Chapter 13
It takes nearly four hours for the squad of twenty to arrive, and by then the only remains of the original team are their corpses and ashes. The sky is black and the moon barely visible through the clouds of smoke. There is only silence.
Naoko feels sickened at the metallic and burning smell of the air that she breathes, and her eyes water from the smoke. She coughs into her arm and bites into her hand to stop.
The telltale signs of a fight are there; bodies and weapons strewn around carelessly, small streams of blood running through the ground, the lingering traces of chakra, not to mention the craters and burning trees. She takes one look around and knows that none of the bodies are of their enemies. They must have been dead for hours.
"The squad was ambushed during the late evening and requested for back-up. One of their members managed to get a summon to our Clan Head," Keisuke says. "There is nothing we can do now but turn back the way we came. We'll leave as soon as dawn arrives."
The others chorus out a 'Sir!' and the bodies are hauled into one pile after having their bodies searched for any spoils, but they are bare. One of the Hono does the honours and lights the fire. Against the dark background of the sky, it is the only light, and the bonfire burns yellow and red.
It reminds her of her mother's death, and Naoko clasps the brooch tightly in her hand.
The squad settles down, constantly alert and vigilant, and silence befalls the night once again. Naoko feels strangely lonely, but stands close to Keisuke. She yawns.
"If you're tired, you should go to sleep," he tells her. She smiles. His expression looks constipated, and it reminds her of her father's permanent scowl. He is almost like a father figure, though he is only a fleeting presence in her life.
"It is alright. I'm not tired," she replies, but she lies down to sleep anyway, trusting Keisuke to wake her up when dawn comes.
It is the dead of night but Naoko wakes, alert and fully awake, just in time to hear the explosion take place. She wheezes as the wind is knocked out of her and she is blown back by its impact and thrust on the ground like a rag doll. Her ribs ache, but she ignores it.
"I see you fell for the same trick that they did, then," says one of the enemies as the smoke clears. There are three pairs of gleaming, red eyes and three young men - boys, even. Her eyes widen a fraction, focusing on one of the three, though the action is unnoticeable to anyone with an untrained eye.
The oldest Uchiha, with long, dark hair in a ponytail, seems only to be about twenty, while the second, a boy with cropped hair, is about fifteen. However Naoko's eyes only see the youngest member of the trio. Madara doesn't seem to have noticed her, only staring at Keisuke, the leader of the group.
She scrambles onto her feet.
"Fire Style: Great Flame Technique!" the Hono all shout simultaneously, red-hot fire spewing towards the same spot, and for a second Naoko almost thinks that they have won.
"Too slow."
She feels the air around her burning, and takes a deep breath before plunging into the ground, dodging the flames by a hair, only resurfacing when she runs out of oxygen, and by then, the battle has already started.
There seems to only be a trio of warriors from the enemy, but Naoko can easily understand why. Those three Uchiha can easily overpower their entire squad.
It's so obvious that she doesn't even entertain the thought of winning against the trio, but only thoughts of survival run through her mind. She panics, watching them on the battlefield as they get beaten down over and over again, meanwhile the Uchiha don't even seem to be paying attention to the battles.
The five medics dash around frantically, trying to heal the injured, and Naoko barely manages to deflect the shuriken aimed at the medics with her own senbon. "Go!" she shouts. "Leave! There's no point in staying if you can't fight!"
The medics - all young women around her age - nod and scramble away. One of the Uchiha - the teenager - turns his attention to them, spewing out red fire to block their path.
"Earth Style: Mud Wall!" Naoko screams, blocking the shuriken coming in their direction and putting out the fire, and the medics take cover then run.
She can barely see her enemy in the darkness, but Naoko takes her senbon and throws them at the Uchiha, who is moving as a blur, and he dodges it. She grabs a second, and a third, and targets the Uchiha in a way that only a trained assassin with years of practice can, cornering him and targeting him from his blind spots.
The Uchiha have the advantage in the night, but they have the advantage of numbers.
She can tell that he is barely managing to avoid them all, but the Uchiha still deflects every single one of them. His red eyes gleam in the darkness while her senbon, unseen and unheard, pierce through the air. They are evenly matched, for a while, and neither can hit the other without getting hit themselves.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!" the Uchiha shouts, and Naoko rolls to avoid it, barely avoiding a major injury, but the fierce battle continues and Naoko doesn't hesitate a beat.
