Crimson Stained
Chapter 49
A Rude Awakening
Nikushimi's breathing was starting to slow and she was deathly still. Nikushimi was nearly ready to just roll over and die, but she was too stubborn to give up just like that. And now she had a new reason to live. Was that a hallucination of Obito? Or, had it been reality? Nikushimi herself was drifting in and out of consciousness and couldn't feel anything anymore. This certainly was not good. But then through the garbled mess of her reality she heard a familiar voice call out.
"Nikushimi!"
Moyasu was suddenly kneeling at her side with his face over hers, "Oh my god Nikushimi. Oh god no. No no no..."
"Sen..sei." Nikushimi murmured, "Sensei."
Moyasu swallowed nervously and looked at his poor student. Before he could say anything else, she spoke, "Sensei. Wrap my side. Just push the guts back in, I can't feel anything."
Moyasu, a hardened Jounin, could hardly bring himself to do it. How cruel was it, for a teacher to have to push the organs of his own student back into their body as they lay there dying? He did so and with the standard field medical kit most ninja carried Moyasu used nearly all his bandages to wrap up Nikushimi's torso. He had to look away when he saw the condition of her leg.
"Cauterize it." Nikushimi whispered, "Hurry."
Moyasu made a few hand signs and set a nearby branch on fire. He heated up a kunai in the flames from the branch and pressed the red-hot metal to Nikushimi's stub. It sizzled and smelled like the burning flesh Moyasu was used to. How cruel he found the entire situation yet again. When Nikushimi was taken care of to the best of his ability Nikushimi, on the brink of unconsciousness, requested, "Sensei, do you have a body sealing scroll?"
"I always carry one on me in case I run into a good bounty." Moyasu replied stiffly. What could Nikushimi want the body sealing scroll for?
"Find and seal my leg in it and keep it safe for me." Nikushimi ordered as she truly began to see dark.
"Why?" Moyasu automatically asked.
Nikushimi scoffed but didn't answer him. When Moyasu saw she passed out he quickly found and sealed her missing limb and then checked on Kakashi and Rin. Moyasu sighed and set Rin's body aside as he began wrapping the unconscious Kakashi's wounds. When two teams of reinforcements arrived they quickly brought the injured back to Konoha.
Nikushimi awoke many days later in the hospital, feeling like she had been hit by a train. But she was alive, so she was at least grateful for that. She lifted her head and found in a set of chairs Tatakau and Shogai sleeping with their heads against each other. Normally, Nikushimi would wake them up and tease them about how in love they were to get a rise out of Tatakau but Nikushimi let them sleep. Sitting on the side of her bed Moyasu was looking at a sealed scroll. Nikushimi turned her head to look out the window. It was dark out and her room was lit by a single ceiling light.
"You're awake." Nikushimi looked back at her sensei and found his fiery eyes locked onto his student. Nikushimi almost flinched at the remorse that filled them.
Nikushimi nodded and swallowed, "Yeah. How long?"
"Almost three weeks." Moyasu sighed, "It's been... a long few weeks."
Nikushimi didn't respond to that. Moyasu held up the scroll that was marked with a bloody finger print. Normally, that meant there was a body inside so that an unsuspecting ninja wouldn't open a scroll hoping for equipment and end up with a dead comrade or the head of a bounty staring at them. Nikushimi assumed this wasn't the case though.
"I've got your uh, leg in here." Moyasu placed it on Nikushimi's lap. She lifted it and looked it over.
Moyasu sighed, "Listen, Nikushimi-"
"You're going to say my career as a ninja is over." Nikushimi interrupted. Moyasu flinched and looked away. But Nikushimi smiled.
Very cheerfully Nikushimi said, "But I'll let you in on a secret, Moyasu-sensei. It's not."
Moyasu looked up and Nikushimi continued, "Ketsueki. A clan that had a specialty of healing but not just that. Many Ketsueki lived through impossible wounds because we have a lot of blood and high vitality. See, sensei, I won't be able to until I hear what the hospital did for me but after that I'll be able to reattach this leg."
Moyasu stared in disbelief.
Nikushimi nodded, "But I'm not that bullshit. I can't regrow a leg or reattach it immediately. It'll take time and physical therapy and this leg will definitely be a bit weaker but it'll be back to almost normal hopefully in a few weeks. I'll have to stitch it back on and gradually regrow it and constantly re-heal it and reinforce it with stronger tissue."
