Disclaimer: All your ninja are belong to Kishimoto.
All your base are belong to us.
A/N: The last of the mini-arc! After this is a small (1500 word) interlude, then we'll skip to Konoha for those of you who are getting a bit impatient with me. ;) I plan to post more "chibi!Naruto" stories from this AU under a different title as I get them written because I love writing them, but it's time to move the plot along!
We're back to title art, so check out my profile if you're interested in seeing the doodle for this chapter! :)
Chapter 8: Out of the Deep:
Tsunade and Shizune treaded water, their hair plastered to their heads and their bodies freezing. "I think the water stopped rising." The younger woman gasped, looking over at her mentor in the light of their waterproof flashlights.
"True, but this room dead-ends here. We're going to have to find the entrance to the next one under the waterline, or wait until it goes back down, and who knows how long that will take?"
"A-At least we know he's still alive. His chakra signature is still more or less coming from that direction." She gestured towards the blank wall. They'd begun to be able to sense him almost as soon as they'd entered the cavern before this one. Actually, they weren't really separate caverns but one long tunnel with walls of rock near the ceiling currently blocking it off into sections. Shizune thought this shaft was probably created by air bubbles in molten rock back when this whole part of the country had been a massive lava flow.
"He is still alive, but he's getting weaker. We don't have time to wait for the water to go down. There's no telling how long that will take." Tsunade argued.
Shizune nodded in agreement and both women took deep breaths, immediately submerging themselves. There was so much dirt and other debris in the water, that their lights were useless down there. The found themselves feeling along the wall, looking for an opening. Fortunately, they were ninja and could hold their breaths for several minutes before needing to surface for fresh air, but it still took them three tries to locate the hole connecting this ancient bubble in the stone to the next one.
Tsunade found it first and was able to lead Shizune to it once they'd surfaced again. Some of these connecting ledges where thicker than others and there was no telling how long it would take them to get to the other side. At least with the water receding, they weren't fighting the currents quite so badly anymore. That made it much easier.
As they neared the surface, they could both hear an excited voice echoing around the room, "Light, Naruto-kun! Wake up! There's light in the water!"
Tsunade broke the surface and sucked air into her burning lungs. She quickly unfastened the light from her belt where she had stored it for the swim and hurriedly directed it towards the sound. Beside her, Shizune did the same.
"Over here! Please help us! Naruto-kun is really sick!" The lights landed on a small girl leaning over a ledge on the wall, and a small white dog began to run back and forth yapping excitedly.
"You must be Nina." The Sannin gasped, still trying to catch her breath from the swim, but pulling herself up out of the water with no visible sign of effort. Shizune followed after her with similar ease.
The blonde woman didn't spare the little girl another thought before kneeling down next to the shivering and moaning little boy laid out along the wall of the cave. Her apprentice paused to look Nina over and a quick medical jutsu soon had her healed of her most serious scrapes and bruises, though there was nothing they could do about the cold just yet. "Why don't you tell us what happened while Tsunade-sama works on Naruto-kun, Nina-chan?" Shizune murmured, pulling the girl into her lap. Tsunade would have told her if there were anything she could do for Naruto other than get in the Sannin's way.
Nina snuggled into the woman's comforting arms. Finally, adults! These had to be Naruto-kun's aunt and mother! They were all but saved, "C-Can't we get out of here first?"
Shizune shook her head, hating to disappoint the girl, "No, not until the water goes down. You both have been through a lot and the trip back will be tough like this. It'll be much safer to wait."
"Okay…but I'm so hungry and thirsty, and I want my Mommy and Daddy!" Her voice caught on a sob again, but she calmed down to the feel of a warm hand rubbing her back.
"Shh, Nina-chan! It'll be fine now. We won't have to wait too long. Tell us what happened, okay?" Shizune pulled a bottle of water out of her pouch, wishing she had food, but everything got soaked during the swim.
"Well, it all started when my stupid brother threw the ball at the rocks, and Muffy followed it down here! I went in to get him, because I didn't want him to get lost, but it was dark, and I didn't see the drop off! It was so steep that I practically fell down it! It was awful, but Muffy was waiting for me at the bottom. He must have slid down too because he was all dirty and limping a little." She paused in her tale to sniffle and pet the dog's fur. It jumped up into their laps.
"That's when the rocks started to fall. I could hear them at the entrance and things were shaking, so I ran away as fast as I could. I had to follow the walls because it was so dark, but I knew I had to get away from the rocks! Muffy came with me and we got pretty far. I made sure not to go into the side tunnels so I could find my way back, but I fell and hurt my ankle when the second rumbling happened! Naruto-kun found me and healed my ankle a little after a little while, but then he seemed really tired and he was hurt so we rested some more."
