Author's Note: Just another one of my my one-shots... this time about a nameless ninja and his team, set around the time of Kakashi Gaiden. I was in the middle of Geo Lab, so I didn't really try too hard with the names, I'm pretty sure you can place them.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Being a ninja, the young man had never been a real believer of any gods. He had told his civilian mother that one day long ago, after coming home from class at the Academy. She had dropped the bowl she had been drying and spend the rest of the evening praying and making offerings at the family shrine. His father, a tokubetsu jounin, had understood his thought processes and sentiment, but in the interest of family unity, all harsh words had been forgiven. A handful of years later, at his father's funeral, he had cursed every god and spirit he could think of, cursing the unfairness of a ninja dying prematurely - not in battle, no. Dying of pneumonia contracted while on a mission in Mist was a painful irony, so it had seemed.
Now, in the present, bleeding profusely from a wound that was dangerously close to his femoral artery, he wondered if perhaps he his cursing had been a wee bit premature. He hoped fervently that either Kami and all the spirits were exceedingly forgiving… or had exceedingly short memories.
It was cold, very cold. Rain trickled down the cliff face besides him, splattering his already dripping face. He was moderately sure he wasn't crying, but his body was playing tricks on him. It alternated blazes of searing pain to a dull tingling to… nothing. His teachers at the Academy had always told him his analytical skills were a valuable asset - now he used it and his cataloguing skills to stay conscious.
In the back of his mind, he knew his team was nearby. After he had been sliced by the Rock-nin's kunai, they had yelled at him to get clear, back to their campsite, that they would come for him shortly.
Being the junior member of the team, he had obeyed without thought, funneling just a bit of his chakra away from would containment and into the teleportation jutsu.
The rain was cold, he surmised, as he tried to keep focused. At least, he thought it was. He rather hoped it was, because the alternative was that he was going into shock. The puddle he was lying in was a rather gory shade of red - he had never seen blood watered down to the point of translucency before. It was rather surreal. He wasn't sure he liked it.
A pounding of footsteps, a splash of water.
His three teammates appeared in his ever-decreasing field of view, all looking a trifle worse for the wear. His jounin, a rather gruff, scruffy man by the name of Isshen, had a thin slice across his cheek, and looked grimmer than normal, continually peering over his shoulder. Akira, their intelligence specialist, was holding his left arm awkwardly, and stood protectively over Karin, their med.
Karin, heedless of the blood and water everywhere, was already kneeling, running her hands over his jagged wound. At least, he thought it was his. It looked so far away…
Her long sleeves covered most of her delicate fingers, and the water dripping from the fabric created its own mini-rain shower in the storm.
He found it strange how the blood (his blood? Nah… couldn't be… there was so much, could it?) mingled with the raindrops. Like a strange dance, they blended together.
Akira had somehow ended up on his knees besides Karin, his hands as crimson as if he had put them in a pail of red paint. He had his hands pressing against the gash, and he knew he should be feeling pressure? Pain? Something other than the numbing cold.
There were tears on both of their faces. Isshen - or where he had been standing - had faded to gray.
Karin whimpered as she focused, biting down on her lip until her own blood flew. Weak green chakra flickered over her fingertips.
"Fireflies," the young man whispered, blood flecking his white lips.
His teammates all jerked; they had all thought he was beyond speech. They focused on him, and even the stoic Isshen's eyes were watering, though he would never admit it.
"What?" Karin choked, her voice cracking as she forced all her available chakra into holding her best friend's life in his veins. Akira grimaced as he shifted to adjust his hands, flinching as blood forced it was way past his white knuckles. Isshen kept throwing concerned looks over his shoulder, back at the battlefield.
The young man smiled softly, and let his eyes drift shut. "Fireflies," he repeated, fainter this time.
Out of the depths of his memory came an image of his mother, holding him up on her knee, explaining that his grandfather had passed beyond. Even as the child of a shinobi, three years old was far too young to understand that "dead" really meant "never coming back." Knowing this, his mother had told him that his grandfather's spirit hadn't really gone away, but had become a firefly to go visit his family's ancestors. He had believed her, too… up until the time his father died.
And now fireflies were leaving glowing trails in his vision, blocking everything out.
"It's ok," he whispered, blood beginning to trickle from the corner of his mouth. "I'm going to catch some fireflies."
One last shaky breath, and he was still, a smile on his lips.
Karin bit back a sob as her chakra fizzled out, burying her face in her blood-stained hands. Akira slowly pulled his hands away from the wound, and just stared at them, disbelieving. Isshen bowed his head.
"We have to move," he said, needlessly. They were, after all, deep in enemy territory. "We can't bring him with us, we'll never make it." How he hated himself for saying that. How he hated himself for being the one in charge, being the responsible one. If it weren't for the damned war, he'd have been retired already.
Karin had closed the lad's eyes gently, placing a final kiss on his brow. She had already pulled free his dogtags and added them to her own, around her neck. She stood.
"Ready," her voice wavered only a bit.
Akira nodded as well.
Wordlessly the team, once four, now three, took off across the barren mountain slope, leaving the husk of their friend behind.
Karin looked back once, and for just a moment, could have sworn she saw a firefly among the raindrops.