Replica
By TwinEnigma
Warnings for this chapter: Violence, dead bodies, post-current arc
Chapter Two:
"Not good," Shizune sighed, taking her mentor's vitals again.
Tsunade had yet to awaken. The fight to keep everyone alive during Pain's attack had taken a severe toll on the Fifth. Shizune and Sakura had tried their best to bring her out of it, but the attack had put a heavy strain on them, too, and then Sakura had taken the rest of her peers with her to go running off after Naruto, who'd gone and stupidly run after the ninja going to the Hokage summit.
That boy, she swore, would be the death of her.
There was a familiar heavy burst of chakra and resounding thud as a summon creature's body mass hit ground outside. Shortly, it was followed by the familiar whine of one Ino Yamanaka in thoroughly grossed out mode. Shizune opened the tent flap and stepped outside, not at all shocked by the giant toad. So, they'd caught up with Naruto after all.
"Be careful!" Ino shrieked, "I thought I told you he's critical!"
The toad attempted to apologize as it unfurled its long tongue further, but seemed to reconsider it, as it would involve jostling the patient further.
"What's going on?" Shizune asked.
Ino, flanked by Sai and two youths in heavy, hooded winter cloaks, finally appeared as the tongue completely unfurled. They were standing next to the body of a large man with bright orange hair and a massive patched wound on his side.
"Shizune, we found something you're going to want to see," Ino said, grinning widely. "Let's get inside."
"Patient status?" Shizune asked, signaling the ANBU outside the tent to assist them in carrying the man inside. They were the four most devoted to Tsunade, those that had guarded her when she faced Pain, and they had allowed no others to replace them.
"Critical," Ino said, monitoring the man's vitals again. "Severe trauma to the right abdominal cavity, damage to several internal organs, massive blood loss. Detected presence of a near lethal dose of sedatives in his system, too."
"Put him down over there," Shizune said, indicating a free space near the back of the large tent that she'd curtained off for triage surgery. It was close enough to Tsunade that she could still monitor her and perform emergency surgery.
"Is Juugo going to be okay?" asked one of the cloaked youths. The voice was male and, by the tone of voice, Shizune suspected it was a young civilian.
Ino smiled at the cloaked boy sweetly. "Of course, he will. Shizune's one of the best medics in Fire Country."
"I thought we were going to a hospital," the boy said, sulkily, and the other cloaked youth hugged his arm tightly.
"You're looking at it," Shizune sighed, flipping through the seals of a diagnostic jutsu and placing her hands on the wound. "Ino, I'm going to need you to give a mental tap to the following surgeons."
Ino nodded, taking note of the names, and then sat down, making a hand seal as she scattered her mind over the city. "Message sent. They'll be here soon."
Shizune took the patient's vitals again and checked the field dressing. "You and Sakura did really well. I'm proud of you. He must have been an inch from death when you got to him, but he's stable enough for surgery now."
Ino beamed under the praise.
The civilian boy shifted uncomfortably. "He'll be okay now, right?"
Shizune nodded. "He'll be off his feet for a while, but he'll live."
The boy and his companion immediately appeared to relax.
"What's their story?" Shizune asked.
Sai and Ino looked at each other and then Sai held out a scroll as he said, "You may want to sit down for this, ma'am."
Shizune gave them a skeptical look, unrolled the scroll and started reading. It was in medical shorthand, Sakura's, judging by the cipher used, and – that was impossible. She immediately jerked her head up, looking at the two of them and then back to the scroll. "Is this right?"
"Sakura checked personally," Ino said, deadly serious. "You know she wouldn't screw up something like this."
"Take off your hoods. I want to have a look at you," Shizune said, turning to the two youths.
They complied and she fought the urge to gasp, instead discreetly signaling the ANBU that there was no threat. There was no doubt about it – that boy was a dead ringer for one Sasuke Uchiha and the girl clinging to his arm matched descriptions of the girl he'd been traveling with.
Shizune frowned and turned to the ANBU. "Get all ANBU loyal to Tsunade here on the double. No one comes in or out of this tent without my permission, is that clear?"
The four ANBU nodded and exited, their presences immediately vanishing.
"Did we do something wrong?" the boy asked, clearly confused.
"No, no, it's nothing you did," Shizune smiled thinly. "Ino, Sai – please keep an eye on them. Things are going to get very serious around here."
"This way," Kiba said as he and Akamaru bounded ahead.