Nina stopped to take a breath and gather herself for the rest of her tale, "When we noticed the water, we had to run, but we couldn't! It was so scary and soon Muffy had to swim. I held onto him as long as I could, but the currents got bad and we ended up swimming too! THEN the water filled the cave and we couldn't find Muffy so we swam towards the entrance, but with the currents and the dark, I didn't think we'd get there! Naruto-kun saved us, but we were all banged around the whole room! Muffy was barking, but we couldn't find the surface of the water! I thought I was going to DIE, but then Naruto-kun pulled me up to the air again. He wasn't swimming so well anymore, and I thought I wouldn't be able to go on, but we went where we could hear Muffy, and found a ledge! Naruto-kun managed to get his light working for a little while, and somehow we climbed up from shelf to shelf until we got here, but that's when he got really sick. I was so worried!"
Tsunade listened to the story with half an ear as she worked over her son. He was nearly completely covered with bruises and gashes of varying depths and his chakra reserves were low. He must have been using it for the light she talked about. He'd obviously been bashed against the walls on top of whatever damage he'd taken getting to the girl in the first place. It was hard to tell what had happened and when, with the varying levels of healing that had been done by his sloppy medical jutsu and Kyuubi's power. There was nothing life threatening left to heal, but the girl had it right, he was very sick. She hadn't seen him with chakra-sickness this bad before. His breath wheezed in and out of his lungs and blood flecked his lips. He was freezing, but she knew he'd be feverish once they got him warmed up enough for that.
He hadn't even opened his eyes when she started working on him, and with his chakra senses being as good as they were, he ALWAYS woke up when someone started working on him. He said other people's chakra tingled like the Kyuubi's did so he could always feel it working through him. He'd gotten so used to keeping track of his own chakra and any of the fox's that might try to get through, that he was very sensitive to anything that didn't naturally belong there.
"How fast is the water going down?" She asked, not willing to pause what she was doing to check herself.
Shizune craned her neck to look over the ledge, "We'll be here for another few hours, I'd guess."
"Damn. We've got to get him warmed up."
"Her too…and us. We're all freezing." Tsunade frowned and picked Naruto up to cradle him in her lap like her apprentice was doing with the little girl. She accepted the water bottle from her and gently tipped some of it into Naruto's mouth before taking a few swallows of her own and passing it back. "Do you have enough chakra left to burn it high enough for the both of you to warm up?"
Shizune frowned, her browns furrowing, "I don't know. I've got enough for a little while, but not for two hours."
"Well, do what you can." Their little corner of the cave lit up in brilliant blue as their auras flared.
†
The light show had definitely begun to waiver a bit by the time they heard voices. All four of them had been lulled into near dozing states by the lingering cold and constant high chakra expenditure of the two women.
The water was still too high to show more than a sliver of the flashlights' beams from the people on the other side of the divider, but help was definitely on the way. The two women immediately perked up, hearing the sounds of oars as well as voices. They'd brought a boat! "We're in here!" Shizune called.
"Nina!!" The distinctive voice of her father rang out, only slightly muffled by the rock and echoing around the caverns.
"She's alright, or will be as soon as we get her warmed up! How fast is the water level going down? We've just gotten them dry, so it would be a bad idea to swim them over, but they need to get out and into beds as quickly as possible!" Tsunade let Shizune do the talking. She was much better in these kinds of situations. Now that the adrenaline had worn off and she knew they'd all be safe and warm in a little bit, reactionary nerves were starting to kick in, and she found herself clutching her little boy to her like death would reach out to steal him away at any moment.
"It's falling fast now! We should be able to get through in a half hour or so! Will they be alright until then?" A scuffle was heard, as someone obviously had to keep Nina's father from jumping into the water and swimming through the still very narrow gap to get to her.
"Yes! That'll be fine!" Shizune called back, then glanced over the sleeping little girl in her lap to get a look at her mentor, "we should move down to the lowest ledge above the waterline."
Tsunade nodded and levered herself up with her precious burden. The two women easily leapt along the niches in the cave wall down to the lowest un-submerged rock ledge.
†
A small wait, a boat ride, and a lift up a 20 ft ledge in the same boat on a pulley system later, and they were back in the open air. There was a loud roar of a cheering crowd when they made their way out of the newly opened tunnel system, but Tsunade ignored it, swearing if she ever saw another cave, it would be too soon.