"That's..." Moyasu was speechless for a few moments before he rubbed his face and looked at Nikushimi like he had never seen her before. Nikushimi realized he looked incredibly tired, "That's... still really bullshit."
"I've bounced back from worse." Nikushimi retorted quite merrily.
At this, Shogai stirred. Nikushimi gazed over at her teammates and scoffed lightly with mirthful eyes, "Pretty shitty ninja if they weren't woken up by us talking."
"Give them a break, they've been here every day for hours. I'm actually really surprised that Tatakau kept to it." Moyasu lowered his voice.
Nikushimi smiled softly at her teammates but mentally thanked them for caring. Shogai's eyes fluttered open and his light eyes looked around the room sleepily before landing on Nikushimi and widening. He went to sit up but realized that Tatakau was leaning on him. Rather than wake his friend Shogai slightly inclined his head in greeting to Nikushimi with a large smile.
Nikushimi sighed and leaned back when she saw that Shogai looked just as exhausted as Moyasu, "I caused everyone to worry, didn't I?"
"Quite a bit. Tamashi was almost worse off than I was. She was returning from a mission and met up with the team returning to the village and she thought you were actually dead. She's been spending days at a time in here with you and told the Hokage to shove it when he wanted to assign her on a mission." Moyasu snorted, "ANBU never refuse a mission so he let her off."
As if Tamashi had been summoned, said ANBU quietly opened the hospital room door and sidled in. In one arm she had a basket of things and her hair was damp and hung slightly past her shoulders. She looked worse than the boys in regards to the bags under her eyes and the emotion they conveyed. When Tamashi's eyes landed on Nikushimi and saw she was awake she dropped her basket and had to put a hand on Moyasu's shoulder to keep herself steady.
"You little brat, scaring me like that!" Tamashi half-heartedly shouted. Tatakau, who had been roused out of his slumber by the basket hitting the ground, jumped at Tamashi's voice and cracked his head into Shogai's. He swore under his breath while Shogai rubbed his own head and shot a look at the Uchiha.
Tamashi threateningly waved a fist at Nikushimi, "I should beat your ass for the years off my life you cost me. I thought you were dead and then when I found out you weren't, I saw that goddamn leg of yours-" Tamashi stopped herself and she, Tatakau and Shogai stared at Nikushimi's halved appendage.
"I'm a Ketsueki, shishou." Nikushimi spoke up, "I can fix it."
"You can't regrow a leg. That's beyond your bullshit." Tatakau accused brashly. At least Tatakau remained mostly unfazed.
Nikushimi waved her scroll around, "No, but I can reattach and get a limb back to working order."
Nikushimi paused and very seriously said, "Well, legs are easy. Hands and arms a bit iffy. They have fingers."
Tamashi looked between her student and Moyasu. Then, deciding Nikushimi's attitude was entirely the influence of her sensei, Tamashi clenched a hand into a fist and brought it down right on Moyasu's head. Moyasu clutched his head and inhaled deeply in surprise but before he could react Tamashi was back at the door and picking up her basket. The room returned to silence and Nikushimi looked among the relieved faces of her comrades.
"I'm sorry for making you all worry like that." Nikushimi bowed her head.
Tatakau scoffed, "Yeah, you better be." Nikushimi didn't see it but she heard a whack and knew Shogai had smacked Tatakau upside the head.
"What he means," Shogai said pointedly, "Is that we're just glad you're alright and that you'll be alright."
The room soon moved the conversation into the latest gossip and Tatakau and Shogai left when they realized it was the middle of the night. Tamashi and Moyasu took the seats they vacated and settled themselves on either side of Nikushimi's bed.
Nikushimi, with Tatakau and Shogai now being gone, took the chance to inquire about Kakashi and Rin, "About Kakashi... and... Rin."
Moyasu sighed, "Kakashi is perfectly fine. He had severe chakra exhaustion and some cuts and bruises but nothing as serious as your injuries." Moyasu pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance.
"He's also being a little cunt." Tamashi grumbled bluntly. Moyasu gaped at her language and Nikushimi looked at her shishou curiously. Tamashi elaborated, "Don't even ask me but for some reason he's avoiding you like you've insulted his honor or something."
"And as for Rin..." Moyasu trailed off.
Tamashi picked up for him, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news but she was dead when Moyasu got there."
Nikushimi frowned but slowly nodded, "Yes... yes I saw. I hoped I had been imagining things..."