Behind him, the platoon followed in loose formation at a steady pace. Naruto frowned as they passed another dry splotch of red splashed on the trees and shot a glance at Sakura. She looked equally concerned, but thoughtful. None of them really knew what to expect. Chances were it wasn't going to be good.
Then again, they'd been prepared for the worst from the start.
Kiba stopped, holding up his fist in a halt signal, and then slipped off Akamaru's back, sinking low into the brush. "Scent trail ends about forty meters ahead at that cave."
Hinata made a hand seal, the veins around her eyes bulging. "No chakra signatures visible at the cave entrance, but I'm picking up a large amount underground."
"Confirmed," Neji said, the veins around his eyes also bulging. "Estimating about a hundred individual stationary chakra signatures and four independently moving ones, moving in sets of two, about eighty meters from the cave entrance and about twenty meters down."
Kakashi leaned forward, eye narrowed. "What does their relative position look like?"
"Most of them almost like they're on those funny stacked beds," Hinata said, giving him an odd look, as Neji nodded in confirmation.
Shikamaru frowned. "I don't like this."
"It's your call," Kakashi said, shrugging.
Naruto sighed, standing up. "That Juugo guy's a tough customer. You didn't see him at the summit. He's practically a berserker. If he lost control trying to protect those two because he thought they were his teammates, then whoever he left alive he wasn't able to find or didn't consider worth killing."
"They could be injured," Sakura suggested. "It might be a medical ward."
An underground medical ward hidden in the middle of the woods... Naruto resisted the urge to shudder. It brought to mind Orochimaru and his creepy psychopath assistant. They liked that sort of thing.
Shikamaru closed his eyes for a moment, frowning, and then opened them, standing up. "Shino, Hinata, Kiba and Tenten - you're on point. Kakashi, Naruto, Sakura and I will form up the center. Yamato, Rock, Chouji, Neji – do a quick sweep of the perimeter and form up on our flank."
Kakashi and Yamato exchanged a glance and the latter smiled approvingly, saying "Man, they grow up so fast."
Neji clapped Hinata on the shoulder as he moved to join up with the others, giving her a nod, and then they disappeared into the trees.
It was all but unsaid: watch yourselves.
The not-Sasuke was inherently disturbing, Ino decided.
Sasuke Uchiha was supposed to be death on two feet with a doujutsu that could shred a mind like it was tissue paper in mere seconds. He was a bad-ass, possibly insane genius, and would fight like a cornered wild animal if he was caught. He had never allowed anyone who wasn't bandaging him up to touch him, much less a girl, – and even then, it was only as long as was absolutely necessary to make sure the bandages stayed put.
Consequently, the fact that not-Sasuke was sitting calmly on the floor in bloody white scrubs with that strange redheaded girl curled up in a ball next to him and talking to Sai was nothing short of mind-boggling.
"So, the lady over on that side is the Fifth Hokage," not-Sasuke said, pointing at Tsunade's bed. "She's supposed to be in charge, but she's wounded real bad... so, they put someone else in charge?"
"That's correct," Sai said, smiling a little.
Ino had to admit one thing – the little bugger had a mind like a steel trap. As soon as the surgeons and Shizune had disappeared behind the curtain to operate, he'd pulled his hood off again and started asking all kinds of questions in an attempt to figure out what was going on.
"And this guy, this Danzo, he's not a good guy, right?" not-Sasuke asked.
Sai winced a little and Ino answered for him, "He's a warmonger. If he gets permanently appointed to the position, he'll likely push us into a war with another one of the shinobi nations. Our village recently suffered a major attack and we're still rebuilding. We don't have the resources to go to war for an extended period of time. A lot of people could end up getting killed."
The not-Sasuke considered this, frowning. "Then why hasn't anyone gotten rid of him?"
"Well, that's harder than it seems," Ino sighed. "We're hoping a more permanent replacement will appear before they decide to keep him on board."
The girl uncurled a little, tugging on not-Sasuke's sleeve.
"Karin says you're lying," not-Sasuke said, scowling.
"The leech girl can sense lies?" Sai asked, his eyebrows.
"Leech girl?" not-Sasuke growled.
Ino groaned, rolling her eyes.
"It is common practice to give people falsely-insulting nicknames to foster closeness," Sai said, cheerfully grinning like an idiot. "In fact, I have been considering calling you 'stupid'."
Ino hit him with a medical textbook, knocking him flat off the chair, and grinned sheepishly at the two now-very stunned others. "I am so sorry about that. He has no idea what he's talking about."
