Chapter 20

For the first time in a long time, Sakura senses chakra that is not hers or Kisame's. She looks to the tree line and sees that the Mist black ops have finally revealed themselves – black ghosts in white masks, fading in and out of the mist, approaching from the south. There are many of them – fifty, perhaps – too many, it seems to her, for one ninja to take on, no matter his strength and power.

Kisame is far away from her now, standing in the middle of the lake. There is no trash talk, no exchange of threats – both sides fly to action immediately, out to kill or be killed.

A dozen black ops converge on Kisame, incredibly fast, and then Kisame summons two dozen water clones, and then those water clones are transformed into Mist black ops, and then Kisame himself transforms, and Sakura completely loses track of who is who.

It appears that Mist's sole directive is to kill Kisame, no matter the cost, because those who did not jump in to rush Kisame form seals and send in enormous waves towards the group, apparently quite happy to drown all of combatants indiscriminately, as long as Kisame is among them. It looks bad for Kisame when all that Sakura can make out is an enormous, swirling column of water, blackened with cloaked bodies here and there – but then the sharks move in, steel lances flying towards their targets, and the Mist nin who are controlling the twister begin to lose limbs and, shortly after, their lives.

Then things descend into watery chaos – veritable tsunamis are summoned, whether by Kisame or the Mist shinobi, Sakura does not know – and she has trouble holding her footing on the surface of the lake, as far away as she is from the fight, and then the surface becomes a roiling, storm-whipped mess, and Sakura finds herself pummeled to the bottom of the lake by hundreds of pounds of water and thinks, this is how I die.

Something nudges Sakura roughly as she wastes the last of her breath trying to decide which way is up, and through the frothing water, she can make out one of the lesser shark summons beside her, calling her to hold on. She grips his dorsal fin and holds on for dear life as the shark propels himself to the surface, just in time for Sakura to take a long, gasping breath and not pass out completely.

Sakura finds herself surfacing in the trough between two waves, much closer to the fight, and there is a Mist shinobi in front of her, all blank mask and glistening-wet katanas. Sakura sees the Mist kunoichi's surprise in the way that she steps back from her, and then Sakura's shark friend flies in from the side and takes off the kunoichi's head in one bite, and Sakura is left gawking at a half-eaten, twitching corpse sinking beneath blood-reddened waves.

Virtually chakra-less and feeling very vulnerable, Sakura pulls out the senbon that she had been conserving so carefully over the past few months – and just in time, because one of the Mist nin saw his compatriot die near Sakura, and he is flying towards her, and her shark friend is nowhere to be seen…

Sakura aims for the chinks in his armour to disable him, elbows and knees, wastes four senbon on bad shots, and then she gets him, finally, left knee, right knee, and then, when he falls, another two in the side of his neck for good measure. Then he disappears, pulled under the water by two sharks, one latched onto each leg, and Sakura feels sick, because she didn't intend to kill him…

With no senbon left, and only trace amounts of chakra to protect herself, Sakura half runs, half swims away from the battle, because living to fight another day is a better strategy than dying right here. The water around her froths red and it has started to rain heavily, though whether it is just a caprice of nature or the result of someone's jutsu, she is unsure.

Two sharks flank her and support her as she is thrown about by careless waves, aftershocks of water jutsus, and once, half of the body of a Mist nin tossed recklessly by a shark. She looks back and thinks she sees the silhouettes of three Kisames taking on a dozen white-faces through the curtain of rain and foamy spray. She pauses to watch as the water beneath the black ops group splits suddenly and the massive form of the king shark rears out of the water, now holding at least three of the Mist shinobi in his fearsome mouth. From where she stands, Sakura hears the sick crunch of their bones, the screams… and the Kisames swing their Samehadas and decapitate two of the ninja that were distracted by the event, and shear the arm off a third… but five more Mist nin materialize out of thin air, and the Kisames are impaled through the neck by vicious swords, and two of them melt into water, but one of them doesn't…

A wave overtakes her and Sakura tumbles deep into the water for the umpteenth time, winded and blind. She feels the sandpaper-roughness of a fin and grips it so hard that the skin of her palm is torn, but at least she is lifted to the surface and she can breathe again, though the air is so thickly saturated with water droplets that breath almost drowns her… and the shark speeds her away, far away from the gore-fest behind her, while she heaves up water that tastes like copper and watches sharks go into a frenzy around her, attacking and tearing at Mist nin who are already dead…

VVVVVV

Things go quiet. Sakura wipes dripping water from her eyes and finds herself alone on a distant part of the lake, floating on a lesser shark summon. He turns them around and listens, and Sakura listens, and hears only the wet sound of heavy raindrops hitting the water.