Nikushimi then remembered her encounter with the real or not real Obito. Nikushimi very slowly turned to her sensei, "Ne, sensei..."
Moyasu looked at Nikushimi suspiciously, "What do you want to know?"
"That night, was it raining when you found me?"
Moyasu squinted his eyes at the odd question but shook his head, "No, though the area was pretty destroyed by some water jutsu."
"And it didn't look like it had rained before you got there?" Nikushimi pressed.
"No, why is this important to know?" Moyasu inquired. Tamashi looked equally interested.
"No reason just..." Nikushimi trailed, "Just trying to figure out what was blood loss induced hallucinations and what wasn't."
Nikushimi turned the conversation towards brighter topics and Moyasu and Tamashi were able to return home late that night rather than sleep there like they had been. Nikushimi was finally awake and consequently out of critical condition. The next morning Nikushimi spoke with Kaede who had been watching over her as her doctor and made up her battle plan.
She had been severely drained of her chakra and would continue to feel the effects for awhile due to the odd nature of her chakra. Kaede recommended Nikushimi begin building her reserves before her body stopped developing and she was stuck with the amount of chakra a young child would have. Due to Nikushimi's body Kaede had limited options when Nikushimi had been missing an organ or two but she put Nikushimi's insides back together and was able to actually heal Nikushimi. Nikushimi's body, with her chakra nearly drained completely, hadn't been able to defend against foreign chakra like it normally would and Kaede had fixed Nikushimi's organs and regrew as much skin as she could before stitching her back up. Nikushimi's leg was a different story and Kaede didn't believe Nikushimi could possibly fix a severed limb but stranger things had happened.
But, Nikushimi's battle plan.
First of all, to train up her reserves Nikushimi had to bring herself just to the point before chakra exhaustion. Every. Single. Day. Then she had to keep training for physical chakra and meditate for spiritual chakra. Nikushimi found this was going to be awful considering the few jutsu she had were very low costing in chakra and Nikushimi was willing to bet that she was going to have issues drawing out her chakra the less chakra she had to pull out. But the first task she had was to fix her leg and possibly try and regrow an organ from what was left. Nikushimi, after searching her body, found she was missing a kidney that was probably left on the battlefield after she had ripped open her entire right side. Nikushimi couldn't regrow an organ from scratch, that, as everyone put it, would be beyond her bullshit. But she could definitely duplicate her other kidney and just mirror it and manipulate it to fit correctly. That though would probably take a few days of chakra.
"You're going to be recovering for awhile, huh?" Tamashi asked as she sat beside Nikushimi on a bench. Nikushimi was dressed in a hospital gown and was given a wheelchair by the hospital. During Tamashi's visit she had wheeled Nikushimi outside to the courtyard and they were sitting beneath the shade of a cherry blossom tree. Nikushimi had yet to stitch her leg back on to begin healing it because her insides were a bigger issue at the moment so she was limited to the hospital.
Nikushimi agreed, "Yeah. It'll probably be a week still before I can even start doing something about my leg and I've never reattached a leg before so I'm going to be safe and keep off it for a week of healing. I'll do some physical therapy-"
"You can't slack off your training while you're healing." Tamashi said suddenly and she stood up, "I think I know what you need."
Nikushimi blinked at Tamashi in confusion.
"What is your ninja specialization?" Tamashi questioned.
Nikushimi had to think about it. On the academy papers she had put down senbon and body specialist so Nikushimi repeated this to her shishou. Tamashi scowled at her brat and scolded her, "And you haven't trained anything new other than working on your chakra control and my weights? Aside from the minimal seduction I tried to teach you, you're no better than your academy self. No wonder you came back looking like an absolute mess when Kakashi looked like he was returning from a stressful and difficult but normal mission."
Nikushimi went to defend herself but Tamashi cut her off before she even began, "Up until now you've managed to get by just with what you've had but your luck is going to run out soon, if it didn't already. I talked with Moyasu and he recalls you have spoils from a previous mission. Battle fans?"
"Yeah, but I have my senbon-"
"Senbon are shit when you're up close and personal with a higher ranked ninja with a sword. I looked at your medical records and spoke with Minato and Moyasu." Tamashi glared at her student, "A good majority of your injuries have been caused by swords or some kind of specialization. If you think you can continue as you are then you're in for a rude awakening, brat."