Sai sat up, still grinning despite the lump on his head. "How about Brat and Dork?"
Ino hit him again, harder this time.
Both not-Sasuke and his shy companion scooted back a little further, watching them with wide eyes.
The cave, as they shortly discovered, was completely artificial. The camouflaged door appeared to be on a hydraulic gear system, something that few cities and countries had access to, and it had been rammed open from the inside. Once inside, they were greeted by what resembled a slaughterhouse. Some of the remains were unrecognizable as human. Sakura stopped long enough to confirm the bodies were still relatively warm, and they moved deeper inside.
"Keep an eye out for signs of who this place owns to," Shikamaru called out, nudging an arm with his foot. "Someone's obviously funneled a lot of money into this place."
At the end of the hallway was another metal door. This one looked like it'd been smashed in while in the process of being closed. The impact had folded it back into the frame, jamming it open. More bodies waited on the other side under ominously flickering neon lights. Beyond the hallway was a series of ramps, leading deeper underground. The lights here had died, forcing them to bring out the glow sticks.
"Still no movement from that major group of chakra sources," Hinata announced.
"Location?" asked Shikamaru.
"Twenty meters down, forty meters ahead," she stated simply. "The other four are only ten meters off the bottom and seem to be looking for something, judging by the movement."
They started down the ramps slowly, taking note of more bodies and several overturned cargo carts. Sakura, in particular, frowned when she noticed the medical nature of the contents of several spilled containers. At the bottom, the ramp opened into a large, dark storage room.
Kiba stopped and made a hold position sign with his hand, Akamaru whining and sniffing at the ground in confusion. "We have a problem."
Kakashi stepped forward, eyes narrowed. "This scent... Sasuke and that girl... their scents are all over the place in here."
Kiba nodded, frowning. "I'm going to try focusing on that Juugo guy's scent."
"Hinata – what's the status on those chakra signatures?" Shikamaru asked, frowning and holding the glow stick up.
She gasped in alarm, pointing. "The four are five meters straight ahead!"
Immediately, both the middle and rear flank teams moved up to defensive positions around them. Shino, Kiba, and Kakashi slid forward into loose stances, prepared to move for a fast strike, while Tenten flicked off the tie on a smaller weapons scroll, ready to spray the path ahead with a lethal hail of shuriken.
One of the overturned crates rattled and fell to the ground, revealing a white-clad leg, which was hastily pulled back behind another larger crate. Hushed whispers came from the area.
"Is someone there?" Tenten called out. "We're not here to hurt you. We're here to help."
There was silence.
Then, they saw a brief flash as someone peeked out from behind the crate. More hushed whispers were exchanged and then silence again.
Finally, the four figures stepped out from behind the crates and into the sickly yellow light of the glowsticks and none of the members of the retrieval platoon could conceal their surprise.
Two identical boys with the face of Sasuke Uchiha and two identical redheaded girls were staring at them with sheepish, nervous looks.
There was only one word Naruto could think of.
"Shit."
AN: This is why we don't work with huge platoons. It's a pain in the ass to keep track of everyone and make sure that everyone's being used to the best of their abilities.
Why are Kakashi and Yamato leaning back on leading the platoon?
They are letting them get more experience in leadership and effective use of a broad-talent team.
Why are Kiba, Tenten, Shino and Hinata put at the front and Neji, Rock Lee, Yamato and Chouji put at the back?
Kiba and Hinata are extremely effective as forward scouts, between his ability to track better than a dog and her Byakugan. Shino, while he is an effective forward scout, is also a powerhouse in terms of slowing down, if not outright stopping enemies where they stand, without them realizing it. Tenten can also literally turn a corridor into a kill-zone, so the best place to put her is right up front, where she can do the most damage.
Neji, on a team with two Byakugan users, works best placed back to back (relatively speaking) with Hinata, giving the platoon full 360 without detracting attention away from scouting or guarding. Chouji and Rock Lee are both powerhouses and between Chouji's techniques and Rock Lee's taijutsu, they can quickly and brutally tear through anyone that attempts to ambush the team from the back, clearing a way out. Yamato is there for the same reason, as his jutsu allows him to shield attacks to the rear of the team and buy them time to regroup.
The most flexible team is actually placed in the center, surrounding Shikamaru, the strategist. This also allows Sakura to freely move between the front and rear of the group to administer medical treatment if needed. Shikamaru is one smart cookie.
Why are there so many Sasuke's and Karin's? What the hell?
As if I'd tell you and ruin the surprise.