Chapter 10
Naruto-nii-san was very kind. He sat there and let her eat everything she wanted. She hadn't eaten like this for so long. Her clothes had once been clean, but now they were dirty, and no one played with her anymore. Now there was no money. No food. No one smiled. Everyone was sad.
Shiho hated it when everyone was sad.
"Tell me about yourself," Naruto nii-san said, so Shiho did.
Her name, she told him, was Shiho Tsujikawa. Her father fled Ame a generation ago and made his way to Wave, where he started a textile business which burgeoned. Her mother was a merchant's daughter.
The best mother in the world, Shiho said proudly.
Her father was a fair man, a proud man, a man with a backbone. He was the best father ever. He talked all the time about justice and peace, pity and love; so when Gato had come to their land and spun his vast web of evil, her father had been amongst the first to take a stand.
He had funded people, he had said things, he had raised his voice against what went on and how his workers and his countrymen suffered— and for this crime he lost his head.
They came to her house a year ago and stabbed him to death before her eyes.
She remembered a blur of red, and the screams which would never stop, not even in her dreams.
She heard them now when she told her story, and her eyes watered. But Naruto nii grasped her hand and smiled so kindly that her heart twisted and the voices faded.
She was happy again.
Father died, she said. Mother wept and held her and covered her ears and turned her head away from the carnage. They'd run when the house was set ablaze. They'd lost their house that night. They'd lost everything. They had nothing now and were nobodies. Shiho was sad for a while, but then she realized father was in a better place, and that it was up to her to take care of mother.
So she took to flower selling.
Mother was sad these days.
She never answered back, and her eyes had a vacant look.
She dressed up every night and went to places, and when she returned she was mottled with bruises. Last night her lips were swollen. Most nights her face was swollen too, and she bled a lot, and wept, and her sobs were so loud that it frightened Shiho.
But Shiho always went and hugged her, then applied their home-made salve over her wounds.
It made mother happy. She smiled through her tears.
But the bruising never went away.
It was hard now. It was hard to be like this every day. The flowers would not bloom, and the crops died. A lot of the time there was nothing to eat. Shiho lost hope on some days, but Kaiza-nii said everything would be all right, and Kaiza-nii always kept his word.
He was the best big brother in the world, and though he had no money and though he walked on a wooden leg he had a voice like a cannon and it gave them all hope.
He said such nice things.
That in a month there would be food to eat.
That the world would be at their feet.
That someday father would get a memorial, and Shiho could live in the big house that she once lived in and be a little princess.
But Shiho did not want to be a princess.
She just wanted people to laugh again.
She wanted mother to not cry so much.
Yes, that was it.
She wanted mother to be happy.
Naruto-nii was gripping the table. He was gripping the table so hard that it cracked, and his fingers were white and a wood splinter went in and his hands bled. But he did not notice. He was upset too now. Everyone in her life was upset.
She upset everyone.
It was in the midst of such thoughts that she began to cough: it devolved into breathless hacks and soon delved into the envenomed depths of sickness; by the end blood dribbled down her mouth like froth uncontained— a rill unconstrained— and left wet red splotches on the table. Little lumps of food floated in that semi solid mish-mash of spit, blood and bile.
She sniffled, wiped her mouth, then turned to talk to Naruto-nii, only to see that his rage had turned into horror. The colour fled from his face; he looked like a scaredy cat scrambling up a tree, or else clinging to a ledge. The thought was funny to her— so much so, that even through the pain in her chest and the wickerwork of blood decorating the dusty table she laughed. She laughed loudly . . . and began to cough again.
"Stop."
There was a wrongness to how his voice shivered and cracked — it reminded her for some reason of bits of broken glass, or of the needles of a pine that she'd run her hands through: they too quivered the same way.
He looked sad.
He looked like he was about to cry.
But that couldn't be right.
Men did not cry.
She had never seen a grown man cry.
No.
No, that wasn't right either.
What was it that Kaiza-nii said to her last week?
He carried her on his shoulders and took her to Wave's outskirts, then showed her a lighthouse and got her an ice lolly. He pointed to the ships and the sea, and spoke with reverence of a land beyond, where men were free.
