Metsuki sat up, looking towards the horizon as a small sliver of pale light penetrated the black sky. She had volunteered for the last watch, and it was almost time to wake up the other two. Shikon landed nearby and squeaked lightly as Metsuki dug in a bag of provisions, bringing forth a small fruit, an orange, and handinding it to the bat who sunk her teeth into it.
"Go eat it away from here, you'll get it all over everything," she said, not bothering to whisper. The fruit bat drooped from her perch, opening her wings and taking off with the orange fruit. Metsuki sighed. It was time to get going.
She jumped down from the tree where she had been posted and walked silently over to Sasuke, nudging him with her toe, before doing the same to Neji. The two shinobi were instantly alert, but relaxed as they saw Metsuki sitting a few feet off. As she waited for them to get ready, she brought up her legs and buried her face sleepily into her folded arms. Her bandana was loose, but she was too tired to care.
After a few minutes, the two shinobi sat down to eat, digging in the bag of provisions and looking for a small breakfast.
"Aren't you going to eat any Metsuki?" asked Sasuke, pulling out two oranges.
"I'm not that hungry," she replied, her voice muffled in her clothes. Shikon flew overhead before flippeing down and landing on the ground. She took another orange and began eating it.
"What did I tell you about eating here, fatass? You're too messy, go over there," said Metsuki, lifting her head and pointing to the edge of the forest. The large bat took off, doing as she was told. Metsuki dropped her head back into her arms. Five minutes later, the other two Anbu finished their breakfast and packed up, replacing their masks and grabbing their weapons.
Metsuki had fallen asleep, and as Neji went over to wake her, he noticed the odd shaped burn mark on her arm, the seal.
"What's that?" he asked Sasuke. Sasuke walked over, removing his mask and staring down at the seal.
"It's a seal..." said Sasuke. He nudged Metsuki, who groaned and lifted her head.
"We're going now, so get up. If you were this tired you should have just asked me to take double shifts," said Neji, turning away and replacing his mask.
Metsuki absent-mindedly rubbed her arm, not noticing the looks she got from the two other masked Anbu, before she fell into line with them and headed out. It was only a half hour to the Hidden Stream.
Eventually, the three Anbu came across the Hidden Stream, a small village in the middle of a large, grassy field scattered with large boulders. But before they could go any further, Metsuki stopped them, pointing up at one of the large boulders.
An Anbu stood at the top of it, arms crossed and short, dark brown hair blowing messily into his face. He wore a mask depicting a wolf, painted black and red. He removed the mask, revealing a young face and well defined, handsome features, along with a pair of odd eyes. They were completely black, no white, and glinted in the morning light. Silence.
Metsuki decided to speak up, since she knew the other two would not. " Are you Iyasu? Ookami Iyasu?"
The figure slid off of the rock, landing in a crouch at the base of the rock before standing, still holding onto his mask. "Hai." he said. "And you are Hyuuga Neji, Uchiha Sasuke and Metsuki, ne?"
The three Anbu nodded. Neji stepped forward, shaking hands with the Stream-nin and whispering something to him. Iyasu nodded and stepped forward. He held up his left hand and twitched his fingers, a bag of provisions dropping off of the top of the boulder and into his hand. He replaced his mask.
Great, another one who is the strong but silent type. Geez, two was okay, but this is overdoing it. They fell into position, Iyasu behind her, but Metsuki stopped them.
"Neji, you said it was a three week journey to the Hidden Snow, right?'
Neji sighed and turned, "Yes, Metsuki.'
"How about I make it around five or six days?"
There was silence. "How?" asked Neji, turning fully.
"I'll take that as a yes, ne?" she grinned. "Stand back."
The three other ninja did as they were told, moving aside until she told them to stop. She took a deep breath, she didn't like to see her own blood, but she didn't feel like walking.
Biting her thumb, she touched it to each of her other fingers before slamming it into the ground and yelling, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"
There was a puff of smoke, and as it cleared, a giant bat stood on all fours, wings folded tightly to its sides, with Metsuki standing on it's head. It's beady black eyes glinted as Metsuki stepped forward, grabbing reins that passed through it's fanged, wolf-like muzzle.
"Come on, get up here," she pulled the reins slightly, and one of the wings unfurled allowing the three, somewhat startled ninja, to board their fanged vessel. The soft black fur rustled gently in the breeze as the shinobi wearily climbed up, sitting down akwardly.
"I never knew you could summon," said Sasuke.