She whips out another pack of senbon, and he takes out his shuriken. Neither can hit the other, but both come very close. She deflects and dodges all of his shuriken, and he does the same with her senbon. Each weapon is thrown with startling accuracy, concentration, power and speed, but neither relent.
"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower!" the Uchiha shouts.
She takes a deep breath and disappears into the mud, then appears again, continuing on with the unrelenting shower of senbon.
"You're pretty good with those senbon," the Uchiha says through gritted teeth. "But what happens when you don't have any left?"
Naoko moves to get another senbon, but her hands grope at only air. Her body is still moving too quickly for her mind to keep up. A shuriken grazes her cheek. It takes a millisecond too long for her to realise the implications.
By then, she is sailing through the air before hitting the ground hard, clutching her stomach and crying out in pain. She chokes on the blood in her mouth and spits it out, only just dodging another attack.
The Uchiha slows down to a halt, panting but otherwise unharmed. She stands there, her arms and legs burning, panting, waiting to regain her breath. She presses a glowing hand to her stomach and feels the chakra drain as her head spins.
Her entire stack of senbon has been used up, but Naoko hasn't hit him once.
It doesn't mean that she'll give up, though. "Don't underestimate me!" she roars and furrows her brows in concentration and pours her chakra into three intricate webs of genjutsu that she casts on the Uchiha. "I can still fight!"
He breaks out of the genjutsu easily. "Earth Style: Tearing Earth Turning Palm!" they both shout, and it is only then that Naoko remembers the powers of the Sharingan. She flails around, trying not to get crushed by her own jutsu.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!" the Uchiha shouts, and Naoko resorts to hiding in the earth again to avoid the jutsu before resurfacing. She starts running away, hoping that it will buy some time for someone else to come and help her.
"It's useless," the Uchiha says, appearing behind her and knocking her forwards. She rolls just in time, but as she gasps for air, wheezing and coughing, she knows that it really is useless.
The battlefield is painted red and black with blood and ash. Out of the five medics, three of their bodies lay motionless on the ground, shuriken embedded in their bodies. The other two, evidently injured with burns and cuts, are dodging and running from Madara, who is only half-heartedly chasing after them.
Six other Hono are slumped in a bloody pile, their bodies contorted into unnatural positions with thin slits all over their bodies. Keisuke is fighting against the last Uchiha, and although they seem evenly matched, he is barely managing. The other Hono are all trapped in a genjutsu that they can't seem to escape from.
"What…?" Naoko whispers, and he takes advantage of this moment of hesitation to shove her on the ground and grasp her tightly with her hands behind her back. It's a good thing that she's always been flexible, because Naoko's pretty sure that otherwise she'd be screaming out in pain.
"Mangekyou Sharingan," the Uchiha then explains smugly. "Naka-san has recently awakened his Mangekyo Sharingan and is currently testing out its abilities on your friends."
Her heart constricts at this and her mouth feels suddenly dry.
All the pain in her body that she felt before is suddenly increased by a tenfold. She looks at Madara, who has by then finished killing all of the medics and hauled them onto the bloody pile of other bodies. He doesn't look in her direction, but she knows that he has seen her, and that is enough for her.
She trusts him, in a weird way, and in her heart knows that he will help her out, even if her mind screams otherwise.
"Why aren't you helping out that other Uchiha - what's his name? N-Naka-san?" she asks through gritted teeth, determined to keep surviving, keep stalling, even if it's only for a few more seconds.
"Huh?" the Uchiha asks, then looks at the Uchiha who is currently fighting Keisuke. "Ah, I would, but it's best not to get in his way when he's fighting someone strong, like that guy. Naka-san would get so mad at me and increase my workload even more… He's a real slave driver, you see," he says, with a hint of bitterness.
She is surprised that he has revealed his information about himself, and is reminded once again that even enemies are human, and she is almost surprised at how surprised she is.
"I kinda wish that you'd have put up more of a fight, to be honest. Now I have nothing to do but wait, and I'm not even allowed to kill you," the Uchiha then says, and she furrows her brows in confusion, staring at the pile of bodies not far from them.
