This was her last chance and she knew it. Not to say that she was a horrible ninja, it was just that she had made a couple of clumsy mistakes in the past. Now was her last chance to prove her worth to her squad and captain.

They waited in the dense limbs of the trees in the forest overlooking a worn down trail. The plan was to ambush the incoming merchant convoy and steal their valuables and a chest of which they had received intel on. It was supposed to contain over half the fortune of a wealthy family inside. A quick in and out job for this squad, but things don't always go as planned.

At first it seemed to be going smoothly but then the shouts of her teammates shattered everything. It seemed that this merchant wasn't taking any chances and had hired a couple of ninja of his own. There were only three of them seven in her squad including her captain, so she wasn't too worried. She had seen her captain in action several times and was confident in his abilities to deal with any skilled ninja above her current level.

"Fuck!" he said as he grasped his arm which had been just cut with a kunai. "Inari, get over here" he yelled as she ran towards him. Inari questioned him on where he had been hurt. "The arm you dumb bitch, where the blood is coming from!" She ignored this comment and got to work with her medical jutsu.

Just as she was finishing up she felt a spear of fire pass right through her leg. "AAAAHHHHHH" screamed Inari as she looked down and discovered that a kunai had entered her thigh and exited out the other side. She knew human physiology well enough, and she immediately realized that from the amount of blood coming out that an artery had been hit. She'd had to fix it fast or risk the chance of passing out or dying. "Inari! Get over to Katsuo and help him out!" screamed her captain but it was too late. A wave of panic and fear had overtaken Inari as she fled from the fight half jumping/half limping.

The enemy ninja that had thrown that kunai saw that Inari was their healer-nin and knew that it would be quite a blow to them if she was dead and pursued Inari with deadly intent. I don't want to die; I don't want to die Inari thought to herself as she ran. Another spear of fire hit her in her side as yet another yell escaped from her mouth. She tripped over something but just as quickly got up and kept on running. She never noticed that this something rustled and murmured a couple of expletives. He was having such a good nap too.

Inari was losing blood fast and she knew it. Her vision was blurring and her reaction time was increasing. Making it through this forest was becoming more and more of a chore every second. The newest reincarnation of pain hit in her in the other leg. As Inari went down, she examined her situation. Stranded in the middle of nowhere, bleeding to death, with a hostile ninja somewhere behind her. Things weren't looking too good right now. Breathing heavily, she started to crawl in a vain attempt to escape her pursuer. Not like this…..I don't want to die like this….. she mentally repeated to herself. But it was at this moment that her chaser appeared right in front of her.

"Found ya, whore" he said as he kicked her as hard in the chest as he could. Inari coughed up some blood and managed to meagerly reply "please….don't….I didn't do anything"

"Fuck you. You picked the wrong people to attack bitch" replied the ninja as he began to eye her up and down. She wasn't exactly what he preferred but he wasn't going to be picky now. Inari had long straight black hair with a pair of gorgeous hazel almond eyes and a nice body for a 17 year old. "You aren't too bad looking you know. Lets have some fun first." Inari was always told that this could happen to her if a battle somehow went bad but she never wanted to believe it. A deep fear sank in that something worse than death was going to happen to her. She grabbed one of her kunai and slashed wildly, barely wounding the veteran ninja. "Hmmm, it's a shame. You would have been a nice piece of ass in a couple of years…." was the last thing Inari heard before he disappeared and felt a cold sharp piece of metal pressed against her throat. "Say goodnight" he said.

That phrase reverberated in her mind as she felt a blinding pain as her neck erupted in fire. Inari grasped her throat with her hands as she desperately tried to mend the gaping wound in her neck. She knew it was pointless but she didn't want to accept the fact that she was going to die. I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die….. was being repeated inside of her head. The last thing she remembered was the shadow of someone standing above her and his eyes. His cold dead eyes contained no life, no warmth, no nothing. Just not wanting to care anymore, she let herself fall into the warm embracing darkness that was calling out to her.

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The sleeping heap that had been awoken got up and lazily but quietly followed the source of the noises that he had been hearing. Just as he landed in a fairly large tree he heard, "Say goodnight" and saw the flash of metal. He watched as a ninja cut the neck of a teenager girl. She gurgled as she bled to death all the while trying to heal herself pointlessly. He waited for a little bit after the ninja had jumped away to wherever he had been before he approached the dying girl.

He stood over her with a look of slight pity and remorse. She had woken him from his slumber and now look at her; bleeding to death in the middle of a god-damned forest. Some one just wasn't having a very good day. He laughed to himself and started contemplating whether or not to help the female on the ground. He could hear the sounds of another fight somewhere in the forest and concluded that she must be from that conflict.

Concluding that her comrades might be thankful if she was brought back to them alive, he decided he might as well help her. Getting down on his knees next to her he pulled off his gloves and began to work his medical jutsu magic. His first priorities were her neck and then her leg wounds. After an hour of operation, he was finished. There were large scars where the wounds used to be. He had some difficulty with her neck because the incision had damaged her voice box and he had never dealt with that before. He just tried his best and hoped that he had repaired it successfully. The mysterious stranger was pleased to see that some color was returning to his patient and that she was beginning to breathe normally. He picked her up in her arms and headed in the direction where the sounds had been coming from. They had stopped quite some time ago, so he figured that the battle had been won by whomever and just hoped he wouldn't have to deal with anyone else.

After a quick trip with the girl in his arms, he came upon the merchant convoy. Numerous people were dead including three ninjas crucified upon near trees. The stranger recognized one of the crucified ninja as the one that attacked the girl he had healed. Assuming that she was part of the group that won, the stranger decided to return her to her people. He looked around and saw that everything of value had been stolen and carted off to some unknown location. That made things a whole lot easier for him; just follow the cart's tracks. So off he went, girl clutched to his chest, as he strolled along to Inari's teammates.