Amaterasu – Infernal Chronicles of Naruto
Legal: Naruto & co © Kishimoto
Author's Note: Well I promised Heishi I'd write a chapter this weekend … and I've be procrastinating the work until the last day. Crap … Right I am going back to the third person narration. To be honest I have not thought very far from this point onward in the story. Trying to create some kind of artificial conflict between the Naruto x Sakura pairing now feels tiresome and little quarrels feels too soap opera-like (and I hate soap opera). Another things … I learned that writing from the main characters point of view is a bad thing, at least for me. I don't want to reveal his thoughts. If anything I want the reader to be guessing his, try to figure it out from what the other characters say or give away. The only time the reader should get something out of the character is when he says things out loud. Guess that's something I adopted from reading all the Sherlock Holmes novels. Watson did such an awesome job at keeping the reader guessing. Alright I think I ranted off enough that I can start writing the main story now…. Hopefully
As usual not betaed
Chapter 9
Crimson Saviors
"I need him off the teleport seal and onto this stretcher, now!" Sakura yelled at her nurse-assistance.
"ON Three! Steady … Steady ! One, Two, Three! Lift!"
"Someone pressurize his wound. He's losing too much blood!" Ino yells further instructions.
"Quickly move him to Section C3 the operating set there are cleaned and ready!" Shizune yells.
Metal and plastic grinding on solid stone floors, small wheels rolling quickly through hallways; the wounded sand ninja is moved from the teleport seal to C3.
"Sakura, the blood won't stop gushing out!" Ino yells as she continues pressuring the large wound in the ninja's torso.
"That's a poison! It's eating away the body at a cellular level!" Shizune replies.
"I don't have the time to create a counter poison right now. We need to seal the poison where it is!" Sakura yells.
"Ready a poison seal and hot water!"
"Yes ma'am!"
"Quickly begin with the sealing."
Silence; the medics place the seal in a professional way, practice over a thousand times onto their patient. Sakura begins sealing and isolating the poison, mean while Shizune and Ino return to the teleport room and await the next injured shinobi.
"Damn … it!" huffing, puffing Sakura barely brings out her cuss. She's sweating, her hands are shivering and her eyelids barely half open. Everyone in the room knows how exhausted Sakura is, but none dare say anything to the top medic-nin.
"No choice, one more pill." Sakura swallows a soldier pill. Revitalized, she finishes sealing the poison and closing the fatal wounds.
"The rest you guys can finish, right?" she says more like a command than a question before standing up and heading wobbling towards the teleporting room.
"Shouldn't we tell her to take a rest?" one of the nurses whispers to another nurse, "don't be silly, we only be punched in the face and splatter all over the wall," the other replies, "did you forget what happened half a day before? One tried telling her to take a rest and the next second the wall behind her was pulverized. That was when she only had two solider pills in her. Who knows what'll happen with an overdoes of three soldier pills."
Sakura struggles to even walk straight. Leaning against the wall she slowly moves, then finally as she turns around the corner she can see the teleport seal just a few feet away. Shizune and Ino already standing ready with two nurse teams awaiting the next patient.
A flash of yellow, orange appear and Hero drops off Naruto who's supporting Choji. Quickly the ready team takes over and places the heavily injured Choji with blood wounds and internal wounds on the stretcher.
Thump
"Sakura-chan?! … Sakura-chan! Oi! Get a hold of yourself …" the voices distance from Sakura's apprehension. Blazing darkness swallows her.
Erratically emerald green eyes open trying to focus on their surrounding. A few blinks later Sakura rises from her bed moaning as her body screams out in pain to the sudden movement. Wires rip as she continues moving and monitors which were showing consistent graphs start peeping.
"Sakura, thank goodness you are awake and well." Ino says coming in through the door. "Naruto, Shizune-neesan Sakura is awake!" she shouts into the hallway.
"Sakura-chan!" Naruto says before hugging her.
After a moment of silence
"How's Choji?" Sakura asks after she recollects the last thing that happened.
While she waits for an answer Naruto looks down and Ino turns away.
"What happened to Choji?" Sakura asks again now with a worrying voice.
"We lost him." Naruto answers.
"What? ... How?" Sakura says in an "you surely are joking me" voice.
"It was either you or Choji." Shizune says while entering.
"What do you mean?"
"I couldn't attend to both Choji or you. Ino did the best she could while looking over Choji and I was dealing with your drug overdoes. I didn't had enough chakra to use a Kagebunshin to also help Choji."
