The Boy in the Team
Chapter Eleven
The ground was soft. The tickling sensation on his face woke him up with a light grunt. Shinku's eyes opened to stare at the snaking tongue of dark green snake, whose yellow tinted eyes fixed on him. He frowned.
There was a snake on his chest.
"Don't. Move." Sasuke's voice reached him as he hastily obliged —not that he actually needed encouragement. The kick sent the snake flying away, as Shinku stood up as fast as he could after that. Frightened, he looked around. The green luscious branches of the forest welcomed him, as the dark shade so typical of being beneath a canopy kept everything in a permanent state of shadows.
He swallowed nervously as he looked towards Sasuke. "Wh…Where?" his head hurt, pulsing with agony as he kept his left eye closed. Gingerly touching the spot, he found it enflamed and painful.
"The bastard knocked us out," Sasuke remarked. "The Dobe is up and about already," the Uchiha snorted.
"It's…day?" Shinku asked blearily, looking around.
"Yes," Sasuke said crisply. "Day one out of thirty," with that, he pointed to a tackle on the nearby trunk. "Thankfully we have our training gear with us," the boy snorted. "I'm sure that by now Naruko's already captured half of the forest."
"We really…have to stay here for…a month?" Shinku stammered out, gazing at the general direction where the snake had been 'kicked'.
"Naruko sent a few clones to try and get them outside. Apparently, Kakashi roped in a few Anbu trainees who needed some training in subdual techniques. They'll patrol the premises of the training ground, and if we try to leave they'll subdue us and then leave us somewhere in the middle of the forest."
Sasuke grunted. "Better to just follow the rules for the moment. It's not that bad, if you've gone camping."
"I never went camping," Shinku muttered back.
"Then just follow my lead. As it is," Sasuke looked at his arms, "You're a weight."
Shinku flinched, but stood his ground. "We're going to change that," Sasuke acquiesced. "Let's get started with catching some food first," he beckoned him to follow.
"You know how throwing a kunai isn't something shinobi should do, because it's imprecise?" Sasuke began, slowly walking through the undergrowth with Shinku in tow. "Well, forget about it. Any weapon you can throw is throw-able," curtly, he gripped his own kunai and twirled it with his index finger. "You just need enough training to throw it well."
Sasuke stopped the next moment, getting down on one knee in the middle of the bushes. With a quick jab, he pulled Shinku down next to him and then made the sign for 'silence'. Using his index and middle finger, Sasuke pointed towards a menacing looking boar rustling through the grass a few feet away.
Shinku watched anxiously as Sasuke slowly crept forward, kunai in hand. Contrary to his words, rather than throwing the kunai he simply jumped on the back of the beast in question and plunged the weapon quickly in its eye.
Shinku blinked. "Is that how you…throw a kunai?"
Sasuke snorted. "No, but I wasn't going to let our lunch and dinner pass us by like this," he pulled himself up from the boar's corpse, "And I know these beasts have tough hides."
He moved near the bleeding corpse, a nauseous grimace on his face. "Well, don't just stand there. Come down here and help me skin it."
"Skin it?" Shinku blearily eyed the carcass, before getting down on one knee on the other side of it.
"Really," Sasuke snorted, "It's not difficult. Anyone can do it. Just plunge the knife lightly inside and rip the skin off. You don't need to make a pelt or something…just take the skin away and get the meat, before his mother or father comes back."
Looking around for an instant, Shinku muttered. "Can't we move it?"
"To where? Blood would attract predators if we brought it back to camp as is. We're taking the meat, heading to the river, washing it off and then and only then are we going back to camp."
Shinku eyed the carcass, and the tip of his kunai. He pushed the metal instrument into the sides of the beast, hissing in disgust as he pulled it out a moment later.
"No, no…you don't pierce the meat, you slice it," Sasuke illustrated, "Place your thumb here, near the start of the blade. Don't worry, you aren't going to cut yourself if you do it properly. Hold the skin steady with your other hand and…rip!" with a single swipe, Sasuke peeled a large chunk of skin off the boar's corpse. "There, see? It's not difficult."
Blood was covering Sasuke's shorts and arms, but the boy seemed to be completely ignoring it.
"Move it before the flies decide to come in with the predators."
Closing his eyes, Shinku began quietly to whimper. He could feel vomit reach the back of his throat, before he grabbed on the skin and plunged the kunai in by the side. He pulled then, the skin giving way easily together with bits and pieces of meat.
His hands were crimson now.
"Well," Sasuke commented. "It's enough I suppose." The boy unpacked a heavy hemp sack from one of his pockets…Shinku blinked.
