Thank you to all my reviews so far, It's always so encouraging to receive them! Also there has been a delay, finishing exams, getting wasted and moving to the other side of the country took a lot out of me and now working a 9-5 jobs leaves me even more limited… buut moving onto that drama.

The story is getting ready to enter into a new 'arc' (I suppose you could call it) which takes place over the winter season when in my verse fighting is restricted - although they'll still be some fighting. From this point onwards there a lot more Madara and Izuna. I've kinda experimented with their relationship a bit… let me know how it goes over the next few chapters.

Chapter 11

On arrival to the camp she was quickly taken from Madara's assistance and rushed to the medics tent where her injuries where quickly assessed by Ebisu himself. Second later Inare found herself on a hard makeshift bed being held down by two men she had never seen before, as Ebisu cut open her leg to expose her thigh bone before he began fusing two broken pieces together.

The scream that was torn from her could have shattered ear drums. "Someone shut her up!" Ebisu snapped and what tasted like a month old sock was shoved into her mouth. Her gagging didn't stop her teeth from tightly clamping down onto it.

Inare really wished she had passed out before she'd lost her voice as she woke up hours later parched with a sore throat, which was one pain she really could have done without.

A day later she was recovered enough sit up without feeling like she would pass out. There was no comfort in recovering in a shinobi camp. Every day faced a new danger, and luxuries of a quiet room with a good breeze and a comfortable bed where just not going to happen.

Instead she had the privilege of resting in a stuffy tent, her clammy skin unwashed and her clothes sticking like a second skin in the most uncomfortable of places as she rested on the thin roll-mat that offered no comfort.

So for that, her initial recovery was miserable. The days where spent feverish, sweaty and hungry as she was too ill to keep anything other than water down and overall having a horrendous time. Hisoka regularly kept her company through the nights of her initial recovery, but left her throughout the day, with only Toke occasionally dropping in to check on her.

When the sickness passed, everything from her upper thigh down to mid-calf was constricted to a hard-set bandaging that would not let her move any of her right leg. As such, nearly everything was restricted and she now needed a crutch which she had inherited from someone. It was uncomfortable, lacking any padding for her underarm, but it was steady and kept her from toppling over. At least most the time.

Her recovery left her with a lot of time to ponder on the events of that night. Each of her actions were broken down and examined critically, and each time she would come up short of anything competent. It left her with no alternative but to accept that she was grossly incompetent for anything closely resembling combat.

The emotional upheaval she had felt in that one night had terrified her. Every part of her had been prepared to kill that man, even to die doing so. Her capacity to actually carry such act out had been proven insufficient, yet the willingness to commit to such a decision continued to unhinge her.

While she wanted to avoid thinking about the night, it was near impossible to do so whenever she would catch a glance of that damn scroll. That inoffensive thing had been flung across her tent during her boredom out of a considerable amount of spite, but still managed to find a way back to her roll-mat.

Inare could not bring herself to read it. Whatever had been it was enough to drive that Shun man insane. Something that she wanted no part in, and so she continued to successfully ignore the faint curiosity. Unlike her, the damn scroll had made it through the battle relatively unharmed. The decorated wooden coat having protected it from nearly all the damage, although now it was decorated with both mud and Inare's blood. Two things that she had come to really despite the last few days, even now she would occasionally find a random smear of her blood somewhere on her.

It would be an entire week before she could get a proper wash, and even then it was with a cloth and fell short of anything close to satisfactory. It would then take an additional week and a battle later before Inare could even bring herself to thinking about approaching Madara about that night.

She knew it had to be done. She wanted to avoid it at all costs, but if she was to move past this she at least needed to approach him about it. It shamed her beyond anything she had ever felt, to have shown someone, an effective stranger no less, such level of emotional upheaval. For her it was wrong in so many ways. She hadn't wanted to cry, just to be done with it all.

But she could never be done with it.

It took her much longer than she wanted to arrive at his tent, thankfully he was in and alone when she popped her head through. If he wasn't, she had told herself that she wouldn't come back. It took too much energy to hop over there. Too much of everything.

Without saying anything, she threw to him the scroll that she had kept on her person for the past six days.

"What's this?" Holding the water crisped scroll in his hands, looking up at Inare curiously. It was late and with her injury he expected that she should still be resting to recover, not standing at the entrance to his tent.

"Compensation for… helping me."

"I think the words you looking for is, 'saving' you."

"Whatever," Inare dismissed, "it's also so that you can't haul me up on keeping secrets from your clan. Shun, the man th…" Inare swallowed thickly, "well, he threw this at me and began raving about the time being right, along with some other crazy shit." Inare quietly shook her head at the memory of the mad man. "I only realised now the reason he was so persistent in following me might have been because I had accidentally taken it with me." Sighing out with a small nervous laugh to try and hide the scary fact that he had just wanted to get her hands on her for whatever reason his warped mind had decided. "Makes me feel a little silly now I think back on it."

He nodded, looking down at the scroll curiously, but didn't look as if he in any hurry to look at it. "He did not seem to be in the right state of mind. That you got away is praiseworthy to your tenacity for survival… or just your luck."