"What do you mean you had to watch over me …"
"That third pill would have killed you, had I not done something and Choji's internal wounds were beyond Ino's capabilities. The other medics were also busy dealing with the poison sand-nin as well as attending to other things. There was no one besides you and me who could have dealt with Choji's internal wounds and since you were in your death bed we had to make a choice." Shizune explains the situation.
"Choji was still conscious when he told Shizune to take care of you, Sakura," Naruto says while also giving Ino a shoulder to lean on.
"By the time Ino finished repairing all the internal damage Choji was gone already." Naruto finishes. "But at least we didn't loose you."
"How can you say that!" Sakura screams at him, her face distorted and filled with grief and guilt.
"How could anyone say that they are glad that I am alive while losing Choji at the cost of it," Sakura says.
"Shizune-neesan we need to head back to the teleport seal, their might be more wounded." Ino says in a soft voice.
"Ino … I …" Sakura tries saying but stops as Ino just gives her a warm smile as she heads out.
"Shizune-neesan, let me help, too," Sakura says determined.
"You aren't in any position to aid us. You chakra system is burned out, you won't be able to channel any for at least a whole week with the condition you are in right now."
"But I still am able to do basics first aid even without chakra," Sakura protested.
"Fine with me," Shizune says while heading out.
As Sakura tries getting out of the bed, her wobbling legs can't support her weight and she falls onto her kneels, but a strong arm catches her just before she hits the ground. Naruto lifts her up and while leaning on his shoulder Sakura slowly steps out of her room.
The next nurse that passes them Sakura instructs,
"Get my room ready for the next patient. I won't need it any more."
"Eh … "
"Do as she says." Naruto reinforces Sakura's instruction.
"Yes, sir, ma'am"
At the teleport seal they arrive just in time to see Hero teleport Aoba-sempai in. While huffing and puffing Hero's is about to teleport back out, but Naruto stops him in the last moment.
"You need rest as well" Naruto says in a sincere voice, but Hero struggles and wants to resist his command. Naruto forcefully dispels Hero's summon and he puffs into smoke.
Meanwhile the nurses move Aoba onto stretchers and into the operating room. With him are Ino and Sakura. They quickly move Sakura securing and cleaning the wounds while Ino starts healing him. Sakura keeps pressing onto the fatal wound pressurizing it.
Blood squirts out and sprays Sakura's face full with blood. Not daring to stop pressuring that wound Sakura doesn't wipe off the blood from her face.
"Shizune-sama we need you with the next patient. He's got the blood eating poison."
Shizune leaves this operating room to Ino and Sakura. Ino continues struggling closing the big wounds.
Finally after a long operation Ino looks up with a smiling face.
"We did it, we saved him," Ino says.
"No, you did it, Ino. I couldn't do anything except give you some advice and keep to the basics of medical aid. I couldn't help you on operating Aoba-sempai, nor was I able to aid you when you needed it the most. I couldn't aid you when you were trying to save Choji… I am useless …" Sakura says while they walk through the hallway towards the teleport seal.
Her vision suddenly is forced right while at the same time her cheek and jaw blaze in pain and her ears recognize a single enormously loud slapping sound. When she finally turns around she sees Ino holding her right hand and quietly trying to hold back her tears.
"Don't … don't ever tarnish Choji's sacrifice with such words like useless and guilt!" Ino yells at her. "He knew full well his chances of survival were slim and while I was operating on him he asking if he did a great job at protecting his friends. Do you know what was worst? Shikamaru couldn't come, the war at the Hot Gates kept him busy. He couldn't come and still hasn't come to see Choji's dead body. That damn war is keeping him right where he is, at the walls strategizing and instructing the troops how to act and fight so that they can't storm this village. Do you realize the only person witnessing Choji's death was me and Naruto. When I finally closing those wounds of his, the monitor was just a single long beep; I had not realized that he lost so much blood. Naruto … he said something cool at the last moment … 'A true Konoha shinobi until the end. He was a large flame, requiring a lot of nutrition, protecting the smaller flames' … Don't tarnish those moments, those memories, those sacrifices, ever Sakura. I forgave you for the mistakes you did, that you pushed yourself beyond your limit to save others, but don't ever say you are useless. Just now, if you had not told me which organs to close first and kept an eye at the blood level I'd probably would have made the same mistake over again. You are just as good and useful without your chakra as you are with. You helped me just now a lot. So don't ever talk like that again."
Ino has recovered from her emotional storm and smiles warmly again, when suddenly the whole ground and build shakes from a huge earthquake. Protecting Ino from a falling ceiling Sakura pushes her against the wall.
