Disclaimer: Naruto & Co. don't belong to me. They belong to Kishimoto-sensei. So don't sue me.

A/N: Here I am, back with the second chapter. I had a lot of fun writing this one, as well as coming up with the plot of the story. I hope you guys all enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it! Before we dive in, I'd like to give a special shout-out to my first reviewers, Joyal and A Nobody (aka Punkass). Thank you for your words of encouragement! I hope you continue to stick with me until the end. For those of you who added me to their story alerts/favorite stories, thanks! Next time, please consider reviewing to let me know what you think! I appreciate every comment! Now, let's get started, shall we?

Spiral
Chapter 02: Experimental Remedy

Sure enough, two days after I received the vial of poison from Orochimaru, I was ready to step back onto the battlefield. Well, as far as the medical tents, anyway. When I slid through the entrance curtains, I couldn't believe my eyes. Rows upon rows of sickly shinobi stretched across the better length of the tent, and the few medical-nins there were trying their best to dart between them and offer any comfort they could manage. Had these warriors all fallen victim to Suna's poison? I felt naïve for thinking that what little antidote I had brought with me would do the trick; it would take ten times the amount just to cure those here, not to mention the countless others suffering in any of the other medical tents in the area. I felt ice-cold dread drop into the pit of my stomach as the realization dawned on me: without my help, these men would all succumb to the poison in their veins and die an excruciatingly slow and painful death. The life of each shinobi doomed with that horrible fate had been placed into my hands. I had no choice but to step forward and heal them.

One by one the other medical-nins looked up and recognized me as I strode further into the tent. Startled by my presence, no doubt, many of them stopped what they were doing and proceeded to stare as if I was some sideshow freak. I shot a stern look to one unfortunate medical-nin, an underclassman from my school days, and scolded him for neglecting his job. After his shaken apologies, I demanded he bring me a bowl and some hot water. As he shot off to fulfill my request I knelt beside his abandoned patient.

"Don't worry." I tried my best to sound reassuring and kind, but with little confidence in my bedside manner. "I'm going to take your pain away."

The pale shinobi smiled shakily up at me, wincing at the pain it must have caused him to move his facial muscles. Troubled by this man's obvious suffering, I wiped his face gently with a damp towel, wishing that the incompetent fool of a medical-nin would hurry up with my water so that I could start the healing process. I didn't have enough antidote if injected directly into their bodies, that was a fact. However, there was a reason I was known as the most highly skilled medical-nin that Konoha had to offer. I wasn't sure, but I had a plan that might save everyone with this single vial of antidote. And for that, I needed the major component of the human body: water.

When the fool finally returned with my hot water, instead of wasting time with another lecture about being prompt (which I was sincerely tempted to do), I took out my vial of antidote and held it over the steaming bowl. With utmost care, I let a single drop fall into the water. It may be an extremely weakened form of my original concoction, but with the added strength of my chakra, it should do the trick. I summoned a thin layer of chakra to cover my hands like gloves, and then dipped them into the water. In intense concentration, I lifted my hands, raising the contents of the bowl along with them. Holding on to my ball of liquid, I instructed the incompetent one to expose the patient's chest, and I took a deep, calming breath.

The poison I received from Orochimaru was the kind that shoots through the bloodstream, infecting the heart, liver, stomach, anything that requires blood to function, and slowly deteriorates them. It was a poison that kills slowly from the inside out, making it impossible to consume food or drink, and eventually even moving becomes impossible. In order to reverse it, I needed to inject my antidote into the core of the blood's flow itself. The heart. Theoretically, the heart would spread the cure throughout the infected regions of the body. My plan was the aid the heart with my chakra, to speed up the process. To my knowledge, this kind of medical ninjutsu had never been attempted, and I was terrified. Any slight miscalculation, and I could rupture one of this poor man's internal organs. But something inside told me that it would work, and that there was no other option. Calming myself, I brought the ball of liquid to the patient's chest, focused my chakra, and pushed.

As I expected, my chakra forced the liquid to permeate my patient's skin. With my hands pressed against this man's chest, I could feel the ball descending to surround his heart. Closing my eyes in order to get a clearer mental image, I willed the antidote to compress the heart ever so slightly. The man grunted as streams of poison were drawn from his heart and captured by my antidote. Yelling at the medical-nin boy to hold up my bowl for me, I lifted one hand slowly from the patient's chest, straining to pull out a portion of the liquid with it. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw the young nin's eyes widen in awe as the liquid once again permeated the skin, now with flecks of a darker liquid floating within. I brought the liquid to the bowl and dropped it, and then lifted only the antidote, leaving behind the drops of poison I had managed to extract from the patient's heart.

Holding the ball of antidote in my hand for a moment, I stared at the poison in the bowl. It wasn't exactly how I had planned to go about curing this man. Of course, I hadn't known the heart or the poison would react in such a way to the antidote I had mixed with my chakra. My medical mind raced. If I could pull the poison from the other infected organs without having to force my chakra through his bloodstream, I could heal him without putting his life in danger. Could this really work?

Determined to succeed, I pushed the antidote back into his body and closed my eyes. My hands could sense the poison. I slid my palms across the man's torso, searching for infection, and stopped at his liver. Taking a deep breath, I once again surrounded the organ with my antidote and compressed softly. Just as before, the poison abandoned its hold and surrendered to my tactics. I pulled another portion of the antidote out of his body and discarded the poison. It was working.

I repeated the process. Time after time I pulled my antidote in and out of this man, each time removing more and more poison. I continued until I couldn't feel the poison's presence anymore. When I finally pulled the liquid out of the patient for the last time and splashed it back into the bowl, I was panting. The patient's face had regained its color, and his expression no longer contorted with pain. I felt a thrill of victory flash through me. I did it. This man was cured. I saved his life when no one else could. I wanted to celebrate, but there were still many more patients to be saved. Dragging my forearm across my forehead, I stood.

