Title: Carotid Sheath
Author: 8sword
Date: 3.24.10
Summary: Inside their delicate, blood-rich sheath, the vein, the artery, and the nerve are so closely intertwined that not even the most talented medic-nin could cut one without severing the other two.
Author's Notes: I have ideas for several little scraps like this. Please tell me if you think it's at all worthwhile to read.
Disclaimer: Masashi Kishimoto owns Naruto.
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carotid sheath
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Shizune is rarely applied to for advice. Tsunade-sama is simultaneously too convinced of the aptness of her decisions (considering she has seen this break and dissolution before, been part of it herself) and too secretly uncertain of those same decisions to acknowledge that uncertainty by asking Shizune for her opinion.
But, if Tsunade-sama did decide to ask her what to do with Uchiha Sasuke if – when, crows a Naruto-like voice in her head, following with a confident dattebayoouu – Shizune knows what answer she would give.
There is a part of the body that she learned about during her brief stint as an assassin in ANBU. It is called the carotid sheath.
The carotid sheath is a ninja's failsafe. It is what a ninja aims for when how the target dies –cleanly, slowly, bloodily, quickly, painfully–doesn't matter, just that they die.
It is a mass of tissue in the neck that contains three of the body's most important parts: the vagus nerve, the common carotid artery, and the internal jugular vein.
The internal jugular vein is the reason that ninja are taught to aim for the neck. The vein, carrying blood away from the brain and face and neck, is like a tremendous river. Unstoppable. Even chakra can't heal a jugular that has been torn open. It's too vital, too alive. Powerful and dark and completely untouchable when it's inside its sheath–but take that protection away, and it is quick to die. The dark blood spilling and turning red as it hits the air, like an Uchiha's eyes flaring to Sharingan, like Sasuke's when his gaze hits Naruto's.
Then there is the vagus nerve. The nerve that innervates the facial muscles to smile, that empowers the larynx to speak. It is like Naruto, bounding through the village with his infectious grins, magnetizing them onto everyone else's faces, even Sakura's, even when she is determined to be annoyed with him. It is like Naruto, opening his big mouth to tell off Tsunade-sama when everyone else is too scared to, chatting carelessly with the Kazekage while everyone else watches with baited breath. It is the body's most powerful sympathetic nerve, acting before thought, pounding like Naruto after Sasuke any time a scent of him reaches the village's nose.
And Sakura, Sakura is the carotid artery, Sasuke's opposing force, bringing blood to the head while he takes it away. Feeding Naruto, at first only to fuel his determination to go after Sasuke, but now that function has become more, now she has grown around them both, throbbing like a pulse against her boys to keep them moving but to protect them from everyone else as well.
From everyone else.
Inside their delicate, blood-rich sheath, the vein, the artery, and the nerve are so closely intertwined that not even the most talented medic-nin could cut one without severing the other two.
This is what Shizune would say if Tsunade-sama asked her what the village should do with Uchiha Sasuke.
But she knows that Tsunade-sama will not ask.
Tsunade-sama, the artery left behind, already knows.