When the dust finally lifts both of them are under a spacious long slap of ceiling. They have tried getting out on their own, but without her chakra control Sakura could not have lifted those huge boulders and so the two kunoichi are waiting for someone to rescue them out the rubbles.
When finally the boulders are lifted the rescuer find two girls hugging and leaning against each other.
"Brings back memories of past when the two were best friends, doesn't it Naruto," Shikamaru says look at the two kunoichi.
"Sure does. Anyways, Sakura, Ino wake up!" Naruto shouts and Sakura responds first.
"How long were we in the rubble?" Sakura asks as she looks into the night sky.
"A few hours for sure, it took us a while to find the two of you."
"What was that Jutsu that caused such a great earth quake?"
"Less a Jutsu and more like a strategy Shikamaru came up with," Naruto comments.
"What kind of strategy is that, that even collapses your own village's building?"
"That was an unseen factor. I had not thought that it would work so well that the tremor even reached as far as the village and collapse the hospital. But thank goodness no one in the hospital was injured any further," Shikamaru says.
"Care to fill me in on what kind of strategy would cause such a tremor?" Sakura asks curiously.
"Well with a few words we collapsed the ground underneath Akatsuki's camp. That's why I needed both Neji and Hinata with me. I had Neji coordinate the underground tunneling while Hinata was checking the battlefield to see if they noticed our secret attack on their huge water supply. Neji directed all the sand and earth users to build tunnels right underneath their camp. The rest of the battle was a distraction it took us the whole two days to build all the tunnels but when we finally released their water into the tunnel it completely flooded all the tunnels taking all their ground away from them. Three quarter of their whole army went under with this single attack," Shikamaru explains.
"Wait, did you say the front battle was a distraction? You mean to tell me that Choji died for a distraction?" Sakura says in an angry voice.
"Sakura …" Ino says while holding a hand onto her shoulder.
"But …" Sakura starts, but Ino is shaking her head. When Sakura looks back at Shikamaru and she can tell how much he's hurts, how much it pains him that Choji died.
"Shikamaru finished what he started … else Choji's death would have been … " Naruto says.
"… Meaningless …" Sakura says silently almost to herself.
"Let's all get some rest, it doesn't look like Akatsuki is going to be stupid enough to try and assault us with only a quarter of their force left," Ino says.
The next morning red clouds forecast something ominous. Shikamaru, Naruto, Ino and Sakura as well as the Sand Siblings reach the top of the wall just in time to witness something truly horrifying.
One should describe it as a ritual of demonic and abyssal proportion. There are six circular battle formations with a single man standing in the middle of each. Seals stretching in radial ways outwards, then through the seals the sand rises; drawing all the blood that was spilled yesterday upwards, forcing it to gush out of the dessert. The blood even engulfs the battle formations incorporating them into the ritual all while an angel flies circles over the battlefield crying paper tears. When the blood had risen to a colossal height it starts to solidify and taking shape, each shaping and turning to a unique monster with different tails to mark their demonic heritage. The last tailed beast to appear is the seventh tailed demon and on top of each stands an Akatsuki.
"Impossible, where did he hide that many members …" Shikamaru says.
"That would be Pain Rikoudou," a toad answers.
"Jiraiya-sama fought against the leader. He was his former apprentice from the third Shinobi war but got twisted up somewhere along the way when Jiraiya left him to fend for himself. He doesn't die even if you think he's dead, he's got some kind of revival Jutsu to bring back his dead bodies. The one you killed yesterday is probably also gone from the grave and now standing on one of those tailed demons. Also he poses the Rienngan, the bloodline to create and destroy the way of the ninja. Sorry boy that's all Jiraiya managed to get out of him," the toad finishes his report.
"Like that's going to stop me and my Nindo, right Hero," Naruto says as Hero appears on his shoulder.
"Naruto … don't go … I couldn't bear to loose you, too …" Sakura cries.
Naruto and Hero just return her cry with an innocent and warm smile before turning to Shikamaru saying,
"Me and Hero can probably take two, Gaara and his siblings should be able to handle one to two with back up. That'd be roughly four; do you think you can come up with a strategy to beat two biju?"
"Leave it to me!" Shikamaru answers.
One last smile and look back to Sakura before Naruto hops down the wall with Hero on his shoulder.
"No, don't go …" Sakura cries, while Ino is holding her in place.
Gaara and his siblings as well as Kakashi, Sai, Yamato follow Naruto's lead and head into battle.
