Going up
It hadn't been easy, it really hadn't.
After the destruction of the Anchor Vantian Amaru had briefly stayed in Konoha to recuperate, but then she had left for home.
Both she and the rest of the village had expected to rebuild and then….. then nothing. Just live and be happy with their lives, even in a jungle full of poisonous snakes, fish, crocodile's and other lethal animals and plants.
But others had a different idea about how they, or in particular she, had to live, and where.
A week after they had left Konoha things looked quite good. Especially if you could put up with living in a hut made of leaves, twigs and whatever you could find in the forest. Usually dung and mud.
Amaru had been collecting twigs and lumber with a group of other villagers before they returned to the building site of the new village. They had chosen to relocate to another part of the jungle due to the close proximity of the Sky ninja's old base. Plus the earth was more fertile in this region, it had never been used for farmland and thus was rich and unspoiled. The new place was sunny too and close to water. It was better than the old place. Open clearings. The jungle was thinner and it was higher. They didn't need to worry about flooding or a sudden attack by a crocodile or a tiger.
But there were others who could just as easily attack.
Such as Sky Ninja or Sora-nin as they were also called.
But to call it an attack might be overdoing it.
2 lone shinobi, who swooped down and abducted one person fore then to be off again was more in the line of kidnapping.
Or at least that was how Amaru thought of it when she thought back. At the time she had been more occupied with screaming as she was painfully lifted into the air at high speed and gone up several hundred feet in the matter of moments.
As her brain started to understand what had transpired she illogically began to kick and scream to be let go of. The ninja holding her in the arm did as he was told, letting her drop some 50 feet before his partner got hold of her shirt, ensuring that she couldn't harm him in any way or for that sake struggle further as they flew her further away from the new village.
Regardless of whether she struggled or not: the drop-and-catch exercise was repeated a few times due to the shinobi's arms getting tired of holding her.
Amaru quickly developed a bad case of flight sickness because of this, which luckily wasn't lost on the shinobi who held her at the time, the one whom had been the first to drop her.
"No need to hurl yet miss, we're almost there" even though he literally yelled it, he managed to make it sound reassuring, Amaru had expected something more grim or demanding, not near politeness.
"There" looked unmistakably like a cliff at the coastline. Which it unsurprisingly was, or rather it was on the inside of the cliff. On the side facing the ocean Amaru could see cave entrances, big and small, some even gigantic, wide enough for several boats to pass through side by side and tall enough for their combined masts.
Passing through on of the larger cave mouths, Amaru could make out general sounds now. the chrashing of the waves againgt the rocks the seagulls and… people, toiling people. As her eyes got used to the darkness she began to make out shapes. A large floating….. "boat" was docked below her. Amaru had never seen anything like it. She supposed it was a boat due to its overall shape and…. General boat-like behaviour, floating and such. Supposedly it was the roundshape, the tower stuck near the middle and the several antenna upon its roof that caught her off guard.
Flying past it she saw 4 more of the white boats docked down at the base level. On the sides of the cave walls there seemed to have been cut crude walking passages, doors, statues depicting Buddha, fences and additional caves all of which were filled with people. Ninja and people to be more correct. The people didn't seem to be hostages or prisoners for the matter, they seemed to be…… free?
It was so much unlike her last visit into Sora-nin territory.
Finally they landed on an outcrop upon which several of her captor's comrades stood, waiting. Just for them.
Amaru worked some warmth back into her body after the cold flight, but she was stopped by being pushed hardly to the ground.
Grinding her teeth for then to look in a pair of hard black eyes would not have been the best meeting for any person. Especially when the eyes were put together with a sneer, thick eyebrows and an ugly flat military haircut, all combined on a middle aged man. That was what had pushed Amaru and taking in a closer look did not improve her opinion about him. An authority who demanded obedience. Gives orders, expects people to obey and never answer back. That kind of person was usually found in boot camp or in a prison facility, and apparently at Amaru's welcoming party as well.
"Okay missy, I don't care what you are used to in that little village of yours" he spat out the words: little village. "But here, we work hard for a living and I expect that you will too" his face had been level with Amaru's at the latter part of his speech/welcoming, spittle occasionally hitting her face as he had barked the sentences. He was clearly too used to be the one giving orders.
Amaru relished in the sudden ceasefire of saliva as the pusher stood up and addressed her abductors. And to him adress meant a combination of sneering and barking
"Ahoro, Katsuma, put the girl to work and guard her at all times, I don't want her to disappear like a fart in the wind you understand?
"Yes sir, sergeant Tokachi-sama sir" the two nodded, the order understood and taken seriously.
"W-wait a minute, why've you taken me? What do you want from me? Amaru's near panicky voice was completely expected of her in a situation like this. And so was the sergeant or Tokachi's answer:
"You'll get all your answers later missy, take her away"
Amaru struggled as her abductors began to bind her wrists and drag her up so she could walk. They then led her down a dimly lit, cold and damp corridor.
As they worked their way up and down stairs Amaru had used the time to complain and question
"Where are you taking me? What do you want from me? You have no right to do this, you cant keep me against my will, I'll get saved"
"Listen kid…. We can't answer all that and we definitely aren't allowed to anyway…." One of her captors began to mutter
"Well, we can tell her where she's going can't we Ahoro?" her other guard questioned.
