My left hand will live longer than my right
from wyteeth
A/N: Takes place during the Shogun Assassination Arc in Gintama-verse and pre-Shippuden in Naruto-verse. Either way, this is definitely AU.
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Ayame remembers the fear she felt carrying Zenzou's limp body towards the hiding place behind the large Buddha statue. Helplessness as she tried to force the man to keep walking with her, to muster what strength he had left and to use her own to keep going.
She can recall vividly the hate that consumed her when she realized the Buddha statue meant nothing if it could not save her dying friend, the unfairness in the irony of it all. The resignation as the darkened blade slides through her, forcing her to look at the last safe house in Iga invaded and overrun by the Harusame pirates.
"Looks like I-...We failed to fulfill our duty."
The lavender haired kunoichi only feels numbness now.
For when she next opens her eyes, instead of looking down the end of a Yato's umbrella, what greets her is the plush undergrowth of grass and the cool shade of the trees. It is midday and the sun blares down from the sky above.
A good ninja would take stock of her belongings and immediately figure out her location, but right now, Ayame couldn't give a damn about what being a good ninja meant―not when she wasn't even good enough to save her friends. She feels like an utter idiot laying there not knowing whether she was going to die in a pool of her own blood; the chaotic buzz that was in her ears lower to a hum and she lets the numbness wash over her.
She was content―a first in a long, long time―just simply being there, but old habits die hard apparently as she picks up two chakra signatures heading her way, her hand instinctively reaching for a kunai. Any strength left in her must truly be depleted since by the time two shadowy figures stand across from her, she's barely lifted her arm.
"Identify yourself and your purpose." Says the one on the left.
Ayame notes the smooth white surface of their masks that hold markings reminiscent of that of a boar and horse. The grey color scheme offer a look of uniformed blandness but the lavender haired woman does not miss the highly specialized blades both of them carry.
Deciding she hasn't much to lose, "Sarutobi Ayame. No purpose, not anymore."
Silence stretches out between them as the masked figures say nothing. Ayame thinks she'll be left there to bleed to her death but she hopes they had some pity for her and instead end her suffering right then and there. Not particularly caring for their response, she lolls her head to the side and closes her eyes.
"I'll meet you back at base." Is the lowered voice she hears from one of them and before she can open her eyes again to look, consciousness is pulled out from under her.
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"-ab wounds littered all over her body, some fresh, others not so much. Major blood loss and chakra depletion but not enough to kill her, obviously. It's a good thing they found her when they did though, don't know how much longer she coulda made it." Says an older woman's voice. The click of a clipboard follows suit.
"Ah! Shimaya-sensei, I think she's awake. Her heart rate spiked." A younger woman exclaims.
Charcoal eyes open to the flare of blinding white light, the scent of sterility assaulting her nose immediately after. Two women walk up beside her, the older having graying hair tied up in a bun and the second being much, much younger than she thought; the kid must have been no older than ten. Despite her slight shock at seeing such a young medic―youth did not mean incompetence, Kagura's visage echoes in her mind―she focuses her eyes upwards on the textured, white ceiling above her.
"So I'm not dead." Ayame announces blandly, the lack of inflection in her voice causing the the younger woman beside her to shift uncomfortably.
"'Course not. Konoha Hospital may be under powered but we're still plenty capable of bringing our ninja back from the brink of death." The older woman tips her head down sarcastically, her large glasses slouching down on her nose.
"Tsunade-sama will come back…" Ayame hears the younger girl mutter behind her.
"Yeah, yeah, and suddenly all of that woman's loan sharks will finally stop harassing the Hokage," The glasses wearing woman heaves out a tired sigh, "I'm Shimaya and the cute nurse tending to you is Mai-chan."
"S-sensei!" The girl, Mai, sputters out.
"Whoever did this to you sure did a number. You'll be in here for the rest of the day and then you'll be cleared to go. Not like we could keep you here any longer, anyways." Ignoring the blushing girl, Shimaya hangs the clipboard by the door before turning to Ayame.
"Another shinobi will come by when you're discharged." And after turning to walk away, "Let's go Mai."
Sparing the lavender haired woman a polite bow, "S-Sarutobi-san."
Still not taking her eyes off from the ceiling―and in equal parts thankful and suspicious at them for keeping her glasses on―she takes the time to process the conversation that had just occurred, as one-sided as it may have been. She was treated by Shimaya and Mai, two medics at Konoha Hospital, and while their names were new, her location brought back less than savory memories.
Zenzou used to always go on and on about how 'shitty' the Naruto manga was in JUMP when they were kids, despite him reading it every single time a new issue came out. Ayame could recall fondly the way her mop headed teammate would whine about how the ninja reputation has been tarnished by the melodrama of the manga, only for her to catch him once trying to recreate the Rasengan.
They were memories that that she held close to her heart and the fact that she was here, in some make-believe hospital, instead of her friend-
Who died for her and her uselessness
-was almost enough to make her break down sobbing.