"Where…"
"Oh, storage seals," Sasuke replied. "My mother is a friend of Naruko's mother, who is an Uzumaki —they've got an affinity for Fuinjutsu or whatever. Naruko's an idiotic bimbo, but having her as a friend means that for the first years of my life half of my birthday gifts were seal-related."
Carefully, both boys filled the hemp sack.
"Now we bring this," he pointed to the filled bag, which had both perfectly cut meat —Sasuke's— and completely horrible —Shinku's— inside, "To the river."
He handed it over to Shinku, who grabbed it.
"Hold on to it. I'll be on the lookout while you head that way," he pointed in the direction of the river, before flickering out in a bunch of leaves.
Shinku gazed at the boar's carcass for one moment more, before starting to walk towards the body of water.
He would not retch.
He was not going to puke his guts out. He could hold it. He could hold his breakfast and lunch inside. He could do it.
Sasuke pinned Naruko against the trunk of the nearby tree and growled, from his spot atop one of the highest branches.
"This is ludicrous," he snorted. "I'm not going to stand by and watch you act like a…a Dobe!"
"What? All I'm saying is that Kakashi-Nii didn't force us to teach him anything and he also will have a system to keep us guarded twenty-four hours a day.."
"Are you a moron?" Sasuke growled. "Do you have any idea what it means? We are in the Forest of Death, not taking a nice and comfortable vacation on Uzushiogakure's shores! There are things in here that I'm afraid of too! And you want to let the dead last of the Academy go on his own? What the hell, Naruko! What. The. Hell!"
"If he gets in enough danger, then maybe Kakashi-Nii will change his idea."
"Oh, right, and why him?" Sasuke snorted. "Why don't you offer yourself up as a bait for whoever is supposed to guard us?"
"Ah, you know they'd just scoff. I can heal pretty much anything. We just need to make sure Shinku's wounded enough to require the hospital. We can just let him be and watch him from afar."
"No," Sasuke shook his head firmly. "I'm with you on a lot of things, I can close my eyes on others, but this is a no. You don't play with other peoples' lives like this."
"This isn't about playing, 'ttebayo!" Naruko exclaimed. "Come on! He'll be fine! There's two of us, plus whoever is guarding us all. We can just let Shinku head towards a cave or something, scream for help and then let the Anbu deal with it while we make a run for the exit."
"Are you listening to yourself!?" Sasuke hissed. "Where does 'Teamwork' enter the equation with what you're proposing!?"
"You have to trust your teammates, and I don't trust him!" Naruko ground out. "You can't trust everyone!"
"We already went through this once!" Sasuke snarled. "I'm not the only trustworthy person in the world, Naruko!"
"I don't…I just," she wringed her hands. "What if he ends up being just like any other parasite? Any other leech that just wants to be near us for what we have? I don't want another flea on my back. I'd like a friend different from Uke-chan of course but…hell, even Hinata was one. Do you know what it means? How can you trust anyone after discovering that, uh!?"
"A person is innocent," Sasuke deadpanned, "Until he is found guilty. You will give him a fair trial, Naruko. Or I swear I will…" he turned around then, looking down towards the thick canopy of leaves that now separated him from seeing further down below.
"Shit," Sasuke cursed before jumping down to push his head under the leaves, his feet holding on to the side of the tree trunk with chakra. "Shit!"
"Did we lose him?" Naruko asked, her head coming down next to Sasuke's. The Uchiha growled.
"No time to lose, let's go!"
He stopped after a few steps, looking back towards the hesitant form of Naruko. "Oh, for the love of…" he pointed his finger at her. "Come on! Just…just give him a chance!"
"One," Naruko said firmly. "I'm giving him one chance," she mumbled. "Only because you insist," she jumped to end on the same branch as Sasuke. "But if he burns that bridge, then I'm done."
"Fine," Sasuke snapped back. "Now move your lazy and fat ass!"
Shinku completely ignored the discussion way above and far from him. He was, after all, at the river.
It was also, coincidentally, the drinking hour of the tiger pack.
He did the only thing any sane person would do, when found with a bag of still bleeding raw meat in their hands by a hungry group of feral tigers twice the size of a human being.
Shinku screamed like a man possessed, throwing the bag of meat in the air as he began to run in the opposite direction with the roars of the tigers hot on his heels.
Therefore, this was how he died —mauled to death by tigers in the Forest of Death. He was going to die. He, Shinku Haruno, was going to die eaten by the tigers. He began to cry, as his breathing grew ragged. He could hear the strong paws of the pursuing tigers moving nearer with every passing instant, as blood rushed to his ears carrying the sound of his erratic heart.