She asked him why mother cried, why he did not.
"Is it because you're a man?" she asked.
And he became sad.
Kaiza nii said it wasn't like that: mother wept because mother was a lot stronger than he was: she went to work everyday despite her tears, and suffered through countless cruelties; she suffered the worst things a woman could.
She did it because she loved Shiho, he said.
His love for the land, he said, would never be like mother's for Shiho.
Kaiza-nii said men cried too; but men that led never shed a tear, because they had the tears of a thousand Shihos and her mothers to tend to, to carry with them.
If he cried, he said, a land would lose hope.
Shiho did not quite understand, but she knew there was something very wrong about the tears of Naruto-nii.
So she did the first thing that came to mind.
She jumped out of her seat and hugged him.
And though the sense of wrongness did not go away, he relaxed a little. He patted her head and said she would be okay.
And Shiho was happy again.
It was such a beautiful day!
Satsuki discovered a desolate strip of barren land on the outskirts of Wave. This, she said, would be their training ground. A week off was already considerable, she said; sitting idle for another month and half made no sense.
Naruto protested: he had other things on his mind— a child about to die, for example. He left out the last bit, of course— it was not a confidence he wished to share with someone who demanded that he scavenge the carcass of this ruin.
Plunge it into deeper misery, she had implied, by either dissuading its figurehead or else condemning him to his doom.
Satsuki ignored him, and repeated her statement on training in a tone which brooked no argument, then pinned him in place with such a frigid stare that he unwillingly conceded to her demands.
And so they returned to training— and with it returned a litany of agonies. She stuck to taijutsu, maintained that his fundamentals needed a little more brushing up before they moved on.
And so the hours went by in a volley of blows, a rain of kicks.
He'd improved, he thought— he blocked less with his face.
Naruto had a sense of her movements now.
He could read her well.
When she pressured, he bobbed and weaved; when she produced a flurry of strikes he brought his hands up and sustained the sting of her taps; when she circled or tried cutting him off he maintained his distance and forced her to switch up her patterns.
Yes, he had grown— he anticipated and reacted even to her changes in level and rhythm.
He fell for fewer feints.
By the end, though he couldn't touch her yet, she offered him a nod of encouragement.
That nod, despite his present unrest, meant a lot— it was the first bit of validation he had received in forever.
They stopped, and she offered him a water bottle.
"How's your investigation coming along?"
He stopped gulping down his canteen, pushed away the sweat covered locks which had drifted into his eyes, and shook his head with a grimace.
"Not well."
Considering the look she shot him, she did not believe him.
"Have you even tried?"
"Yep." He went back to chugging down his canteen.
"And?"
"No one's saying shit."
It was the truth.
After he asked Shiho what her problem was (she did not know— there was no doctor in Wave anymore, and all she knew was that her mother told her it would someday get better on its own), he left her with some money, took her flowers, and spent the rest of the day quizzing everyone he ran into about Kaiza.
Where the man lived, where he worked, what he looked like.
These were decrepit people, dying both on the outside and the inside; but everytime that name was mentioned, their lips would pinch into a thin line, their brows would contract with a guarded ferocity, their eyes would gleam with a singular intensity. They'd straighten their spines and glare at him, going for a moment from the spectres they'd become to the men and women they once were— his question reversed the corrosion of tyranny and time, stoked the fires of resistance which were else absent.
Then they'd ignore him entirely and walk past, or else spit out Shinobi, as though it were a curse. In some instances they even wondered why he asked— who was he, what did he want, did he work for Gato?
And Naruto found himself tongue tied, unwilling and unable to lie.
He'd asked Shiho about Kaiza too, of course. But other than the crumb that Kaiza was like her big brother, he couldn't quite wheedle anything else out of her.
Not that he was interested in pursuing that line of investigation, considering how ill the girl was.
Yet there still remained a mystery.
A part of Naruto dully wondered why Satsuki was doing this at all: she obviously knew who the man was and where he lived.
So why send him to do this?
Why turn this into a game?