Nikushimi scoffed and Tamashi began to list, "Your mission guarding NÅryoku Yuki you healed yourself following everyone thinking you died after being impaled and stuck to a tree by a sword. In the Fumo Wastelands your throat was slit deeply by a Jounin level Missing Nin with a kunai and everyone thought you were going to die. The spy that infiltrated from Kiri could have killed you if you hadn't been lucky that your chakra is a special case. That time the village was attacked and that Kiri ninja impaled you with a sword and I thought I watched some stupid Genin get herself killed. When you fought Koga his strength outmatched yours. I'm not even going to mention the mess guarding the daimyo's daughter turned out to be but you were captured by two jutsu specialized bounty hunters and tortured. Then whatever the fuck that was that happened after that. Now we're going to add that first you were stabbed by a Kiri ANBU with a sword before rushing off and being gutted again by another Kiri ANBU-"
Nikushimi interrupted just to be cheeky, "Actually, it was the same ANBU."
Tamashi told Nikushimi to shut up and continued, "You lost your leg to a sword-"
"How do you know it was a sword?" Nikushimi questioned.
Tamashi snarled, "I'm a Kenjutsu specialist, I know swords and I got a good look at your goddamn leg. Only a sword could do that."
Nikushimi and Tamashi glared at each other for a moment but neither looked very intimidating. Nikushimi was handicapped and in a wheelchair while Tamashi was wearing civilian clothing and looked a cross between annoyed and concerned. Seeing Tamashi's concern Nikushimi yielded with a sigh and Tamashi continued.
"We're not going to mention the accounts of you injuring yourself such as running into a burning hospital and fucking up your knee but I'm going to rub in the fact that you get more injured than anyone else you're ever on a team with. And it's my job to remedy this as it's an error on my part that I let you go so long like this." Tamashi pinched the bridge of her nose before she sighed and rubbed her face with her hands.
Nikushimi sighed and didn't even argue that sometimes she's only the second worst injury such as the Fumo Wastelands and she could technically be the third if you weren't going in order of how lethal the injury was. She would be the first in that case but Tatakau and Obito's injuries were worse off in the end with Obito's being the worst injury of the team but not as lethal as her throat being slit and Tatakau's injury had the longest impact considering that hand was definitely his weak point now. Nikushimi had left the Land of Snow unscathed but she got to heal herself after Koga had beat the absolute shit out of her and regarding guarding the daimyo, that mission went so poorly and Nikushimi was injured so often that the entire mission could count several times against her in this argument.
"Alright alright, you win. I need to specialize." Nikushimi yielded quietly. Tamashi scoffed.
"Not only are you going to specialize but you're going to be beyond specialization. I'm going to teach you duel wielding once your leg is better. Swords seem to be your mortal enemy and we're going to lessen your mortality rate with them by making you a better swordsman than your opponent. Kenjutsu is an art that will take some time to master though and that leg you said is going to take its time so I'm going to give you a trump card in the mean time." Tamashi grinned brilliantly, "I hope you still have those battle fans."
Nikushimi made a face, "I think so. They're probably in with my mission gear somewhere."
"We start tomorrow." Tamashi stood and Nikushimi gawked at her shishou.
"Shishou I'm missing a kidney."
Tamashi grinned, "Well you don't really need two kidneys for battle fans."
Nikushimi grouched about Tamashi's slave driving under her breath but she wasn't really that disgruntled over it. This would definitely up her survival rate and hopefully lessen her wounds on her next mission. After all, Nikushimi's record was far from spotless.
Tamashi smiled at the sunset as she stood to wheel Nikushimi back to her room. Soon, things would be back on the right track. And as Tamashi thought this, Nikushimi set her own eyes upon the sunset. She clenched her fist in her lap and her lips drew up into an odd sort of smile.
Hidden in the shadows of the wall a familiar silver-haired boy stood, watching with a single dark eye as the handicapped girl was wheeled back into the hospital. He turned to leave but took one last look at where she had been sitting with her mentor. His hand clenched into a fist and then he was gone without anyone having ever known he was there.
AN
This was a nice easy chapter. It came to me.
AND OMG NEXT CHAPTER IS CHAPTER 50! My baby is getting so big ;-; And old. Gosh, next month it's going to be what, three years? Four years? I can't even. Next chapter you'll get my mushy feelings in the authors note as I blabber about my feels.
Fun Fact- Obito probably thinks Nikushimi is either dead or beyond handicapped right now.
RQ (Review Question): Do you like or dislike Nikushimi and why?
Thank you so much to the following for reviewing:
Nandeenah
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KawaiiMinato
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