"God's know that can't last," she snorted. Brushing her clean hands off on her brown apron. It was clean this time, surprisingly, at least clean in a relative sense. It still bore all the blood stains and the like.

"Anyway. Compensation done. I should b-"

"A thank you wouldn't kill you."

Inare made a face. "Yeah, you know what? I don't think you really care about receiving thank you's. That you even helped me to begin with is still a little surprising to me. One foreign medic should be disposable," a hand waiving in the air dismissively. She hadn't intended it, but her bitterness still leaked into her tone.

"Whatever opinion you may have of me, which you are entitled to have and frankly I don't care about, know one thing: I am not the war monger you seem to keep implying that I am, nor do I take my clan into battle for my own entertainment. And you are wrong, a medic, foreign or not, is never disposable."

Inare wanted to laugh at his statement, but held back on the account that the sincerity in his tone didn't hold even a trace of arrogance or false confidence. At least not to her ears. "I'll take your word for it," she mumbled, shifting uncomfortably on her injured leg.

Strange details came to her mind that she had never through to notice before. The crusted mud, or blood, around his nails. The faint scars along his hands and forearms. Gaining a little confidence, she lifted her attention to his face and quickly noticed his sunken eyes, greyed complexion and matted hair. The beginnings of a stubble of his face and his seemingly smooth skin was dry and flaky in areas.

War was taking a toll on him the same way it took the same toll from everyone. She couldn't quite put her finger on why she thought he was coping better than most. He was just human after all.

Inare could complain and whine as much as she wanted, but she didn't have to put up a front of strength, support and leadership. Even if she did, she would be able to find someone to vent with.

Who did Madara have?

She supposed he had his brother he cherished so much, but that man seemed too stern and single-minded to let himself unwind. "Your right. I may have been a little superficial in my initial opinion of you." Inare would not apologise for it, but she would at least acknowledge her mistakes in judgement.

Swallowing her uncertainty away, she pulled out the bottle that she had stacked in the drawstring bag she'd slung around her uninjured side. She had plans to down the whole lot on her own behind some crate, allowing herself wallow in drunken glory. Out of sight and alone. But now having witnessed his strange display of slight openness, she wasn't sure she wanted to be alone anymore.

"So…" she drew out, her mind still not really made up. "…as a way of truce…" Shaking the bottle gently to let the sloshes of the content be heard, Inare offered him a lopsided smile, "…fancy having a drink?"

"War really is hell. Whether you win or lose, you always loose more than you get. Still, while the winner can count what they won on their fingers and comfort themselves by saying that what they lost was the price they had to pay for it. All a loser can count up is what they lost. Allies they couldn't protect. Enemies they could of cut down." A deep drink from the bottle, she set it down between them. "Really makes you wonder what it's all for in the end."

Madara swiped it up fluidly. "There isn't. Whether your victorious or you're defeated. No matter what you protect or what you lose, there's no meaning in it. No matter how you tidy it up, it's a pointless act leaving nothing but corpses in its wake." He downed the remaining of the bottle much to Inare's ire. There had just been under half of it left!

Deciding this would be the last time she ever shared her sake with him, she leaned back and thought about the direction their conversation had taken. "Damn, we are a couple of depressing people."

It had only taken them twenty minutes to empty the first bottle, before had Inare slowly hobbled away leaving her crutches despite the complaints from Madara, to collect her final bottle of sake. From where, Madara did not know, but wasn't going to turn away the gift.

It had been some time since he last drank, and while he would have preferred company he was more used to, he couldn't entirely complain. Most of those he drank with were already dead.

With the second bottle now finished, he half expected her to dash off and get another one. Although, even she clearly had a limit to her resourcefulness.

"Your drunk," he reasoned.

"That's worse," Inare returned miserably while stifling a yawn, "if we're depressed while drunk. What's the point in alcohol? It's supposed to make you happy and have fun, not sit around feeling sorry about all the world's problems."

"Then stop drinking, or thinking. Same things at this point." His eyes drifted shut as he faced up to the clear night sky.

"Says you. Your just as drunk as me." "I'm not. I'm clearly handling this better than you." "But we've drank nearly the same amount." She huffed out and shuffled besides him, only then remembering that he'd definitely hogged most of the booze. They were sat away from the encampment, but it had been a quiet few days and the scouts reports had given them at least another weeks of a warning before any Senju would be within attacking range.

"Madara." Inare hissed out. Silence. Again she hissed his name. Again no response. "You awake?" She tried one last time.

"Be quiet."

"I don't want to."

"You're a really chatty drunk aren't you? It's annoying."

"Better than the sad miserable drunk you are."

"Talk for yourself."

"I'm only depressing right now because you're here. Think of it as social pressure."

"Social pressure to be miserable?"

She hummed in agreement.

"That's a real shame," he idly commented, voice droning out.

"Like you care," her eyes were closed too, and if they stayed closed much longer she was bound to fall asleep. Knowing it was likely the same for Madara, she kicked his leg. "Wake up lazy. Go to bed if your gonna sleep."