They quickly bundled both children up and accepted blankets for themselves while hurrying over to one of the fires that had been started on the beach. The sun fell lower in the sky as the moon got higher. The adventure had taken nearly a whole day, and the kids had been wet, battered, starved, and freezing for most of it. They'd both be lucky if they came out of this without pneumonia. Leave it to Naruto to get Pneumonia in the subtropics.
Nina's family surrounded her in a crying hugging heap of people passing her back and forth, and she was smothered with affection and all the blankets and clean dry clothing they could acquire before they even made it over to the fire pit. "Get some of that soup into her as soon as you can!" Tsunade barked across the excited crowd.
This had turned into a pretty big spectacle. It looked like the whole town had turned out to see how the disaster ended. Taking her own advice, she accepted a bowl from a smiling woman and immediately began to spoon it into Naruto's slack mouth. His cheeks were flushing now with fever, but at least he was warmer. His head lay limply against her shoulder, but he swallowed on his own, and his breathing was a little easier.
One of the nurses they worked with in the hospital crouched down to see if they needed anything else and Shizune shook her head after a quick glance at her mentor, "No, he was hurt pretty badly, but he'll be okay now. How is Nina?"
"She's fine, Shizune-san. Chattering her adventure to everyone who will listen! It sounds like your nephew there is a real hero." The woman grinned. "I'm so glad everything worked out alright!"
Shizune winced, glad Tsunade was too busy with Naruto to pay attention to their conversation, "I'm glad it worked out too, but don't let Tsunade hear you call Naru-chan a hero. She's kind of touchy about the 'h' word."
The nurse blinked, but wasn't really surprised. Tsunade-sama was a brilliant woman. Really strange, but brilliant. "Um, okay. Will you be taking him home, or should I go make up a bed at the hospital?"
"Tsunade-sama will want him at home. Better count on just one of us taking shifts for the next few days. This illness is somewhat chronic, and it takes him about a week to get over the really rough part of it."
She nodded and stood up, "I'll talk to the shift manager, but I'm sure it will be fine. Take care of him, and let me know if there's anything, any of us can do! We're all eager to help."
Shizune smiled in gratitude, "Thank you, I appreciate it, and I know Sensei does too."
†
Three days after they'd been pulled out of the cave, Naruto finally woke up. It was the middle of the night, and with the blinds pulled, for a moment he was afraid he was still in the cave. The dim light in the room eventually began to make things take shape for him, and he realized the weight on his legs was TonTon, and the breaths he could hear were his Kaa-san's. She'd fallen asleep in the chair beside the bed again. She did that a lot, even when he wasn't sick. She never wanted to talk about it, but it wasn't rare for him to find her dozing there sometimes if he woke up especially early in the mornings.
He was achy all over, and his breath burned in the way it always did when he was chakra sick. He could hardly keep his eyes open; he was so weak, so he let them fall closed, secure in the fact that everything would still be okay when he woke up.
The sweet smell of ramen roused him the next morning, and he found a tray of his favorite miso flavored noodle-y treat sitting with a glass of milk over his legs. His kaa-san's smiling face greeted him, and she kissed his forehead. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Squirt. Think you can eat something for me?"
He paused a moment to think about it. It smelled soooo good, but sometimes he couldn't choke anything down for a while after an attack like that. Finally he nodded, his assessment of himself telling him he was better enough to fill his stomach without losing his cookies.
"That's my boy!" She gently ruffled his hair, careful not to jostle him too much and set off a headache that could leave him incapacitated for hours, then scooted the tray closer to him and pulled him up into a semi-sitting position so he could eat it.
His hands shook a little, but he was strong enough to work the chopsticks on his own, so she let him have at it, watching him like she was afraid he'd disappear at any moment if she so much as blinked. "We're putting the Sōzō Saisei (Genesis Rebirth Seal) on you tomorrow, Brat."
He paused with a glob of noodles halfway to his mouth and raised an eyebrow at her in question. He knew better than to talk until his throat healed from all the coughing he'd no doubt done in however long he'd been asleep.
"You could have died in there because Kyuubi had to heal you. If you'd had my seal, you could have prevented that. It's too dangerous for a ninja to be incapacitated so quickly after a wound. Times like these may happen on missions where you won't be able to get medical help but need to keep going."
He sighed and finished taking the halted bite of noodles.
"Don't argue with me. It's for your own good."
He rolled his eyes.
"I'm your mother, and I know what's best!"
Now he stuck his tongue out.
"Why you!"