"There are alot of things you don't know about me. We will have to walk the last day though, as a large bat coming towards a village would scare the shit out of them. And on top of that, using chakra takes alot out of me anyways. I'll be wasted after this... Hold on!" But according to the info I got on Iyasu, he should be able to stop the bleeding. And the attack won't come until I stop using my chakra anyways.
Metsuki jerked the reins, and the large, black bat pulled into the air and circled a few times, gaining altitude before heading north. Let's speed this up, she thought, removing her bandana. She knew she would pay later, but she loved flying fast. She tied it around her arm and stirred up a strong wind, throwing the other shinobi backwards as she stood on the head of the giant bat, keeping the tension on the reins.
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It was the last day of flying, and to Metsuki it had lost it's fun. She had already made the other three sick in a series of loops and twists yesterday, and had accidentally dropped Sasuke, but she managed to catch him just in time. The landscape had changed from plains to forests and then to snow covered forests as they travelled farther and farther north. It was almost sunset, and the temperature had dropped dramatically.
During the times when they were at rest, Metsuki had had to leave her bandana off, otherwise she knew an attack would hit. Using her bloodline for so long would have serious consequences, and tonight she would have to face them. She was shaking, althoughit was not from the cold; she knew there would be lots of blood and she wondered if Iyasu could manage it. She decided to warn him.
"Hey, um... Iyasu?"
"What?"
"I'm gonna land soon and de-activate my bloodline, so I thought I should ask you now. You're a medical specialist, right?"
"Yeah," he said, sitting up from where he had been lying all day.
"Well, when I use my bloodline at all, even for a few minutes, I pay for it as soon as I de-activate it. I pay for it in blood though, I get an attack of some sort. I just wanted to warn you, because when I land I'll get an extremely serious attack."
"Attacks? What happens?" he asked, looking towards her as she stood facing away.
"Well... I'm not sure exactly what happens, but I start coughing up blood and it really hurts. It burns my whole body and if it goes unattended, I'd probably die from either stress or bloodloss. Sometimes, when I get a really bad attack, my eyes and nose start bleeding as well... but..."
"What is it?"
"Well... One of the only things I really get nervous seeing is my own blood. I don't mind others blood, but my blood makes me sick, which just adds to it. Do you think you can stop the attack?"
"Yeah, it should be easy enough," he replied after a slight pause.
You just don't get it do you? Oh well. "I'm gonna land now..."
The large bat circled once, twice, three times as she hesitated, but eventually she brought it down in a large field at the edge of a forest. Once on the ground, the four ninja jumped down and the black bat landing in crouches beside eachother.
Metsuki prepared for the attack, sinking to her knees as Iyasu came up beside her. She de-activated her eyes by tying the bandana over them and waited in silence, counting the seconds. It didn't take long.
Her lungs suddenly contracted as pain erupted through her body, her shoulders shaking in a coughing fit as she struggled to breathe beetween coughes. She grabbed her head and squeezed her eyes shut as she felt the horrible liquid burning up her throat and her nose.
It took almost two minutes for the coughing to stop, but then came the worst part. The small trickle of blood running from her mouth and nose suddenly increased by a tenfold, running freely off her chin and nose and soaking into the snow.
This is when Iyasu decided on what to do, he forciblbly grabbed her shoulders and slipped off the top part of her Anbu uniform, leaving her in only the black undershirt. The snow all around was covered in red, and Sasuke and Neji looked on in horror, eventually coming forward and kneeling down beside Metsuki. She had stopped shivering, and was lying perfectly still with the blood leaking from her mouth and nose. Iyasu turned her head to the side gently.
"Close your eyes, Metsuki," he said gently. But her eyes were already closed, she had closed them as soon as she felt them burn. They were bleeding, although you couldn't see it on the black cloth. Iyasu untied her bandana, revealing the rest of her face, her delicate features covered in blood and her eyelids quivering.
"Oh shit," muttered Iyasu. His eyes moved across her body, seeing under her skin. What he saw frightened him.
"What is it? What's wrong with her body?" asked Neji, leaning forward.
"Activate your Byakuugan and look for youself," replied Iyasu.
Neji cried out in suprise as he saw the war her body was fighting from the inside.
"What is it? I can't see," said Sasuke.
"Her TenKetsu is constricting around her vital organs, her heart, liver, kidneys, stomach, and especially her lungs and brain. But that's not all, her TenKetsu is not normal. There are three hundred sixty-one Tsubus, or chakra openings in the body, but it looks like she has an abnormal amount, almost twice the amount of a normal person," Iyasu ran his hands over her body, hovering then a centimeter above her skin.
"Look,' said Neji, indicating the seal. It seemed to have melted, the burn marks seeping into one another.