"I'm not sleeping… just resting my eyes."

"Like I haven't heard that one before."

She sucked in a deep breath. Holding it in till her lungs burned with the need to release and her head chest began to quiver with the desperations. Loudly she exhaled. Why?

Petulance mostly.

She had her moments.

"Would you just be quiet?" He finally snapped. Sitting upright, she glared over at her visibly irritated drinking companion, joy spreading through her as her warmed drunken mind released an uncharacteristic giggle.

"You really should not be allowed to drink," Madara mumbled.

"Nope. I should always be allowed to drink… just not when I haven't eaten all day."

A brief roll of his eyes before he settled her with a hard stare. "Wait… okay… that is more my responsibility… but someone should really remind me of these things."

"You know what is find incredible?"

She shook her head, her long loose hair smacking them both. A dull stare greeted her once she was finished and she offered a sheepish grin as he continued. "That for all the intelligence that you clearly possess. You are strangely incapable of behaving with anything that vaguely resembles rationality."

She laughed. Melodic cheer flowing from her with ease. The alcohol made it funnier than it really was. "You're the second person to tell that to me. No quite with those words, she tended to be harsher with her words."

"Miraculous that you didn't die in between." He dryly offered. Despite her position in relation to this man, her unrestrained mind let her deliver a hard smack to his forearm. He rose a fine brow at her behaviour, but didn't raise any protest against her actions. In her drunkenness she would have likely just laughed it off anyway.

As long as she didn't act as such when they were both sober and in the company of his soldiers, he could let it slide.

"The first person that told me that was my master. Kirno, you remember me mentioning her." The blatant pride that she carried with her words made him snort at the misplaced tone. This girl was all over the place after a few drinks. "She was incredible." Inare whispered. "Horrible." The word came out choked. "She really could never tell you anything that even closely resembled niceness. Just as likely to kick you out as she was to show you some care." She went quiet. Leading back against the barrel, her eyes drifted closed. "I miss her." It was barely a whisper, but Madara caught her words clearly.

"You masochist," he snorted, leaning back against his own support, he followed suit and closed his eyes. Inare joined him with a soft tired laugh of her own. He then let himself reveal to her, "But, we all miss someone." She didn't hear, her soft snores coming quickly to his surprise. Then again, with the last few days that they had all had, he wasn't surprised given at how much chakra she had expelled not long ago. She must still have been incredibly exhausted.

While she had been clumsy at best, the advantage that his group had of having a medic on hand could not go overlooked. Three men he could have easily passed to blood loss if she had not been there.

It made him think of the benefits of having at least one medic on the battle field at all times. They were usually so confined to holdings and encampments, protected by their respective clans. Losing a medic would always hit hard.

Not that he would ever choose to have Inare on the field. Untrained, it was truly only because Daichi had kept so close to her that she had been relatively unharmed. He scoffed at his captains teams dedication to that girl. Isshin and his lot were persistent in ensuring Inare's continuous safety.

Not that he could exactly judge the man. Madara was exactly the same, if not more so, when it came to Izuna. As long as Isshin did not challenge his orders, he could continue to let him humour himself with thinking he could care for the girl.

With a sigh, he cast his eyes back over Inare. She would not be budging any time soon unless he got her to move. He should have just taken the bottle off of her when she first proposed they have a drink together. Alcohol was banned from the encampment, not that he didn't know the stuff went around secretly. As long as it was secret it didn't matter. He simply did not want large celebrations and loud, rowdy shinobi that would be useless.

Then here she was, presenting to him a forbidden item and even wanting share. Madara really could not decide if she was smart or not at this point. Rising to his feet, choosing now to be the end of their little drinking session. He nudged her hip with a foot. She grumbled, and curled in on herself.

"Medic." Madara grunted down to her. Now feeling the effects of the alcohol on himself. "Get up and into bed. You're a sitting duck out here."

She grumbled again, and seemed to completely ignore him. Dead asleep.

With a sigh, Madara crouched down and slipped his arms under her neck and her knees taking care to not aggravate her wounds. He hadn't wanted to carry her, she wasn't an infant but he didn't have much choice. With a slow lift, because he knew if he went to fast he would have fallen down. Not something he in his right mind could ever let himself do. A drunken clan head failing at carrying a woman, he could only imagine what the rumours would sound like.

It was a mild challenge to juggle Inare and her crutch, gathering all in his arms without dropping the sleeping woman. It took a moment, but he managed.

With Inare securely in his arms, he trudged back towards the centre of the camp. He didn't know where it was she slept, but he recalled seeing her a number of times sleeping in the medics tent. There had to be at least one mat there that he could put her on to sleep the night, and alcohol, away.

Not that she would be getting a nice wakeup in the morning with all the early morning rushing and activities. Ebisu would likely see her and kick her out for taking up precious space.

Entering the large medics tent, he saw a number of familiar faces that he had fought with a few mornings ago, most were asleep, two were up, one bandaged from head to toe playing cards giving them a curious glance. The other, Isshin, was startled to see them both enter. It must have been the alcohol that made him respond as such. He grinned at the man.