His mind supplied an answer: a small segment he had read an eternity ago about boar hunting. About how the boar, even when cornered and about to die, fought back with savagery, fought to its last breath, fought against fate itself— and how none of it mattered. All that the futility of its struggle achieved was to enthuse the hounds snapping at its heels or the troglodytes spearing it, so that its death itself became a blood sport, an event, a form of entertainment.
And he was sickened.
Satsuki seemed to notice how quickly his mood soured.
This he guessed due to how she stopped asking him questions.
He handed her back the canteen.
They started back towards their residence in silence.
Yet Naruto still had a favour to ask— one related to a sick little girl.
So, after a bout of internal strife, and after much balking, and hemming and hawing, he tentatively raised the subject in the most discreet manner possible.
"So, I was thinking—" he began.
"That's never a good sign."
"Sarcasm." He grinned. "Wonderful. Now you're using my weapons against me."
She shrugged.
"I'm a quick learner."
"Cute." He was tickled despite himself. "But as I was saying— I, uh... I was thinking, maybe I should be a medic?"
"No."
Well, that sure was fucking inconvenient.
"The fuck? Why not?"
"Because it's a dead end job." She stopped and turned to look at him. "It's a field overrun by pedestrian nobodies without a drop of talent or chakra to go around between the lot of them. It's worthless, bar as a side skill. It's a human litter box — it's where the trash goes."
Naruto could feel the condescension dripping from every syllable.
He almost felt personally attacked.
Almost.
"That's...really harsh. What about Tsunade?"
Satsuki smirked.
"And who else, besides Senju Tsunade? Name me three specialist medics in history who are worth a ryo."
"Uhhhhh…"
"Precisely."
She turned away and resumed walking.
"Hey, come on now," he called, jogging after her. "We can reinvent that wheel, ya know? Give it renown. Can already see it: Uzumaki Naruto, heir to Tsunade's throne. Hide ya cough syrups, your tourniquets, your scalpels— the hearthrob, the man, the myth, the legend has arrived, and he's here to operate!"
"Outstanding fanfiction." She rolled her eyes. "I know just the man to hook you up with. Jiraiya-sama needs a novel writing apprentice, I've heard."
"The fuck's a Jiraiya?"
"Trust me, you don't want to know."
There was a haunted look to her.
They pondered philosophically over that statement and its connotations for ten seconds.
"Seriously, though," Naruto said, "why not be a medic?"
Satsuki sighed.
Stopped altogether.
"What you have, for obvious reasons, is a surplus of chakra," she replied. "It makes refinement very hard, but complements anything based on endurance and damage. It's raw power weaponized. You can simply outlast people and eat them alive once they tire."
There was an unfocused look to her eyes— she was recollecting something.
"Take it from someone who has fought that type of opponent before," she continued, "you either find a way to finish them off quickly, or else you are in trouble, because even as you're running on empty they are in the ascendancy, and have barely begun to break a sweat. They're by far the most difficult kind of adversary one can run into. There's no out-enduring them: you're either significantly superior, or you're dead."
The last sentence emerged in a sibilant whisper. She'd gotten more passionate and tunnel visioned as she went on, lost in her own head— Naruto wondered if she'd forgotten he existed.
"Meh. Don't want that, though."
That snapped her out of whatever zone she'd gone into.
She zeroed in on him.
"Why wouldn't you want it?"
Satsuki glared at him as though he'd pissed on her father's grave.
"I dunno." He scratched his cheek. "Don't like hurting people. Let's heal 'em instead."
"Then you're severely limiting yourself. You'll never have the precision to be a top tier medic."
"Ya hurt my feelings…"
"Be serious for a second, Naruto. Everything about you screams excess and chaos. You're meant to dominate on the battlefield. It's also why I don't bother teaching you kenjutsu: too precise, too niche, and it'd be a total waste of your skillset and your inbuilt advantages."
How fucking cute.
She actually thought he wanted to learn kenjutsu in the first place.
Still, it would not do to piss her off. Not here, not now, not with Shiho's life possibly on the line.
So Naruto went with it.
"But swordplay looks so cooooool, man…"
"For the likes of you, it'd be a crutch."