Iyasu quickly lifted the bottom of her shirt up, revealing her stomach. There were several scars running across it, looking like torture marks, but he ignored them for a moment, pressing a chakra covered hand into her stomach and closing his eyes in concentration. He ran his own chakra through her TenKetsu, trying to relax the inner coils, but only succeeding slightly. The bleeding grew steadier.
"Damnit, I can't do this alone. I need another Medical-nin to-"
"Sasuke."
Metsuki coughed up more blood before continuing.
"Sh-sharingan." This cost her another coughing fit. Her stomach muscles convulsed, bringing her into a sitting position for a second before she fell back into the snow, unconcious.
Sasuke looked over to Iyasu. Neji caught the meaning before the other two.
"Sasuke, use your sharingan to copy Iyasu's movements," instructed Neji, straining his Byakuugan to view Metsuki's inner coil system better.
Sasuke activated his bloodline, copying Iyasu as he pressed his hands into her stomach again, gently forcing his own chakra through her body, slowly relaxing it. It took a few minutes, but the bleeding eventually stopped. Iyasu dug in his bag for a jacket and a cloth, wiping off Metsuki's blood covered face which was unnaturally pale. He then wrapped her in the black jacket, replacing her bloodied bandana and gently lifting her.
"We should set up camp, she needs to rest. I'll need to work on replenishing her blood and chakra for most of the night, but she should be fine in around a day," Iyasu said as he carried her into the tree shelter. Neji picked up Iyasu's and Metsuki's bags, along with his own, before following along with Sasuke behind him. The sun had gone down almost completely, but the moon shone brightly off the snow.
Neji cleared away a spot to sleep, as did Sasuke and Iyasu cleared a larger space for Metsuki. Their camp was fairly sheltered and hidden from view.
"I need to start on fixing Metsuki up, so I'll take first watch. I'll wake one of you up before midnight, so you can get some rest. We won't be doing much tomorrow," said Iyasu. He set down Metsuki gently on the ground, sitting up beside her and draping the jacket over her body, leaving her stomach still exposed and placing his hand on it, running chakra through her body.
Sasuke grabbed his own cloak from his bag, taking off the top part of his Anbu uniform and using it as a pillow as her put on the cloak instead. Neji did the same, both falling asleep almost instantly
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"Get up, Neji." Iyasu was still sitting up beside Metsuki, hand glowing with chakra as he continued treating her. Neji sat up, bringing up his cloak around his shoulders.
"It's your watch. I'm going to bed."
"How can you sleep if your supposed to be treating Metsuki?" asked Neji, glancing warily at him.
"I've done it before, my body is used to it," said Iyasu. He lay down beside Metsuki, hand still resting on her stomach in an almost intimate posture. Neji glared angrily at him.
"What the hell are you doing, Iyasu!?" he said angrily.
"Going to sleep, goodnight," he muttered, falling asleep almost instantly. Neji felt uncomfortable in seeing the two ninja so close, he could see the condensation from Iyasu's breathing brushing against her neck. He quickly turned away, suddenly realizing how hot his cheeks were, the cool air felt refreshing. He refused to look at Metsuki and Iyasu until his shift was over.
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The small fire crackled softly in the cold air, providing little wamth. A hare was slowly cooking above it, sending an almost irresistable smell into the air. Iyasu sat asleep against a nearby tree as Neji and Sasuke absent-mindedly watched the meat cook, turning it every once and awhile.
There was a cough and Metsuki stirred slightly, groaning and rolling over. There was a moments silence before she pushed herself up using her elbows. "Holy shit, what a horrible sleep..."
"You're finally up?" asked Sasuke.
"Hn." she replied holding one hand to her head as she pushed herself fully up.
"Why do you do that to your body? You'll kill yourself." said Neji, turning the rabbit once more before removing it from the fire.
"Don't really care. Nobody would care if I died anyways."
Iyasu stirred as well, rubbing his black eyes and yawning once. "How're you feeling, Metsuki?"
"Horrible."
"Thats good." he said, yawning again.
"Here," said Neji, holding out a strip of rabbit meat, "you need the protein and energy, we're heading out to the Hidden Snow as soon as you recover."
She took it hungrily, wolfing it down in a few seconds before moving on to the rest of the meat. When she was finished, she wiped her mouth and tightened her bandana. " We can leave in a few minutes, I feel much better. Thanks for stopping it, Iyasu."
"No problem." Iyasu smiled at her before glancing at Neji, black eyes glinting in the early morning light. Neji glared back at him. He didn't like this shinobi.