As he put down Inare on a free roll mat that looked like it had been occupied recently, his grin remained. Inside he was laughing at the shocked look on Isshin's face, as well as laughing at his own stupidity at letting himself be brought down to the level of teasing the captain.

He laid Inare down gently, pulled over a nearby blanket and lay it over her. Each move deliberate and gentle. He would have just tossed the blanket over her if Isshin hadn't been there.

Rising, he gave her one glance over, before his eyes briefly touched upon Isshin.

Then left.

"There's something that I have been considering for some time now."

"This can't be good." Inare grumbled, looking decidedly hungover, her hair an unkempt mess and her face a little swollen. Leaning heavily on one crutch, Inare shifted to rest her hip on a tall crate that contained weapons. Tiredness evident in all her features from the darkened eyes and the fading bruises on her cheek. The split in her lip seemed to have reopened since he had last seen her, her dried lips made him suspect that she had been worrying it.

"How would you feel about training a small number of shinobi in medical ninjutsu."

She certainly had not been expecting that question from her surprise, he wasn't blessed long with the slightly gratifying look as it quickly morphed into unhidden suspicion. "Why?" She didn't even try to hide her instant dislike of the idea.

"You saved three of my men the other day that, in any other situation, would have died. I want more people like you… that can actually fight, out in the battles to provide quick relief to the injured. So in that sense, completely unlike you, but with your healing skills."

She bit her lip, wincing when that irritating habit of hers ended up with her biting the deep slip on her lower lip. "Don't hold back on the praises there," she grumbled.

"I try not to," he quickly responded so that he could direct the conversation to his suggestion. "So?"

"I don't really like the idea."

No surprise in her response. Ebisu complained at her lack of involvement in anything other than direct healing. While she was dutiful in her healing job, she always attempted to keep an emotional distance. She would rarely ever aid with the deceased, as all the medics did. The only time he had ever heard of her doing so was the time he had near forced her to.

"Why is that?"

"You heal them in the field… and they get right back up and right back into fighting. Only to probably end up dead because they are not well recovered. I know what your people are like. They have no restraint when it comes to a fight." Breathing out slowly, Inare tried to school her emotions on the topic. "As a medic that has chosen to practice the art of healing and care. I cannot condone that."

"That may be true for some, but do not judge them all by that standard. To ignore that, is condeming them to a needless death that could be avoided." Madara hummed, knowing that he would do the same in the field. "By that logic, you shouldn't be condoning all that you do now."

She looked down silently to the ground, disturbed emotions in her eyes. "We don't always have the choice in these things." Once again the concept of choices rose between them, and Madara was beginning to get the faintest impression that she went by her life believing she had no choices.

"Well you have a choice now." Rising to his feet, Inare took a step back when he approached her, landing a hand on her shoulder. "I am asking you, not as a Clan leader, but as someone who is tired of seeing my family dying day in and day out when there is that slim chance that they could live a little longer, if there was someone to help them in the field."

Swallowing guiltily, Inare hated him in that moment for speaking to her like this. Why did he chose today of all days to make her feel guilty about stuff. She was already emotionally and physically exhausted, the hangover seemed to tie together her misery quite neatly.

"Train just two people. That is all I am asking."

"What about your other medics?"

"They are all busy right now. And with you off your feet," glancing down at her bandaged leg that did not touch the ground and the heavy leaning against the makeshift crutch, "mostly, your time would be better spent training other people to help out. It will lessen the burden on you and the other medics."

"Do you really want four people off the field and sat with me learning all the dry stuff about healing?"

"No, not right now. In a month, after we pack up and head to the outpost to dig in the for the coming winter. We use the winter period for training and development, as well as recuperation. That is when you would have the freedom to train them as much as you are willing to."

Inare thought that through. By her estimations she still had at least four months before her leg would be fully functional. Not straining herself while working with the other medics did sound appealing, and would lessen the burden on her recovering leg. The winter would be a time when she could rehabilitate her leg and slowly bring it back to functional use. She grimaced at the thought of such a long time being classified as injured.

"One."

Raising a brow, Madara looked down at her questioningly.

"One?"

"I'll train two of your shinobi."

He could have laughed at the sudden determination on her face. So she thought that she could bargain with him? "Four."

Making a face, Inare bit the inside of her mouth. "Two."

"Four." The exact same tone and with the exact same face, it was obvious that she had got nowhere in this haggling business she had started.

She decided to caved on two, seeing that she would likely only get out of this by meeting him halfway. "Three, and I won't train any more than that."

"You'll training four people."

"You think training medics is like going out, picking a dog and just training it to sit and fetch? Some people can and other can't, it's a nasty reality, but it's a fact."

He said nothing, just looked down on her, hand still on her shoulder. "Okay. You can choose them yourself. I'll pass out a message that we are looking for shinobi to be trained. You can decide for yourself who will be good enough."