He didn't want to die. He jumped over a dead trunk of a tree and rolled down a small dishevelment, before taking a sharp turn around a giant tree trunk and keeping up his pace. The tigers looked bulky. He hoped they could not…make sharp twists. Their nearing roars told him it didn't actually matter.
Shinku tripped over a root, the speed he was going at propelling him face first on the ground as he rolled, wobbling back to his feet with enough speed to make him look like a gymnast who was doing it on purpose. He wasn't, but fear of death was a great motivator.
His sight began to wane from the effort of running as his sides hurt from the dash. The growling, as suddenly as it grew louder, stopped.
Shinku didn't stop for a long time, but when he finally did and fell down on his knees, he gagged and retched on the floor. He closed his eyes, expecting a tiger to maul him within the next second, but when nothing came, he hesitantly opened his eyes.
He was…well, he was safe.
He was also lost.
Still, he was safe.
He was lost.
"C-calm down," Shinku muttered. "Calm down and everything will be fine," he mumbled, looking around. "We'll get out of here, Shinku," he added as an afterthought. "Maybe this is a fucking Genjutsu," he whispered as his eyes widened. "Yeah…this could be a Genjutsu. I'm probably looking like an idiot right now."
He exhaled, chuckling. The next moment he brought his hands up in the 'Kai' symbol.
"Let's get out of this nightmare," he muttered. "Kai!"
Nothing happened.
"Of course," he mumbled. "Don't pronounce it, you idiot. He'll just reapply it."
He tried once more, and nothing happened again.
"Again, you need something to distrust the illusion," he croaked. "Something, anything…believe it a lie. It's just the first day. You can do this," he mumbled. "You can't be lost on the first day," he added. "It's a forest, it's a training ground…they've got to have people training in here, right?"
He closed his eyes. "Anbu trainee? Anyone?" he hazarded, his voice cracking. "Anyone mind taking pity on me and telling me where my teammates are?"
There was no reply.
"I…well, I suppose I should thank you for the tigers then?" he hazarded. "I mean, unless they've gone from quiet to silently prowling behind my back," Shinku added. "It would be appreciated if you gave me a sign of that being the case," he muttered to no one in particular. Hearing his voice soothed him. Sure, speaking to oneself was a sign of madness, but he liked having a tiny voice in his head telling him everything was going to be fine even when it wasn't going to be. It kept him sane and happy.
He liked being sane and happy.
He disliked being lost, hungry, in the middle of a Forest of Death, because his god-damn sensei thought he'd survive whatever training the two prodigies would go through in here. He had skinned a boar! He, son of bakers, had skinned a boar!
They could have asked him to make some dough or bake bread!
He knew how to bake a frigging piece of bread, but did people ask him about that!? NO! They asked him how to skin a frigging boar!
He began to giggle. "They never care about bread," he pushed his back against the nearby tree. "Ah…" he exhaled, "I'm thirsty," he muttered. He wasn't going to return to the river, not after his run in with the tigers.
Wasn't Sasuke supposed to be on the lookout? Couldn't he have swooped down to save him? He had dug him out from the ground once —he should have totally returned the deal.
He didn't want to be in the team. He'd rather go back to the Academy. It was so nice, the Academy.
The Academy was a nice place, filled with laughter, people playing, doing homework being the most 'stressful' event. Why the hell did he follow through with the Academy? He could have been eating lunch at home, alone but relatively unharmed, rather than being dead tired and covered in animal blood near a tree where…
…where a snake was slowly slithering down towards him from above.
Shinku Haruno's ragged breaths stilled in his throat as he watched the reptile slowly descend towards him, hissing. His right hand fumbled for the kunai's handle, until he gripped on the weapon tightly. His knuckles turned white as he began to shudder, holding his eyes open.
He was not going to die because a snake was hungry.
If he survived, however…
He was going to punch Sasuke in the guts.
If this was how the Uchiha did the 'lookout'…then he was the goddamn future Godaime Hokage.
Author's notes
Anyone guess when 'Inner Shinku' comes out to play? I'm not Bolding anything for Inner/Outer. It's pretty clear I suppose where one barges in on the other. (Follow the swear words)
Funnily enough, Sakura's motivation for ninja was only Sasuke. Shinku's…he'll have to do Soul Searching to find it. Which isn't bad…means character development.
Fun facts: Tigers can run up to thirty miles per hour…but only for ten minutes. An average human can run ten miles per hour (if pressed a bit more).