"Your hair is brown, right?" he asks, grinning, holding up a strand, and then Naoko realises what he means. She struggles against his hold, but his grip is strong and she only manages to hurt herself further.
They're going to hold her as a prisoner, just like the Hono did with Kazuhito.
She watches helplessly as Keisuke, his body bloodied and bruised but still functioning, keeps on attacking Naka, never looking upwards at the Uchiha's eyes, never giving Naka a chance to put him under a genjutsu. But by now it's obvious that Keisuke isn't going to survive the fight, even if he wins.
Keisuke was her last hope, she realises sadly.
It only takes a second, but in that second multiple things happen and she doesn't register any of them. She hears a scream, a strangled cry, and a huge bang, and then she is blown back a good twenty metres from the force of the explosion.
You can always smell the war before seeing it, Naoko thinks.
Its smell is the most distinctive feature. The burning and rotting and decomposition of flesh, the slightly charred spoils and weapons strewn on the ground around the battlefield, the metallic tang of blood - you can smell it from miles away, before you even see or hear it.
Naoko hits the ground with a dull thunk, and although she cannot see or hear anything, she can smell it, and she knows at least that she is still alive.
Shimura Keisuke is a loyal man. He's the sort of man who will never break a promise, and the sort of man who will never betray your trust. He's the type of person that you can depend on, and everyone knows it. It's why he was entrusted as the leader of this mission.
That's right. The mission. The mission to protect Naoko. He doesn't know if he was successful or not, but he tried his best.
"What is it, Ichiro-sama?" he asks, feeling nervous at the sight of the fifteen-year-old boy sobbing before him.
"Please… I know… I know that I'm being pathetic. I know that I shouldn't be asking you this, Keisuke-san. But please… Please keep my little sister safe."
"...Of course, Sir."
In that last battle against Uchiha Naka, Keisuke knew that he was overwhelmed. Perhaps he thought, somehow that he might have been able to win, if he just tried hard enough. They were very closely matched, Naka and Keisuke, and the difference in their abilities was minuscule, but Keisuke was still the weaker of the two.
Maybe he knew it, deep down. He knew it with every blow that he took and every jutsu that he used, every last step and every last bit of energy, and he doesn't know why he hadn't stopped the fight there and then.
He had been enjoying it too much to stop, probably, and although he knew that there was no chance of winning, maybe he just wanted to keep surviving for just a few more last seconds. He doesn't know why he did what he did. He just did.
"I win."
He feels the cold metal pressing against his throat and knows that he has lost the battle. He hears the ringing of Ichiro's voice in his mind and he knows that there is only one option left.
"No you don't," he replies, and then there his body tears itself apart.
The result is an explosion - a gigantic, terrific explosion. He wants the explosion to leave a mark on the world forever - a sign of him, because he doesn't want to completely go, even if he has to leave.
A suicide bomb. He can only hope that Naka was killed with him.
As his body falls, he knows in his heart that he wants to keep on living, to keep on surviving, but he also knows that there's nothing he can do about it. The black and red of the world around him fades into pure black, and then white.
"Who are…?" he tries to ask, but it feels like he is sinking, sinking into another world and he is too tired to move or to resist.
"Shh…"
Although his heart had already stopped beating, his body had been torn to shreds and his mind had stopped working, that, Keisuke knows, is the moment that he truly dies.
When she wakes up, Naoko is the only person on the battleground who seems to be up. She closes her eyes, and when she can't sense the chakra signatures of anyone other than herself, Madara and the Uchiha that she had been fighting against. She seemed to be the only survivor of the original twenty.
Her ears are popped and she feels disorientated, but she doesn't seem to have been injured badly by the explosion. She crawls up, her limbs feeling like jelly, and walks towards the corpses on the other side.
Naka's body lay opposite Keisuke's, whose body had been torn into shreds. There was a gaping hole where his chest should have been. The other Hono, trapped in the genjutsu, had all been killed by the explosion or died from blood loss. Madara was knocked out cold with a large burn on his arms and chest and the other Uchiha was barely alive.
His body was splattered with blood and there was a burn on his back and the backs of his arms and legs. Naoko knew that she had been sheltered by his body during the explosion, because otherwise she wouldn't have been in the condition she was in now.