"Fine." She brushed his hand off she shoulder nonchalantly, hoping not to come across as having been bothered by how long it had been resting on her. "I'll train some, if I can find any of your shinobi competent enough to even do the training. It can only be basic. Simple healing jutsu and the like… if…" and now Inare couldn't believe she was even suggesting this, "if you would think it would be advantageous, I can train others with some techniques that could increase the survival rate of your fighters. Techniques that don't involve chakra."

"I think that is an excellent idea." Quite enjoying how easily she gave into his suggestion. While her stubborn streak ran deep to the point of being brattish at time, Inare, for lack of better words, was a relatively good hearted person.

Too good hearted, that in this current age she could easily be mistaken as pitiably naïve. Madara didn't even think that she was entirely aware of her dedication to others. "I'll put out a message looking for volunteers, I'll leave the selection to your capable hands."

"If there is even anyone that could do the training."

With a recent turn of the weather, the ground was increasingly muddier and Inare had to suffer through the mud coated shoes and bottom of her skirts. It left the mood around the encampment depressingly down.

Even on her crutch Inare was expected to work with the other medics. It was frustrating but somewhat bearable given that she was delegated to deal with those that where healing. The Uchiha recovering from a stab wound was the good natured sort. Generous and likeable, always offering Inare his bread roll that he didn't like. It took all of two days before she could no longer stand his constant niceness.

Thankfully he had come down with a fever and had been sleeping for a number of hours, leaving her free of his pestering chatter. Her wound had definitely made her a lot more irritable these days, and she wasn't entirely against the emotion.

For the last hour it had only been her and Ebisu in the tent and with nothing really happening at the moment she slowly made her way over toward the entrance of the tent to wait on the students she was expecting.

Leaning against the sturdy wooden support pole of the tent with the most of the weight, Inare relaxed up on her injured leg.

"If we run out of hydrogen peroxide to vaporise and sterilise equipment and the environment, what would be your alternative?" Inare jumped at the sudden question and nearly yelped aloud when her injured leg jammed down on the grown.

Ebisu occasionally did this to her, suddenly appearing in her peripheral vision and challenge her with a question. Typically it was a range of symptoms which she had to quickly diagnose, and if she didn't do it quick enough then he'd walk away tutting.

Inare couldn't guess why he did this, keeping her on her toes and alert to multiple challenges or to just test her knowledge. Whatever the reason she definitely knew there was a right answer that she had to get and his judgement of her depended entirely on response. This was something that she took seriously.

Yet todays challenge was definitely different, her gut response of was only fuelled by the fact that this was indeed a predicament she had been in before.

A slow smiled grew on his face, "you've a sharp mind there."

A sly smile grew on her on recognising the compliment. "It has its moments," she honestly tried to remain indifferent to it but could already begin to feel her neck and cheeks heat up.

Snorting in response, Ebisu made to grin at the young woman when a cough was ripped from him. Inare instinctively lurched forward to assist him to a stall when his cough didn't stop at the one. "You alright there?"

"Just a tickle at the back of my throat," he hoarsely managed to get out before another cough was torn from him.

"Alright," she mumbled in response. The weather was getting cooler, so she supposed that colds and flu could begin to spread. If she could have Inare would have crouched down to his level to get a better look, instead all she could manage was clumsily offering him the glass.

She remained by him till his coughing eased and then some, moving away as he began to get his breath back after the coughing fit. When remaining was just awkward, she slowly shifted back to the entrance again giving him the appropriate space.

"So how did you get into learning the many complex ways in which a body can be pulled back together?" Ebisu wanted to know.

The question surprised her. It wasn't as if Ebius and her were particularly close, so he had no reason to know. Then again, there was nothing else to do so the man was likely curious.

"That's one way to put it I guess," Inare had to chuff. The aged man was the picturesque description of grumpiness. "My guardian began teaching me one day, she said at the time that it was either that or I likely go drafted to fight. I don't think I'd be much good in a fight. Panic way too easily."

"Hn. Poor medic if you can't fight."

"I've never needed to fight before," Inare felt like she needed to defend herself on some level, yet the unconvinced glance that Ebisu made down to her leg left her a little flushed. Like she needed further reminding of her incompetence.

"You? Did you… do you fight?"

"Fight!" He laughed. "Child, you don't make it far in this clan without being able to fight. Don't let age fool you, I could still floor you child."

Inare had to grin at that, even the youngest Uchiha's probably had better odd against her. "If you can fight, then why healing? What drew you to medical ninjutsu?"

"Sometimes it is not the desire but the need."

"You clan was low on medics then."

"That was the case. I must have been close to your age at the time, maybe a little younger. I suppose that my chakra was good enough, so I volunteered."

"That's sounding pretty familiar."

"I heard that's what you're here for?"

"Yep, I hear that too," not that she needed the reminder.

Inare was nowhere near being mature enough to have students. Not the mention that fact that they would all be well experienced killers, something that she was pretty uncomfortable with. At least she didn't have to teach them the basics of chakra and control, so that was one benefit of it all.

She just needed to handpick the shinobi with the best chakra control.