"Bring me another bowl of clean, hot water," I instructed. "It's going to be a long afternoon."

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One after another, in and out, over and over again. I lost track of how many men I had worked on. It seemed that the lineup of victims stretched beyond my imagination. There was no end in sight.

It must have been well past midnight. My body ached all over, if not from the constant arm movements, from draining my chakra. All things considered, the process itself requires a minimal amount of chakra, but an intense amount of control. Add that to the countless patients I had taken on, and you have a medical-nin who should have exhausted her chakra supply. But I wasn't ready to give in yet. There were still so many patients, so many men dying and I was the only one who could save them. There was no way I could rest now.

I sat before a new patient, struggling to keep myself upright and waiting for my assistant to bring my water. Sweat slid down my face in streams, and I breathed hard, but I barely noticed. The patient before me was the only thing that mattered. My assistant arrived and knelt beside me, and from the look on his face I knew he worried about my exhaustion, but I ignored his pleading eyes and reached for the antidote stashed away in my pouch. My hands shook as I uncorked it and held it out to release a drop into the water. Before the drop fell, however, a strong, warm hand clasped around mine and took the vial away from me.

"Jiraiya," I protested weakly. "What do you think you're doing?"

"That's what I should be asking you," he responded, in a gentler tone that I'd ever heard coming from him. His voice was so soothing. "You need to stop this. You'll kill yourself."

"I can't stop now!" I turned around to face my teammate. "There are too many victims left! I'm all they have, Jiraiya!"

"Calm down." Jiraiya placed his hands on my shoulders, and the weight caused them to sag. I could barely hold myself up anymore. "These Shinobi can survive for another day without you. You need to rest or you might kill them yourself." He paused, allowing his words to sink in. I knew he was right, after all. I knew it was impossible to save all these men in one day, but I wanted to try. I wanted to cure them all. I wanted to have a reason for living again.

Before I had a chance to react, Jiraiya swept me from the ground and lifted me into the air as he stood. I clung to his neck, startled by the abrupt movement, as he strode forward, carrying me out of the tent and away from the poor, suffering Shinobi.

Too weak to struggle against his hold, I had no choice but to allow Jiraiya to take me into town. My imagination entertained endless possibilities concerning where we'd ultimately end up, but my ponderings were cut short when Jiraiya stopped in front of a humble looking restaurant. He brought me inside and sat me down and even took it upon himself to order for the both of us. Once the waiter strode off to fetch our sake and fish, Jiraiya grinned sheepishly across the table at me.

"Sorry about this," he mentioned, no doubt worried I would knock his lights out once my strength returned. "I figured you wouldn't budge from that spot unless you were forced."

I watched Jiraiya in silence, unsure what kind of expression I was wearing, let alone what kind of expression I should be wearing. I wanted to be angry with him for taking me away from those victims, for having the gall to think he'd get away with carrying me, for goodness sake. I should have been furious. But I couldn't summon the energy—or the emotion, for that matter—to feel an ounce of wrath. I just felt empty.

Jiraiya's smile fell as he took in my unresponsive state. The waiter returned with our drinks, but neither of us took our eyes off the other. It wasn't until Jiraiya finally reached down to pour the sake that I regained a sense of time and place. I brought a shaky hand to my temple in an attempt to clear my head.

"You really were amazing today." Jiraiya broke the silence as he slid my cup of sake toward me. I looked up to see him smiling uncertainly at me. "How did you know what to do?"

"I don't know," I admitted, wrapping my fingers around my cup and lifting it to my lips. The familiar taste of the rice wine was an unexpected comfort. I let out a long, contented breath as I set the empty cup back down. "I just kind of made it up as I went."

"Well, your method is a whole lot more effective than just giving them medicine and hoping it works like it should," Jiraiya commented as he refilled my cup. "You saved more than fifty men today, and by tomorrow morning they'll all be up and ready to fight again."

I almost dropped my sake. Fifty? Had it really been that many? As hard as I tried, I just couldn't wrap my mind around it.

"At the rate you're going, you'll be able to cure everyone by the end of the week," Jiraiya continued, downing his own drink. He looked up at me and when our eyes met, he smiled warmly. "I knew all along you had greatness in you."

I felt my face flush fiercely. Why? Why was Jiraiya of all people having this effect on me? Chalking it up to my weakened mental state, I swallowed another swig of sake and closed my eyes as the fire rushed down my throat and into my stomach. The waiter returned with our fish and rice then, and I ate eagerly, unaware of just how hungry I had been.

Once I had a full stomach, the exhaustion set in. Jiraiya, most likely worried I wouldn't make it alone, walked me back to my room at the inn. He stuck around until I was safely nestled under my blankets, then rose and crossed to the doorway. I'm not quite sure why, but a wave of fear flashed through me then, and I called out to him. He turned and looked down at me, cocking his head slightly to one side.

"Please," I whispered, "don't leave."

I don't know whether it was grief or weakness, or maybe even the alcohol, but all I wanted was someone to hold onto my hand as I let sleep take me. I knew that if I were left alone, those haunting nightmares of blood and death would claim me.

Thankfully, it seemed as though Jiraiya understood the plea in my eyes. Wearing a soft, comforting smile, he took the few steps over to my futon and sat beside me, placing one of his strong hands upon my head, stroking my forehead with a thumb.

"There's nothing to worry about, Princess," he said softly. "I'll be right here, so just go to sleep."

I closed my eyes, my entire body relaxing completely. With Jiraiya's fingers in my hair, his scent in my nose, and his soft, gentle hums in my ears, I drifted off to the most peaceful sleep I'd had in a long, long time.