Hope
"Hope is the Worst of All Evils, for it Prolongs the Torment of Man."
~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
The smell was the worst part. You couldn't even see it sometimes, especially when it happened in the forest, and you couldn't hear anything during it other than your own beating heart and the blood rushing through your ears even as the adrenaline heightened all of your other senses. No, Sai knew that the smell was the worst part of battle. Even as he surveyed the scene, hours later, the smell was still there –getting worse, in fact, as the sun beat down on the open field. It was cloying and sweet on first sniff, that was the rotting flesh. Then, after a moment you noticed the sour smell, like curdled milk and bad breath. That, Sai knew, was the smell of infection. All of the open wounds lying unattended in the heat and dirt were festering as bacteria found its way in and began its corrosive, destructive work.
Underneath all of that, if you could stomach another deep breath, you could smell the salty, coppery scent of blood that laced everything. In some places blood had soaked the ground, turning the dirt into fresh, thick mud.
Not to say the other senses weren't also assailed. Here, on this quiet, open fields where the grass only occasionally poked up out of the dust and never higher than your knees, you can see the aftermath of the battle. Men and woman, foot soldiers and ninja alike lay on the ground, gaping holes in their limbs and chests. Open wounds were caked in dirt and salty sweat, the heat mercilessly pounded the frail, traumatized bodies, helping the blood to flow more freely from wounds too large to close. Those that had blood left at least. Some bodies were already as pale as the clouds that drifted far overhead. If you didn't watch where you stepped you were likely to slip on an arm or leg long since detached from its owner by a kunai or katana in the heat of battle. Those with wounds so devastating are unlikely to have lived long enough to see the outcome of the relatively small scuffle.
Those that weren't already dead, however, saw no such mercy. Their cries reached the ears of everyone still walking in the field. The cries of the dead and dying. Some cried for help, others for forgiveness from gods Sai had never heard of and didn't believe in, and others still cried out for families and friends who had probably died before the war had even begun. There were cries from the living as well, those weeping with sorrow over lost loved ones.
Sai glanced around and thought he recognized a few of the faces on the ground. Some eyes he recognized were already glazed over with death, unseeing for all eternity now, while others were still crisp with pain and tears. One face he knew he recognized, though not as well as some, but he did not go to the body. Another was already there. The Hyuuga prodigy, the emotionless, expressionless Hyuuga was weeping, lashing out in rage and sorrow at any who would draw near. The slim body he held tightly to his chest was still and unresponsive, red blood dripping from brown hair that used to be tied up in a tight, brown bun.
Sai thought that maybe, if he were someone else, he would cry as well. He could see the tears in the eyes of the other members of the clean-up team. People he knew, people he didn't, all seemed to share one thing in common: they were unable to look down at the scene and many had pulled up their shirts or sleeves to cover their noses as they completed the assigned task of pulling the living from the dead and the dying from the wounded. Most would never make it off the field, Sai knew. But he felt no desire to cry.
Sakura yelled something at him from across the field, her fearless, pitiless presence somewhat dimmed by the death and destruction surrounding her. Sai could not understand the words, but that did not matter, he knew what she was saying: get back to work, get back to saving those who could be saved.
Saved. Sai thought ironically, Saved from what? If they die while under our care then they died with the hope of living in their eyes. If they live and are whole then they will be sent out again to fight another battle and another and another, until one day they do not make it off the field either.
He checked the pulse on one body, rejected it and checked another. When he touched the man's neck, he moaned pitifully and tried to move away. "I've got one." He called out, voice flat and untouched. A flurry of movement occurred and the man –one leg missing- was carted off on a stretcher by two nurses to where Sakura had set up the triage emergency hospital. Sai waited for them to leave before continuing. As he walked, checking bodies for signs of life, he compared himself to his weeping, horrified teammates.
For the first time in his life, he was glad Danzo had stripped him of feeling. Thank you, he silently told his dead mentor. War is not the place for emotions. Emotions leave scars like no blade ever could. Emotions give the hope for life and then take it away again. My teammates look around and cannot bear the reality of this world, cannot do their work properly. I look around just as they do and I feel nothing.
I am glad, because I do not think I could survive this otherwise.