Taking a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose the one who had begun speaking, Ahoro apparently, confided:
"The infirmary"
Amaru looked blankly at him, a mixture of concussion and relief on her face, she had been answered, but that just led to new questions. Answers that shut one up was rare and when they did occur they were usually sinister and grim. This one was not.
"You're taking me to your sick?"
"We are taking you to our wounded" Ahoro's correction had Amaru formulating yet another question in her mind but before, she could put it out….
"What's with the face? You didn't expect us to be all fine or dead after Ancor Vantian fell, did you? Or after the main fleet got destroyed? A lot died and even more got wounded, both me and Katsuma were amongst the lucky ones, we could walk after a few days of treatment" he looked down on Amaru with insightful, tired eyes, like an elder lecturing a child not yet used to how harsh reality could be.
"I hope Shinno taught you enough to help us out, our own healers are working their palms away in there"
Hearing this Amaru's mind began to race anew.
"I've never learned to use chakra?" Amaru yelled. Her words bounced of the stone walls and echoed down the corridor like a bouncing ball. Her captors stopped momentarily to watch Amaru shake with anger and fear.
They really believed that she could help them? She thought. She couldn't, she was just one single person, one single doctor couldn't make that big a difference. She had seen the medic's in Konoha, they had had their hands full after the attack upon their village. And she couldn't use chakra, despite that Shinno had been a ninja, he had never taught her a thing in that area let alone mentioned it.
They had too much faith in her, all because of Shinno, her former teacher.
She had loathed him when he betrayed her and it seemed he still caused her harm even after having perished.
"So?" his matter-of-factly tone startled her "We take what we can get at the moment miss, sorry but that's the way it is" she stood there frozen for a moment, watching him start walking, before she was gently pushed in the back by his partner.
"Come on kid, no need to go all tired and helpless now, that won't do any good, definetly not help anyone"
"You're being too nice Katsuma" Ahoro had turned around again, looking like he was smirking under that mask of his. "But it's much needed for everyone" he laughed. His partner Katsuma soon joined in as they walked down the corridor. It wasn't forced or booming, but light and jolly, the kind of humour one gets when in a tight spot.
They gradually stopped laughing and smiling as they strode down the corridor, Amaru didn't know the place but she could feel they were close; people always stopped talking when they were near their goal.
As they stopped at a slide door, Ahoro took the handle and slowly pulled it open in a smooth calm movement. "Told you, didn't I? A lot were wounded"
His words hadn't been a last minute joke, they had been too true.
The door revealed a large crowded room filled with sickbeds and countless people made so because of the crowds they were moving in. some were not medics but simply family and friends to the wounded. The room itself was equipped with several large windows. They didn't let much light in due to them being positioned on the inside of the large cave, giving the room a grim shadowy illumination. Like a police office in the late afternoon.
It truly was a miserable sight…… and the smell didn't make it better. Hospitals are supposed to be clean and sterile, not warm, damp and having the nasal atmosphere of an unclean toilet.
Amaru was so entranced by the sight that she failed to realise that her bonds had been cut and she herself were rubbing her wrists absentmindedly.
In fact she first understood that her hands were free when she had several near-clean towels, a bucket of water and several boxes of medicine and different medical remedies forced unto them and were told to tend to the different wounded.
Ahoro and Katsuma were still guarding her, though they did so absentmindedly, taking their time to grip the hand of a comrade or two as they passed by the different beds, high five one with a broken leg whom were supporting himself upon a pair of crotches, and gripping a shoulder on a man whom had managed to sit up in his bed.
In the end they settled at the opposite side of the door they had entered from and Amaru began to see to the man upon the bed, he was pale and sweating, alive, but with a breath like a near-soundless vacuum cleaner: fast and wheezing. Amaru could tell he was in the vile grip of a fever.
Reaching into the bucket she grabbed a sponge and moved it over his forehead.
The man was middle aged, had a few wrinkles and brown hair which were starting to grey slightly at the edges. A teddy bear had been put under the blanket to him, alongside a picture. Amaru knew that it was impolite to "research" other peoples privacy, but she couldn't help but take it up and examine it. The man was upon the picture alongside a woman and 3 young kids. His family had coe by and given him those. She had seen it before, lucky charms like get well cards or flowers meant to show the bedridden that he was missed and loved, that his loved ones were anxious to see him again. Alive and well.
Amaru could relate to that, she had seen it dozens of times, the waiting family whom prayed that their beloved father should return home safely.
she wanted him to return, event though she had not recieved the best treatment from the sora-nin so far, she couldnt bear to take her anger and feelings of retaliation out on a wounded man with family waiting for him at home. she would stay and aid the wounded.
She was a doctor, trained in healing and mending pain. She could not leave without doing her best.
First chapter of Amaru's adventure in the hands of Soragakure
All Sora-nin names are taken from the mountains of Hokkaido
Katsuma, Ahoro, Tokachi, Rakko, Kamitaki etc.
I will post the next chapter as soon as possible,
please rnr