"Ok, then." He locked his arms behind his head, whistled, overtook her, turned around, maintained eye contact, and walked backwards. "So, say someone comes at me with one of those pointy stabby things. Then what, huh?"
"If someone comes at you with one, then you put some distance and redecorate the terrain. A sword's about as threatening as a toothpick against a good ninjutsu user."
He grinned.
"So I just go, BOOM!?"
"...yes." He caught a flicker of a half smile. "Yes, you do that."
Silence made a return. A pleasant one this time.
He couldn't leave it like that, though.
"Ok, so no career as a medic, then." Naruto made a conscious effort to sound as meek and humble as possible. "Can ya, like, teach me bits and pieces though?"
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"What's with this sudden interest in medicine?"
"Ha, nothing. Nothing. I was just kinda... wondering, that's all."
"Naruto."
"Ok, look. So there's this kid, alright? I ran into her yesterday, at the market. Got talking and all. Pumped her for info, the way you asked me to. Didn't get nothin' outta her. But she's ...uh...she's puking blood and stuff. And it's just real sad to watch, sensei. She's a swell kid too, ya know. Just poor. And I…"
"And you want to learn medicine within a month to help her."
"..haha . . . well, yeah, kinda."
Satsuki shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose.
"You idiot." There was a fondness to how she said it. "If you need help, then all you have to do is ask."
Shiho was easy to wean away from her flower selling and easier to persuade: the girl trusted with ease and seemed eager to please. Despite her illness she bounced about like a puppy sent into overdrive at the prospect of an evening jaunt.
She'd taken a liking to him, she said. Naruto believed her too, for it was in how her eyes softened, in how she rushed forward and offered him a hug; she skipped about and smiled and hummed a peppy tune before taking the hand he offered her, then demanded a popsicle in exchange for his suggested medical examination—this provided, her eyes were lodestars of delight, and a rosy hue flushed her emaciated face.
There was life in her yet, Naruto thought.
He desperately wished she would stay that way.
There was a purity to her. She was innocence itself, undaunted by the world, untainted by the wreckage around. Despite the devastation wrought upon this land she was unbroken; through its ever growing gloom and the shadow of its doom she was a beacon. Shiho had not lost her laughter; she winged the aether despite her sickness; she was a spirited nightingale trilling through this long night of tragedy, a lone voice unknowingly raised, a halberd against atrocity.
She was an upbeat epitaph scratched upon this tomb to humanity.
She rekindled something in him, something he thought long dead— a spark of hope.
And with it came the agony of a resistance for too long quelled, now reawakened, even if only for a transitory moment, a fleeting visitant. He looked around, and saw the seeds of oppression sown all about him; and, as the girl chattered on, Naruto found himself hoping that Kaiza— that wretched former shinobi turned fisherman— would succeed in his cause.
That Wave would be free.
It was a furtive thought, hounded out by pragmatism a second after it emerged. But he had thought it, nonetheless— and for a moment he willed it with all his heart.
He led the girl to a run down playground.
Satsuki awaited them there.
Shiho was unaffected by her presence. He'd explained to the girl that this was the healer.
A park bench was turned into a temporary infirmary.
"Lie down."
There was a gentleness to how Satsuki spoke, one he'd never heard before. He watched her kneel, and was struck with disbelief at the metamorphosis which took place before his eyes.
Part by part she divested herself of the shinobi she was: the air of authority evaporated; the indifference of eye and the nonchalance of countenance was smoothed over into a look of concern. She whispered endearments, lavished praise; gemstones of encouragement rolled off her tongue with effortless ease.
Shiho, who at the beginning of the examination had been tense, giggled and wriggled, blushed and chirped, and in response to a question once more recycled her entire family history.
And Satsuki offered her looks of understanding; lauded her on; nodded at the right points, sighed in regret at the right points; clucked her tongue, shook her head; stroked Shiho's hair, held her hand, ran over her chest with one palm a consistent diagnostic; and through it all injected into the entire procedure such an energetic air of sisterly sympathy that Naruto was left scratching his head— he was tempted to rub his eyes and wonder if he was hallucinating.
