I'll Protect you With my Life

Chapter 4

Dealing with the pain

(Sakura)

I tried to stop the shaking in my hands as I knelt painfully next to Kakashi. He was still unconscious. But I laid my hand on his forehead while checking behind me on the cell door to make sure that none of the guards were checking up on us.

There was no one at the door, I formed the seals and laid my hand on Kakashi's forehead to begin assessing the damage. Immediate pain ran down my arm from the shoulder to the elbow and I pulled my hand back feeling slightly dizzy and confused.

I glanced down at my arm which had felt for a second as if it were on fire, but there were no wounds that I could see. But now I noticed a metal band almost like arm jewelry but made of plain black unadorned iron encircling my upper right arm. I touched it with my left hand and had to raise up my right with it due to the chains at my wrists.

The arm bracelet felt slightly warm to the touch and I could sense some faint chakra embedded in it and now that I looked closer there appeared to be faint runes carved into the surface at its edges. I tried to pull it off by sliding it down my arm, but it wouldn't budge from that spot. It rested in place snugly against the skin almost as if were clamped on or some sort of sticking technique like a tree climbing exercise variation was used. I tried to dispel the technique but when I summoned my chakra to try pain flooded through my system and my arm felt like it had been slashed open by a katana, and my chakra instead of going to my hands and arms, went to my feet. I gasped in pain and panted a bit trying to take in more oxygen as I waited for the pain to subside. Confusion set in, what kind of technique was this that it could confuse my chakra circulatory system? Or maybe it was confusing my nervous system or the sensory system that relays the messages.

'That must be it.' I thought remembering reading a report written by Shishou during my training about the fight between Kabuto of Sound and Tsunade-sensei just before she became Godaime Hokage. She used a technique like this on Kabuto. It had messed up the signals being sent from his brain to the rest of his body so that when he tried to move his arm his leg would move. This had given her some time to try and heal the wounds she had already sustained from him. Yet he figured out what muscles to think about so that he could move normally again. Why couldn't I change the technique and adapt it much the same way and use the chakra gathered in the soles of my feet? It would be considerably harder to heal that way due to the distance the chakra orders would have to travel from my brain to my toes, not to mention I wouldn't be nearly as nimble with my toes as with my fingers, but in theory I should be able to force chakra from the holes in my feet just the same as I did with my hands. Not to mention I had a little practice doing that while fighting and training.

I would have to draw from the tree climbing and water walking training. But I would only be able to do it if I could learn to work through the pain. Although the more I thought about it the more I thought that maybe the bracelet only worked when chakra was being gathered into the hands while passing the band on my right arm. So perhaps the pain would only last while I was molding chakra throughout my entire body or when chakra was being molded through that specific area. Which meant that with my precise chakra control that I could perhaps mold the chakra while keeping it away from the right arm where the iron band was.

I sighed unhappily and spread my legs out as far as those strange knee chains would allow. I laid my right foot on Kakashi's forehead ignoring the fact that my foot was dirty and that if he woke he'd get an eyeful. I again formed the seals. The pain was immediate as soon as I began gathering chakra. But it ended as soon as I stopped trying to mold it within my body. I concentrated and followed my chakra pathways down through the holes in my feet. It was painful due to the fact that my feet weren't used to emitting this much chakra and the concentration within it was higher than that for sticking to a tree or keeping myself up when water walking.

But I ignored the slight paining of my foot and followed the chakra through the pathways of his brain.

I was right, his Sharingan had overexerted his body though not as badly as the last time I was sure. I concentrated on infusing his brain with the energy he needed have functioning cognitive thought and the higher brain functions enough for him to at least wake up. Restoring the tired synapses to perfect working order, took a long time and a lot of energy. More than it should have.

Working with my feet where I didn't have as precise chakra control was taking more time and energy than it would have if I could simply have used my hands. It felt like the time I tried to imitate monkeys when I was a kid. I was too stubborn to give up, but it hurt my toes and knees every time I tried to pick up a banana and reach up to hand it to myself. Only this was much worse.

I collapsed beside him in exhaustion, I would do more later. I ignored the cold and damp floor, right now I needed to rest. I closed my eyes and sleep immediately enveloped me.