Breathing heavily, she felt the rough rise and fall of her chest as her bandages constricted her movement and forced her to calm down. The beeping monitor still rattled on noisily but Ayame could find peace in the steady rhythm of the machine.
So, Naruto, her mind refocused on the issue at hand.
Either this was another sick joke by that bastard Sorachi or the gods have finally decided to punish her by living in her dead friend's dreamworld. Phantom pain struck through her arm as she remembered the heavy weight of his body against hers, the rice stocks memorably course against her skin as she tried to carry them both through it.
She needed to stop crying for herself and get a grip, Ayame thought as the feeling of wet blobs of tears start to roll down her face. She could resolve each of her wrongdoings later, not now when she was sure that the next time someone walks through that door she will be carried off for questioning.
She needed to get her story straight but who would honestly believe a woman who said she came from another world, some other ruined reality. Hell, she wouldn't. The best she could hope for was a quick death at the hand of their judges.
As the clock's ticks and the heart rate monitor's beats fell into a constant cadence, Ayame started formulating a plan to maybe save her ass and grant her another day to grieve. She will live to see another dawn, not for herself, but for her precious people.
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Not even a knock to signify their entrance, a familiar horse shaped mask materializes in front of her. Thankfully, the lack of weapons on her prevented her from truly showing any kind of response at the sudden arrival, but Ayame had half the mind to pull out the needles in her wrist and throw them at the visitor.
"You will be discharged and taken to Interrogation." Came the masked nin's curt greeting.
Guessing as much, Ayame nods her head and moves to stand up, but before she can place a foot down the world is suddenly spinning and then she feels the cool metal of a chair beneath her.
Immediately recognizing the more threatening environment before her, her eyes narrow at the similarly metal table, wall, door, and second chair across from her. Unlike the harsh chemical scents of the hospital, this place held an iron tang of what could be the obvious metal furnishings or perhaps the blood that has been recently washed off.
Feeling the chill her thin hospital garb fails to protect her from, her hands clench in her lap at the situation she's found herself in. From one disaster to another, she thinks sourly.
The metal door screeches open and a blonde woman with green, strangely pupil-less eyes comes in quietly, "Sarutobi Ayame, if that is your real name, no affiliation, no other identifying marks on you."
Bristling at the other woman's tone, "It is my real name, you bitch."
"Hm." Came the weak reply, the blonde's face not moving an inch from its original stoniness.
The blonde moves to sit across from her, linking her hands together on the table as the two engage in a stare down. Ayame has worn less clothes than a hospital gown to some battles and still won, this woman would be an easy win, at least is what she thinks before the blonde says, "Do you know the name of our Hokage?"
"What?" Ayame blurts out, caught off guard by the question, "The Hokage is your leader right?"
"There's no point in deflecting my question, Ayame, it is a simple yes or no answer." The pupil-less eyed woman says patiently, seeming to read Ayame completely.
"Does it even matter?" She growls out, but the silence that meets her forces her to say, "...No, I don't, alright?"
"Can you confirm your name?" The blonde says next without missing a beat.
This time Ayame shows her agitation, "Like how, bitch? Unless you're deaf, blind, or dumb, I'm pretty sure the hospital would've told you about any kind of identification on me!"
"And that is our conundrum," The other woman cuts her off, voice still irritatingly steady, "Are you from a special ops team? Who sent you?"
"No one sent me, I―I ran into some trouble and then woke up here." Ayame grits through her teeth. None of what she said were outright lies and so she hopes they take her alibi.
Silence washes over them yet again. Ayame no longer feels cold, her blood heating up from anger and frustration, egged on by the woman's unfaltering calm when she asks, "Who do you answer to?"
The lavender haired woman clenches her fists tightly, her jaw sets into a grimace but her eyes lock dead on to pupil-less ones as she says, "...A dead man."
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"She's a real piece of work, huh?" Mitarashi Anko whistles as she leans over the one-way glass separating the two rooms.
"Remind me again why we have that woman without any constraints?" Genma lazily says.
"'Cause Ibiki said she's already drained of nearly ninety percent of her chakra and she hasn't tried to kill the nurses back in the hospital," Anko replies, her lips jut out in a pout, "Bu―ut, I agree with you. Lady should be tied down at least, I bet Ibiki's just getting too old and too soft."
"If you think I've been too lenient lately should I demonstrate my techniques for you again, Mitarashi?" Comes a deep voice from behind the two. Immediately the two straighten up, Genma almost choking on his senbon and Anko smiling sheepishly.
"Nu-uh, Boss, I'm good!" The mesh clad woman mock salutes.
"Then tell me what we've got so far." Ibiki steps forward to peer at the glasses wearing woman inside the interrogation room.
For first impressions, he sizes up the scars littered around her hands and up her arms, a tell-tale sign of a ninja having experienced countless battles that left little time to tend to wounds. With her was Yamanaka Ikai, a woman whose unblinking gaze usually froze dangerous thugs on the spot, but this Sarutobi Ayame seemed to only bristle in anger.