She picks up one of the littered shuriken on the ground and slowly walks towards him. He is stirring, and his head rolls to the side. "Okaa-san?" he mumbles softly, and although her heart softens for a second, she doesn't hesitate when bringing the weapon down.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, and she means it.
She forces it through his throat until the shuriken pokes out from the other side. It makes a soft squelching noise and blood flies from his mouth and onto her so that her face and clothes are drenched in blood.
"Tch," she says quietly.
She wipes her hands on her clothes and armour, then grasps the silver brooch and holds it tightly in her hand. There is a large crack through the middle between the gems, but it remains intact. She puts it back on again.
She walks towards Madara. In his current condition, she doubts that he will die, but she also can't bear to see the boy - her friend - in pain.
She takes three soldier pills and swallows them, knowing that it is over the limit, then takes a deep breath and focuses chakra to her hands. It flickers for a second before working, and the burns on Madara's skin slowly disappear and new skin regenerates. There is a lot of blood on his body, but the majority of it doesn't seem to be his.
Her chakra runs out a little bit later, and her wheezing turns to coughing and her coughing results in blood. She spits it out and wipes away the blood around her mouth. Her own body aches, but she doesn't mind so long as Madara gets better.
She climbs up onto her feet and starts walking home. The sun is rising, and she stares at the sky, pink and orange and lilac. It's what helps her carry on.
"Wait."
The voice is quiet, barely audible, but it cuts through the silence like a knife. Naoko stops immediately and turns around. Madara stands opposite her, a few metres away. His expression is masked impressively into pure coldness, but she can tell how he is feeling. It would have worked on anyone else, but Naoko is - was - a spy, and she can read through it.
"It's only been a few months, but you've grown a lot, Madara," she says, and it's true. She's always been relatively short, but so has Madara. Now he seems to tower over her. His hair has grown longer, and he has stopped looking so much like a boy, now. He looks like the man in the Future-Past who will try and defeat the Five Nations.
"Why did you help me?" he asks, deathly quiet.
He's changed a lot. Gone is the boyish mischievousness and grin that he used to have, and instead it has been replaced by a cold, blank stare that sends shivers up Naoko's spine. Then his face twists into a look of pure fury, and he pins her down by her throat until she struggles to keep breathing.
"Why?" he screams, breathing heavily. His eyes unconsciously turn red, and Naoko notices the extra tomoe in each eye. "I didn't ask for your help! You should have left me to die there like everyone else! You killed Shouto, didn't you? Why did you let me live and not them? I don't need you to help me!"
He pauses, waiting for a reply, but Naoko remains silent. His face is flushed red and his hands are shaking. His expression returns to neutral, and then he suddenly releases his grip on Naoko and she clumsily falls to the ground, wheezing. He turns away from her and faces the other way.
"Stay away from me."
In half a second he has travelled fifty metres, and Naoko can't find the energy to chase after him or call out. She knows a lost cause when she sees one.
She turns to the corpses on the ground, then bows her head for a second before making her way back. What happened with Madara takes a second to sink in, but when it does, there's a lump in her throat and her face is twisted into an ugly expression. Her entire body shakes uncontrollably as she slowly hobbles away.
She suddenly isn't hungry or thirsty and her body stops hurting completely, and instead feels completely numb. There is a horrible, tight feeling in her stomach that she can't get rid of.
As she walks, there is only one thought on her mind.
I should have done something.
She curses herself, releasing a mangled cry into the silence of the night. "Why?" she roars. "Why didn't you do something? Why?" Her entire body racks with sobs but her eyes aren't wet. She stamps her feet on the ground.
She is the lone survivor of a massacre. Keisuke gave his life for her. She couldn't help any of her teammates, and in the end, let the enemy escape after healing him. She's useless and a traitor and a friendship-destroyer.
"Why?" she whispers, gazing at the hot Sun in the sky. Her feet and legs ache, she has barely any chakra, and she is suffering from the drawbacks of taking three soldier pills at once - nausea and a migraine. She finishes the rest of her protein bars and water after vomiting somewhere.
The twelve hours that she suffers through all blur together, and it is a miracle that she doesn't meet any people along the way, because she knows that she is in a pathetic state right now.
Her feet keep walking, however, because she also knows that she has no other option right now than to keep going.