Shizune groaned from the doorway. Even when Naruto was too sick to speak, they still managed to have arguments! She cleared her throat, and the Senju stopped tormenting each other to look in her direction, "Naru-chan's got a visitor." She grinned and stepped aside to let a little dark haired girl and her fluffy white dog barrel excitedly through the doorway and bounce onto the bed. Nina's father watched protectively from behind Shizune and carefully set a loosely wrapped gift on a side table just inside the room.
"Naruto-kun! You're awake! I was SO, worried! Muffy was too! We brought you a present, and I picked it out myself!" The little dog barked at the mention of his name, and Tsunade reached over to steady the tray of food before the children and pet could upset it.
Nina's father leaned over to Shizune and whispered, "The gift is an ivy plant – it symbolizes affection, and it reminded her of the designs on his face." He grinned a bit, "I think it's very cute." Shizune looked shocked for a moment, and then had to stifle giggles. She couldn't wait until Naruto opened his gift. Hopefully it wouldn't try to strangle him.
"Nina's been to visit you every day since we got you out." Tsunade said with a grin, unaware of what was going on in the doorway, and then she leaned over to whisper in her son's ear, "I think she likes you." Naruto made a horrible face, and she burst out laughing. "I'll just take this away for now. You can have the rest when Nina-chan goes home."
She stood to carry the tray to the kitchen past the two other adults now standing in the hall. Shizune went into the room to make sure Nina didn't get Naruto too riled up while he was still so weak and sick, and the girl's father followed the Sannin.
"We don't know how to thank you." He murmured when he'd gotten Tsunade's attention. "Your son saved our Nina's life. She'd have drowned for sure if it weren't for him. If there's anything I can ever do…" he stuck his hand out to her, and she accepted it nonchalantly.
"That's just how Naru-chan is. He can't help it. It's a genetic defect."
The man looked confused for several moments, then grinned a little and scratched at the back of his neck, "Well, anyway, if you're ever in Water Country and need help, just ask for the Daimyo's brother." He grinned, "This is the last time we take a vacation at the shore like normal tourists."
Tsunade blinked, "Daimyo's brother?" 'Damn…Naru-chan knows how to pick them…'
"Yes, well, the pleasure is all mine, Senju Tsunade of the Legendary Sannin." He winked, and then spun on a heel. "Nina-chan! It's time to go! Naruto-kun is sick and needs his rest, and we have to meet up with our guards for the trip back to the capital!"
"Coming, Daddy!"
They were gone without further fanfare.
"Guards?" Shizune came out of Naruto's room, blinking in surprise.
"Naruto-kun's little friend is the Daimyo of Water Country's niece."
"…Oh. For some reason, I'm not surprised." Shizune laughed, and then reached for the oddly shaped package their guests had left behind and carried it over to her grumpy looking nephew.
"Here, Naru-chan! Open up Nina's present." Naruto accepted the gift with a weird look at the two adults and tentatively began to unwrap it.
As soon as he had the paper opened at the top, a vine of ivy came streaking out and wrapped itself around his arm, curling up to his face to affectionately nuzzle his cheek. The boy made a strangled 'Erk'-ing sound of surprise and Shizune began to giggle.
Tsunade rolled her eyes and went to help untangle her son. The vine was tenacious though, and seemed extremely upset about being pulled away. How she could tell that the plant was upset, she wasn't quite sure, but it just sort of felt that way. Naruto looked pleadingly up at her from his entangled state and she couldn't help but join her apprentice in laughing. "I'm afraid it likes you, Naruto! You'll just have to keep it."
He sighed and glared down at the delicate leaves now laying innocently against his chest, though he could feel a second tendril sneak up to pet his hair. He scowled. Why did this always happen? It was so thoroughly annoying, and his guardians got far too much amusement out of it. They'd begun clinging to each other because they were laughing so hard at the petting! It wasn't fair. Ivy nuzzled his neck in sympathy.
'This is all your fault,' he mouthed silently at the plant, but it didn't seem chastised in the least.
†
Japanese Notes:
Sōzō Saisei - Genesis Rebirth. This is Tsunade's seal on her forehead that lets her regenerate but takes time off of her total lifespan to do it.
A/N: Thanks for the inspiration for Ivy goes to the wonderful reviewer, Siegfriedzz, who always throws me amazing ideas. ;)
Don't forget, we're doing the same thing with the 200th reviewer as we did with the 100th - winner gets fanart as a prize! If nothing comes up, I should have the previous prize done this weekend!
Don't forget about the title art in my profile! :) Thanks for reading!