At first he suspected this was a fabrication on her part, a persona temporarily adopted; but, as it went on, and as she slipped further and further from the cold cocoon of what she used to be, and further and further into a butterfly-esque beauty, a sprite-winged, spring-like mellifluity; he grew increasingly convinced that Uchiha Satsuki, quite by accident, had exposed to him a side of hers that she either wanted to keep unknown or was herself not aware of.
And, as it continued, Naruto was totally lost, unable to reconcile the affection and the levity here with the cold clipped tones from a week ago, when she had commanded him to sway that fisherman or else be complicit in his murder. Before him now was no stone cold killer— squint hard enough, and it was easy to forget that she upheld an unjust system, slew people over it. The impression she left as she wove her palm over Shiho's chest, and as the mellow sun in turn wove through her unbraided hair its violin bow, was one of everlasting beauty, of kindness and piety. There was a sun struck riband of auburn in her hair, and with it shimmered before him an illusion: one of benevolence, of an affability in demeanour that superseded the petty plagues of skin and flesh, and cradled the world.
He felt he was missing half a puzzle.
It was maddeningly frustrating, and at the same time maddeningly entrancing: he teetered from the precipice of bafflement to the brink of being smitten. The more she inadvertently revealed, the more she confused him; the more she confused him, the further she devolved into a set of contradictions— so much so, that shuttling back and forth between these spontaneous and seemingly irreconcilable switches in personality was vertigo inducing.
How on earth could someone at the same time be both kind and cruel, emotionless and emotional, humanitarian and inhuman, irritable and immovable, celestial and chimeric?
Which was the person, which was the mask?
Was there, in fact, even a person there at all?
Or was she just a consummate Shinobi?
Was she, in other words, a chameleon? An actor? A born liar, a hollow manipulator, a perpetual blank canvas that mimicked what it wished to, became what it wished to, remoulded itself when necessary, able to enchant one moment and exploit the next?
Was he important to her, or was he expendable?
He did not know.
Lord help him, he did not know.
What he knew, however, was that he was drawn to her.
He watched her chatter away with the child and hold the setting sun under her spell. Time itself seemed her thrall: it might've slowed to a crawl or streamed by, slumbered or lumbered or leapt; seconds or centuries might've passed in the midst of his amorous paralysis — and he would be none the wiser for it.
All he could see through the fog of his thoughts was her half smile and the quiescent kindness that dwelled there; all he could observe was how her face blossomed under the torrential rains of sympathy and passion, and thus became more bewitching with every passing moment.
All he could see was how humanity and inhumanity blended in her, how they blurred— and all he could ponder on was how he ought to have been repulsed, but instead was drawn, as though to a stainless radiance, or to a spider web, a death trap...
Yes.
Yes.
He was drawn to her.
She was very attractive— and her being an enigma was somehow more tempting than it ought to have been.
It should've been an uncomfortable admission.
So why the fuck did he not feel very uncomfortable in making it to himself?
"Tuberculosis."
That got him out of his head.
Satsuki's smile was still in place, but now he could see the rough edges to it, the strain it was under.
He could see … the sheer artificiality of it.
And that shattered the spell.
In her defence, there was not much to smile about in the present moment.
"What?"
"It was tuberculosis."
The girl by her side was laughing and kicking the ground, seemingly in her own world.
"Can ya fix it?"
"I already have."
And in saying that, Satsuki offered him a small smile, this one genuine.
His shoulders sagged with relief.
Yes, this place was an atrocity ridden Hell-hole.
Yes, the inhumanity of the conditions here had inspired this illness in the first place.
But the girl was all right now.
She would still offer the world her smiles, still spin her yarn of eternal hope, still grow, even if it be in the corrupted womb of this void.
And in that moment, it was all that mattered.
He felt as if he'd swilled on a heady cocktail of emotion— and there was an addlement which came with it.
Gratitude and infatuation melded into each other; they took his heart to such extremities, distended it in such ways, whispered such sweet nothings into his ear, that he grinned.
For a moment, and just for a moment, the world despite its cruelties was a shrine of joy.
And that was quite enough.