your clan, you idiot!"
After hesitating for a second, Sasuke took the explosive tags and vanished around a corner.
"Not even a goodbye kiss, eh? …it's for the best, anyway," Tsubaki sniffled. "Sasuke should just forget about me…. I'm just a dream, after all… I was always supposed to disappear and be forgotten with the rising sun…"
The cold aura radiating from Tsubaki's body intensified.
Her hair turned white with frost and the tips of her fingers blackened as she summoned the last of her chakra. She sapped the heat from Orochimaru's body and from the water beyond the ice plug, strengthening the seals by propagating the ice wherever she could…
"S-s-so… c-c-cold…. S-s-so… l-l-lonely…"
A single teardrop crystallised at the corner of Tsubaki's eye as a loud explosion shook the catacombs, sending fissures spider-webbing across the ice. A jet of water spurted from the cracks in the ice plug, but she no longer had the strength to maintain it.
"Live… a… good… life… for… me…"
Tsubaki's namesake was the camellia flower; who, just like Sakura's namesake the cherry blossom, flowered in spring in the east… However, some species bloomed in autumn, and stopped flowering come winter… how very appropriate.
The corners of Tsubaki's vision grew dark as her eyes froze; it was time for her to return to the long sleep… when, suddenly but gently, she found herself cradled in a warm embrace. Exhausted, she curled in her saviour's arms and rested her head against his broad chest as relief gave way to oblivion. Her lidded eyes closed, and she drifted off, lulled to sleep by the steady rhythm of his steps as he carried her from the catacombs…
…
Tsubaki was awakened by a sort of strange, wet and slimy sensation. Startled, she sat up straight to find herself lying in a sea of tall grass on the side of a mountain, her face being relentlessly licked by a certain velociraptor with a monocle-shaped birthmark.
"Look," Sasuke said, pointing at the last peaks of the Redaku Mountain Range. "You're still alive, aren't you?"
Tsubaki's eyes grew misty. The morning sun was rising over the mountains… proof that she, Haruno Tsubaki, was still alive. Conversely, Orochimaru was sealed under a mountain of ice, which was unlikely to melt in their lifetimes.
All was well.
Except for Hashirama, they still had to find a way to cure him.