Inare had spent the last three days running up to this moments racking her brain through her own training to think of something, anything, that she could use to thin out the herd.

Her training had spanned over ten years, but as Madara had so friendly informed her this morning, she would only have the four months stationed at 'Hideout' in order to produce adequately trained medics.

Wonderful.

She certainly had her hands full. Except right now she only had one hand, as the other was permanently holding onto her crutch. "Yes…" she grumbled to herself.

Ebisu chuckled at her enthusiasm, reaching up to pat the hand gripping her crutch. It didn't do much to offer her much encouragement. "Never thought I'd live to see the day when a foreigner trained an Uchiha."

Inare snorted at that, "Well, I don't think you guys are exactly known for your medicine."

"We most certainly are not," he laughed at her retort, shaking his head in thought before finishing, "so maybe that's not all so bad."

Shifting on her bad leg a little, Inare had to lean against the main post that supported the medics tent to ease up on her bad leg. "We'll have to see about that. I was a shit student, so I seriously doubt I would make a good teacher to anyone."

"Don't weigh that so badly on yourself. Even the poorest of students can make a decent teacher, you have to be able to bring out the best in your student. I myself was an awful student, when I found that limitations that being a medic of clan began to impose on me I… well," he scratched his chin, "I suppose you could say I rebelled."

Inare waited for him to elaborate on that, as the cat-like smirk he held was very questionable. He didn't and Inare got the impression he was purposely withholding it. What does an disgruntled Uchiha medic consider as rebelling? Well, if his teacher had been anything like hers, then running away to heal victims of a war might be the case yet for some reason she suspected it was not the same. "Like I said, we'll see. First, my volunteers have to show up."

"You aren't meeting them here are you? Because if you are, make sure you get out of my tent when you start doing whatever you want," Inare hadn't even managed a nod of confirmation before she was effectively being kicked out.

She resisted outright frowning and instead turned her attention to the tent entrance. The sky was grey again, a permanent fixture for the last few days. It wasn't even properly raining, just like a permanent drip and it sure did make the day miserable.

It was well past the time when Madara had informed her that the volunteers would be showing up, and every second that passed and no potential student showed up Inare felt both glee and hints of disappointment.

If none did show up then so be it.

"You even expecting many?"

Inare shifted again on her leg, flexing the muscles as much as she could as an itch began to grow on the sealed leg. "No idea."

Behind them the was the tortured sound of a severely injured Uchiha waking up from a restful slumber. And he was in pain. Ebisu chuffed one last time before rising to his feet slowly and heading back into the tent, grumbling about lack of respect for his feet.

Inare watched him leave with a grin, glad that it was not her in charge of the man. Inare had been told that the man was impaled by a tree root, something that she was still trying to work her head around. Turning back towards the entrance, Inare was briefly startled at the sight of a young boy at the entrance.

Her first instinct was there was an injury, so she shifted and made to address him, but once she paid proper attention she recognised him.

He was out of breath and red faced, leaning forward while resting his hands on his knees. "Sorry…" he panted, "that," still panting. He didn't seem injured, and he began apologising so she wasn't expecting anything bad. "I'm late."

Slowly he began to stand and Inare rose a questioning brow at the large grin on his face. It wasn't often that someone came to the medics tent with a smile. Now that she thought about, late for what?

"Isshin had scheduled us for training all morning, and I lost track of time. But I am really excited for this Miss Inare! I will work really hard for this."

"Toke, what are you on about?" He couldn't have been a volunteer, she had complained consistently to Isshin for the last two weeks. She would have thought he'd have told her if Toke was volunteering.

"Yeah. Isshin said I should give it a go. I wanted to… but I didn't know if I could… you know? With the chakra control being really specific for it." His shyness was endearing, but Inare looked on sceptically. The two of them had messed around a few weeks ago playing with various chakra control challenges, he was nothing above average.

"Is that your new student?" Ebisu shouted from behind and Inare glanced back from where he was restraining a man while checking his wounds. Inare knew he didn't have long before the guy was probably getting a whack on the head to knock him out.

"I, err…" Inare couldn't respond. She was supposed to choose from a group. Herd out those with the best chakra control. Instead she had one boy, whose chakra would require immense levels of training to get it up to a suitable level.

"Well at least there's one," Ebisu sounded encouraging as he lifted a hand an brought it down heavily onto the resisting patient. Inare and Toke both winces as she watched on, then Inare turned to face Toke. A forced smile worked its way up on her face.

Well, at least she liked the boy.

"I heard you've taken on an apprentice. To be honest I was pretty convinced you'd not take on any at all."

Giving him a dull look, Inare didn't say anything and kept on pushing her food around and internally berating herself. Of course he would come over to say that. "It wasn't planned," she grumbled after a large mouthful.

"Even then, I cannot tell guess what possessed you to choose that boy. He would not have been my first choice in anything. He's clumsy. How Isshin has put up with him till now I'll never know."

"Okay, just because I've said that I've taken him on doesn't mean I'll be able to do anything with him. But regardless of the outcome, he wants to lean and to me that is move of an asset than anything else," she snapped at him. Something she still had not entirely convinced herself of, but she was definitely taking that as better than the required chakra control.