"You think it's over?" asks Sakura.

"It is," answers the shark. "But the outcome is… uncertain."

Without asking Sakura's opinion on the matter, the shark forges back to the scene of the battle. Sakura gasps – as they move to the epicenter of the fight, the water around grows red and thick with corpses, limbs, dead sharks and bloodied white masks floating by, their owners nowhere to be seen…

The shark sniffs suddenly and speeds up towards the swampy shoreline. There is a form lying there among the reeds, a form covered by the torn remnants of a black and red cloak.

Sakura finds herself pushed onto the shore by the shark. She stumbles onto the muddy shore, pausing only to cough up the last of the water from her lungs. She approaches gingerly, her heart in her mouth, because it is definitely Kisame who is lying there, dead, or almost dead.

Almost dead. Sakura feels the ground below her squelch with a mixture of water and blood as she kneels next to him and feels his pulse. She bites her lip and rolls him over to get a look at his front.

And recoils in horror, because there are two bloody gashes where his eyes should be.

But this is not the worst of it. Sakura pulls down the high collar of his cloak and sees a deep wound in his neck that is gushing generously. Sakura watches his lifeblood course out, down his neck and into the ground between her knees, and, medic-nin that she is, she knows that it is a matter of moments now until he dies.

It won't be long. Sakura stands and turns away as Kisame bleeds out.

It could be over now. He is dying. He is essentially already dead. It could all be over.

Sakura takes a deep breath and tries to take a step away, her first step towards freedom.

And she finds that she can't do it.

Because in that moment he is not a criminal, or a murderer, or a missing-nin, or whatever else… he is just that bloody idiot Kisame who has gone and gotten himself mortally wounded and who is currently bleeding out in front of her, and she can't just walk away and let him die.

She can't do it.

Sakura pivots, kneels next to Kisame, and forces her chakra – her precious chakra that she has been hoarding so greedily – to her palms.

"I don't know why I'm doing this," says Sakura as she presses her hands to Kisame's neck, feeling for the edges of the wound.

"It is the correct decision," says a deep, cold voice. Sakura looks over her shoulder to see that the king shark is watching her, his wicked face about five feet away from the water line. Sakura sees that he did not escape the fight unscathed; there are cuts crisscrossing his snout and face and weapons embedded in the rest of his body like jewelry.

Sakura swallows and turns back to Kisame, certain that if she had actually walked away from him at that moment, it would have been the last thing she ever did.

Beneath her fingertips, Kisame's skin has gone cold, and his pulse has faded to something negligible. Sakura surges her chakra into his wound, replicating a few quarts of blood and sealing the gushing artery shut.

"Don't die," she says. "You can't die. Your shark friend will kill me if I let you die."

"This is true," says the king shark.

But Kisame is far past being able to hear. And oh god, his face. Sakura cannot focus on that now, but the sight of the bloody holes where his eyes should be keeps intruding – but those are not life-threatening injuries, this neck wound is…

"Where was he taking you?" asks the shark as Sakura works.

"A safe-house, somewhere," says Sakura. "Mizuumi?"

"I know it," says the shark. "Climb."

Sakura judges that Kisame is more-or-less stable now, so she drags him across the king shark's massive back, thanking god for her chakra-boosted strength, and seats herself behind him. The shark snatches the unraveled Samehada into his mouth, carrying it like a dog carries a stick.

"Hold tight, girl," says the shark before he whips around and speeds them off.

An hour later, during which Sakura keeps furious hold of the shark and Kisame, they arrive at the safe-house. It is a small structure, hidden by genjutsus that the shark was blessedly able to navigate, because Sakura couldn't have, built high on stilts and ensconced by trees. Sakura drags Kisame onto the dock and up the rickety stairs, where she bashes in the lock.

"Girl," calls the shark.

Sakura turns to see him toss the Samehada up towards her. It lands with a clatter on the small landing at her feet.

The shark begins to melt into the water in front of Sakura's eyes.

"I must rest. I will return."

She nods, certain that this is mostly a threat. A threat to make sure that Kisame is alive when he returns, or he will hunt her down…

Sakura waves impatiently at the shark and drags Kisame's stupidly large body into the house using the minimum amount of chakra required. She doesn't have time to deal with veiled threats from fading summons; she has someone's eyesight to save on a minuscule chakra reserve…