"Apparently she got caught in a skirmish and found her way here near Konoha's gates. Whoever she worked for is 'dead' but my guess is that she just doesn't want to say, given the fact she ignored the question about being special ops―which I think is a high probability given the lack of identification she carries, just like ANBU." Anko summarizes.
Genma adds in, "Yep, definitely special ops trained. I caught her glancing towards the exits and the table thinking of some way to escape. Normal shinobi are too busy steeling themselves to hold out and keep their secrets quiet while ANBU are confident enough to plan a way out."
"Hmph," Ibiki grunts out before pressing a button on a box next to the door to speak into the Yamanaka's earpiece, "You're excused."
"Here comes the Big Boss, ahaha!" Anko cackles as Ibiki re-positions his coat.
"Try to go easy on her, Ibiki-san. She genuinely seems confused about the whole situation." Genma sighs out.
"I'll see what I can do." The scarred man says, no promise to be made as he switches places with the blonde woman.
Genma lets out another sigh while Anko giggles, slapping a hand on the Yamanaka's back as she leaves the room. Inside, the glasses wearing woman drums her fingers mindlessly on the desk.
"So you're the Bad Cop, huh? I'll just say it now that you can all simply kick me out and I won't even look in the direction of your village. You'll never have to see my sorry face again after that." Ayame says seriously as she watches the large man sits across from her.
"We can't allow that until you've given us more information. For one, who is the person you work for―try not to omit anything this time―and two, where do you come from?"
"Don't act like you haven't been listening to everything I said, bastard! It doesn't matter who I worked for or where I come from because they're gone, alright?!" Ayame screeches this time, clenching both her fists and standing up in rage.
The scarred man doesn't even blink, "Sit your ass down and get a hold of yourself, Sarutobi Ayame."
Flinching at the coldness of his words, Ayame closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and slowly sinks back down into her seat. She doesn't like the situation she's in but she shouldn't let her temper get the best of her―it always has in the past, a certain mop haired ninja always said so, anyway.
"Fine," Ayame acquiesces a half truth, "I worked under a noble from the north before he was assassinated. I failed to protect him, and my comrades, and somehow survived to this day. By all means I should have died in my last battle."
Glaring down at her hands, "I wanted to die, if it meant sacrificing myself to protect the others."
Ayame is met with no reply, still boring into her clenched-again fists as Ibiki assesses her from where he sits. Just from what he's heard from Anko and what he's seen right in front of him, he can safely say that the lavender haired woman was dangerous.
Maybe not to himself or anyone else, but definitely a danger to her own well being.
Ibiki has seen her type before, in the deepest depths of T&I to his very own underlings. He practically sees it every time he attends a Jounin Corps meeting, scanning the crowd and observing every guilt stacked face there was (which there were many).
So Ibiki knows her type. And people like her were the kind that were forced into getting therapy, group counseling sessions, even being demoted down a rank to help them get away from it all.
It all boils down to keeping them away from hurting anybody, least of all, themselves. The second leading cause of death in Konohagakure was suicide, more than two-thirds coming from the military forces. And it's a tragic statistic, one hardly touched upon in a village pioneering for peace, so Ibiki feels for the young woman.
He will later blame that spark of empathy for his future words and actions, if only because it didn't fit his image of the Head of Torture and Interrogation to allow too many mercies, because the next thing he finds himself saying is, "Konoha will allow asylum for peaceful refugees from neutral territory granted they fill out the proper forms, and if a shinobi, allow seals to restrict chakra usage for the duration of their stay."
Ayame blinks, caught off guard by the sudden offer―which she assumes is an offer, the man didn't seem the type to be babbling off nonsense―and wondering what is was that helped her case. She stutters out a weak, "W-what?"
But as the scarred man opens his mouth, a voice filters in from the corners of the room as if there were an intercom, "Ahahaha! Even the prisoner knows it's weird to see Ibiki be all 'Konoha will let you stay in the village, blah blah―"
Another voice cuts in, sounding as if they pushed the other away, "Sorry―Anko, stop it,―Basically, Ayame-san, we're allowing you to stay in the village so long as your adhere to some restrictions―Ow! Anko!"
The sounds of things hitting the floor can be heard before the sound is cut off completely. Ibiki doesn't contain the long suffering sigh as he stands from his chair, "Follow me, and try to avoid looking at the idiots outside before you catch their stupidity."
Perhaps in another time, in another world, such familiar antics would have made Ayame laugh loudly. However, the wounds were still too fresh, both physical and emotional, to even allow a single smile.
And so she follows the large man out of the metal room, avoids the two scuffling on the floor, and keep her head down, eyes up.
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A/N: And I'm back at it again with the obscure crossovers lol Also it seems I just can't let go of the trope of starting a story within a hospital...
Made the Yamanaka less OP btw, in this AU only Inoichi is able to truly go through someone's memories since the Mind Walk jutsu (or w/e it's called) is a high level one that is exclusive to 'main house'/heirs of the clan. It'd be too cliché to have Ayame's memories revealed out in the open like that at the get-go anyways.