Raising both hands, Madara gave her a humoured look. "Just my opinion. Glad that you are serious about taking on the responsibility as a teacher. Although, not sure if I am all for those mother hen tendencies that are beginning to shine through."

"I don't have mother hen tendencies," her defensive attitude coupled with the crossing of her arms was too funny for him and Madara let out a snort of laughter. "You keep telling yourself that."

Inare motioned to swat him away as if he was a fly, while his chuckle lasted a little longer. When it died down, Madara stopped leaned against the crate near where Inare was finishing up the rest of her meal.

"Everything okay on your end?" She asked, not knowing why she decided to keep the conversation going.

"Same as it always is."

Inare nodded in understanding of what he meant. Glancing another look at him in his dust coated armour, weapons still on his person. "When did you make it back?"

"Less than twenty minutes ago. We were out for six hours. The fight ran eastwards into farming lands, mostly corn fields. The weathers been dry the last few days, we ended up setting the whole fields ablaze."

"You make that sound like a good thing," Inare muttered, no liking the sound of that at all.

"Someone's going to lose their work for the year. It was not a good thing."

Glad that he acknowledged that, Inare nodded again. "You're not injured are you?" Seeing that as the only reason for him to still be there with her.

A short bark of laughter. "No, I'm fine. It wasn't exactly a battle, we were just meant to be surveying the further reaches of Uchiha territory when we ran into trouble." He finished as his attention drifted to the sword strapped to his waist.

Madara then straightened up, as if he was waiting on something and Inare was beginning to get a little uncomfortable with him handing around this long. "Is there something else you want?"

He was fiddling with a chain that attached his fan to a sickle, making it look like the chain had come loose from the sickle. "Well… if you have a moment-"

"His body… it must… be…" Inare mumbled out as she stared down the lenses into the microscope as cells that were stained with a dye she had made the night before. Turning to face Madara with a face full of fascination. "I need to meet this man. See him for myself. His body… it must be incredible."

"Yes." Madara agreed, softly as if he didn't quite like having to agree with the statement. "He is quite… something."

"Well… who is he?"

"The head of the Senju Clan. Hashirama."

Inare nodded in interest. "And can I meet him?"

Madara frowned at her eagerness and stifled small chuckle. "Unless you haven't noticed, our clans aren't really on the best of terms. In fact, I'd go so far as to say we might be at war with each other."

"Alright, alright. You can cut the sarcasm. But these are the guys you go off to fight for three days straight?" Inare took his silence as her confirmation and gave a low whistle of respect. "Damn… no wonder you aren't gaining much ground. If you're up against people like that."

"They don't all share the same abilities."

"No?" "Just one of them." "We'll, all the more reason to meet him."

Resisting the growing urge of just throwing her out, Madara breathed out deeply. "What's so unique about him?" A question that sounded off even to his own ears. He knew exactly what was unique about Hashirama, he just couldn't get his head around it.

"Everything. It's a very well-known fact among medics that chakra is present in out cells. There is this pathway for which our bodies release chakra in a useful form. But you see, our cells sort of have, like, two compartments, right?" At his generally clueless look she concluded that fact wasn't common knowledge for him. Thinking for a moment, she changed her approach. "In a normal person, only one of those compartments has chakra… in his… both do!" She was grinning. The big revelation, finally out there… and he still looked clueless.

"And?"

Inare felt her whole body deflated realising that she was also going to have to explain to him the whole concept of cellular chakra. This stuff was still relatively new science, but it had been around for a while. If it wasn't for these damned endless wars, then advancement in its research would have progressed a lot faster.

"Fine… let me just try to explain this to someone who does not have the capacity to understand it." She waved off dismissively. Deciding that nope, she was not going to try explain all of it. At least not right now.

"Don't get cocky Inare." Madara warned.

With a small ignoring huff, Inare leaned back and sat on the edge of the crate. "The idea is that the chakra our bodies make, and the chakra out bodies emit… their not the same." Inare attempted to express the difference as her hands spread out as if she was holding a ball between the two. "One is… concentrated, dense, pure, raw chakra. It's unstable and will rip apart anything its volume can expand to. The other… is more user friendly."

"Our own chakra isn't," he paused, making sure he was getting this correct, "safe to us?"

"Oh, gods no. Pure concentrated chakra is horribly dangerous." While he admired her passion, her waving hands were beginning to grind on his nerves. "Have you never wondered why everyone will have an affinity towards a certain elemental state of chakra?" He grasped her hands in his own to stop her movements when one particular swish of a hand almost wacked him in the face.

Obviously he had never pondered on such things, because for the last few minutes while she had been explaining all this to him his face had shown only two expressions. Blankness and further blankness.

Inare liked to think she could distinguish the two.

"That's because people take on a sort of… specialized form of chakra, which is individual to all of us. The native form of chakra is the same for everyone. But the chakra that we utilise has almost been modified to only a fraction of its original form, and in the process individualised. Think of it as like a raging river dwindling out to a little stream."

"Your saying that we have access to a much stronger form of chakra?"

"Yes, but not for long. While we don't really know the exact mechanisms, somehow our body can convert this raw chakra into a much usable form. And it does it quickly. So… purifying it is very, very, very hard. There's only ever been two accounts of this, and both times… everyone died. It can't be contained, and to your average chap, it can't be used." Turning back to the microscope, and again waving all over the place. "Until this fellow."

Madara stood forwards and gripped both of her wrists politely, forcing them down onto her lap and gritting out almost pleasantly. "Continue."

Inare, looking a little shocked carefully removed her wrists from his grip and crossed her arms, now making a conscious effort not to have them flapping about.

"His body manages to actually hold this raw and unpredictable chakra plus his own, in unity. Do you get it now? This is… unbelievable. He needs to know that he is like… like… a gift to the research in cellular chakra! In a way, his body is far more developed than ours. Is there anything you can tell me about him."

"Well, he kind of heals pretty quickly. Right in front of your eyes sort of healing."

"Really? Well, chakra is crucial when our body is healing itself, which could explain that. I don't know, I would have to see this first hand to know exactly… If only I could my hands on his body… oh… the things I could do…" Inare looked back at Madara expectantly. "You sure I can't meet this man?"

"No! You can't damn well meet him." His shout was more comic than frightening, and Inare rebuffed with. "I can meet whoever I please. But you should probably introduce us-"

"No!"

"At least describe him to me. I'll go find him myself."

"Your obsessions right now, it's disturbing!"

"This not an obsession. Simple fascination."

"There's nothing simple about this. Less than half of that even made sense."

"I even simplified it! If it didn't make sense, it's because your too dense to understand it!"

"At least I'm not the creepy one that's getting all excited over-

"I'm the creepy one? Says the man who decided, 'yeah, I'm going to bring Inare this persons skin.' Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful, this has all been incredible. But what went through your mind when you made that decision?"

A small frown formed. His lack of response giving Inare the impression that he was only just remembering now that he'd been the one to bring that flap of skin to Inare. Confusion flashed briefly across his face. "The idea… just… came to me." He sounded uncertain, but looked as if he quickly settled on that being the reason.

Inare, unconvinced, nodded slowly with a sceptical look. "Just as long as it's clear that you are the creepy one here."

She got no response, so decided that she would need to get back to her more pressing duties. Cleaning up and checking up on her injured patients. "Well… if that's all. I have other things to be doing." Rooting through a box, she pulled out a scroll with an intricate seal painted onto it. "I'm going to seal this in sub-zero conditions. It'll preserve the cells, so I can have a better look when I've had a bit more of a think about all this."

A nod of approval from Madara, before he left her alone in the tent to clean up the microscope, stains and skin from his ultimate enemy.

His firm steps took him all the way back to his own tent. In the centre he removed his armour, letting it all fall to the ground in an uncaring heap. Then towards the single chair that featured in his room, he collapsed into it. A large map spread out along the table, and Madara quickly set out marking their advancement.

They had been successful in pushing the Senju back today. But if they didn't fix their position, then they would take it right back.

His map could only keep his attention for but a few moments before his mind shifted to the nagging thought that had not left.

She was right.

It had been a conscious decision to keep that small flap of skin that had stuck to his sword after a vicious encounter with Hashirama. That the skin had even stayed there defied most chances on its own. But to hold onto it. Not to mention the first person he went to happened to be the one person that would have actually permitted curiosity to let her look at it.

Ebisu would have snapped that he didn't have the time for this. Any of the other medics would have likely had no interest. Inare would have looked, no matter what. Why did he know that?

Shutting his eyes while resting his face in one hand, Madara tried to probe through his thoughts and most recent memories of the battle to try and recall what exactly had been going through his mind.

He followed back his steps, going backwards from when he entered the encampment after their victory. Backwards to when he was leaving the battlefield. He'd been carrying a small child that had been gravely injured.

Before that he had been fighting Hashirama for almost an hour and a half.

Before that.

Blank.

The discovery brought a deep frown to his face.

His memory could not be so poor that he could not remember something that occurred within the last four hours. He remembered the scrabble of the fight, pure reflexes and luck always brought him through the chaos of a battle.

Growling his frustration, Madara stood quickly.

Regardless of the reasons he could not recall the hour or so before the battle, or even certain parts of the battle, he did not have the liberty to dwell on the thought. They only had a week left to fix their position. It would be more of a case of holding out till the Senju backed down from the central river lands. Winters towards the east tended to be much harsher than they were on the west which would play to their advantage.

Pacing out of his tent, he decided he needed to be doing something other than planning their next movement. Izuna would return soon with the second division. His young brothers perspective on the coming plan would be helpful, so he would wait on his return before continuing.

They had to hold out just four week, then they would advance towards hideout to remain for the winter.

His instincts told him that the winter would be as harsh as that summer had been. Trading sweltering heatwaves for icy storms and snow-ins. He could only hope that the harvest would be good enough that they could make a strong start at the first break of spring.