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Chapter 16

"So Juzo left."

Fuguki glowered at Sute as he spoke, his eyes full of disdain and anger. She just nodded tiredly, gaze trained on the roaring campfire in front of her.

"He did," she confirmed flatly. "I tried to stall him as long as I could. After our last clash I took off for the shore, he must have switched out with a water clone and had it pursue me while he ran away."

Zabuza hissed an angry curse under his breath, while Fuguki made his displeasure known through the subtle leakage of killing intent. Sute knew it wasn't directed at her so she didn't care, just let her head loll to the side as she stared out the mouth of the cave at the pouring rain.

Barely half an hour had passed since her encounter with Juzo. Not long after Kisame found her Fuguki and Zabuza had also shown up, having already doubled back after finding the corpse of one of the intruders when they saw her flash bang. The group had relocated to a small cave to get shelter from the rain and go over their findings thus far. Naturally, they hadn't been too pleased.

With Juzo gone, the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen—already a measly four at this point in time—had been reduced to an even more scant three. Of the group that had found Sute on the battlefield, only Fuguki remained now, everyone else long dead. It truly felt like the end of an era, Sute thought distantly, but at the same time she couldn't say whether she mourned it or not.

Juzo was gone.

Gone from Kiri, probably miles away by now, and taking Kubikiribocho with him. Her throat felt dry as the implications settled in that she might never see him again, and that if they did it might be as enemies. That Zabuza might now never receive Kubikiribocho, never become one of the Swordsmen. He might not ever end up going to Wave and facing Team Seven, never sacrifice his life in a fit of grief after watching Haku die for him.

Canon was changing. Was it changing? She didn't know. She had no knowledge of what was supposed to happen to Juzo in Canon, only that he Did Not Exist and that Zabuza had the giant meat cleaver of a sword instead.

Maybe that should scare her, but really, she didn't care. For all Konoha liked to whisper about her being a "Bloody Oracle," she had the most limited knowledge possible. She had a scant few concrete plot points to work from, her knowledge limited and hazy due to several years since her last foray into the Naruto franchise, and she knew that the smallest of shakes could ruin it.

Trying to preserve Canon would be stupid and pointless. Maybe if she'd been in Konoha she might have tried, but out here in Kiri miles removed from the main plot, it didn't matter.

All that mattered to Sute was that she survived.

They heard a crunch outside, all three of them jolting to alertness and turning to the mouth of the cave. They relaxed when they saw Kisame's familiar form stagger into the range of the fire's glow, another familiar figure draped over his shoulder.

Seeing Ao's state in full for the first time, Sute couldn't help but wince. The man had been even more battered than she'd realized; his right leg had a giant bloody gash that had been wrapped with a long strip of fabric torn from his yukata's hem, and his left ankle was clearly bruised and swollen. The yukata itself hung slightly looser than she remembered, allowing her to glimpse the tips of something white and red wrapped around his chest.

"Sorry we took so long," Kisame said as he half-dragged, half-carried the other man inside. "Figured I should at least try to stop the bleeding long enough to get him here without dying." He knelt down and eased Ao to the ground, and Sute quickly joined them to pry his yukata off to begin her examination. Sure enough she found multiple layers of soggy bandages swathing his torso, damp and full of splotchy red and pink stains from his open wounds.

"There's a reason people don't try to patch up wounds in the rain," she commented dryly as she started unwinding the bandages. "Points for actually trying first aid though." Ao grunted as she slowly peeled away the bandages, gritting his teeth in a pained grimace.

"At least tell me the Scourge responsible is dead," he muttered.

"Eh, not yet but close enough," Kisame replied blithely. "I found him passed out not too far from that last battle site. Pretty sure only Tsunade could save him at this point. No offense, Sute-chan."

"Focusing," she hissed quietly, eyes critically assessing Ao's wounds as she waved glowing green hands over his torso. She decided to start by just checking his internal organs and making sure nothing would randomly explode or deflate in the immediate future; no point healing him if his heart would just randomly give out. Ao just leered at her quietly as she got to work, his eye narrow.

"You have surprisingly good chakra control for reserves that size," he observed, voice tight in that way people had when trying to block pain.

"I have been training in chakra control from day one," she responded flatly. "Half the time you saw me in the war I had a bunch of leaves stuck to my skin under my clothes. Now hush, I need to focus because your spleen should NOT be so close to your intestines." Seriously, it was so impressive how much she could "see" with healing chakra alone, she didn't even have to cut him open. Too bad she couldn't always get away with just this, she didn't really care for looking at pancreases. Their texture was just... bluh.

While she silently got to work Fuguki scoffed. "If you can talk, you can report what happened," he said gruffly, and Ao grunted before acquiescing, his voice smooth and unhindered even as his face occasionally screwed up with pain as Sute subtly nudged his spleen back into its proper place with her chakra.

"Our unit made contact with the enemy, but they had a sixth member who had not been included in the reports, and he got the drop on us. We lost one of our men almost immediately, and managed to down one of theirs before having to retreat. We identified three of the enemies as high A-rank threats. Of our remaining team members two had only B-rank skill levels, so we decided to send them to alert Kiri while Biwa Juzo and I remained behind to fend the hostiles off. However, three of them managed to get past us and chase them."

"For the record, they didn't make it," Zabuza interjected at this point. "We found one dead in the road, and after that we found the second one dead along with an enemy's corpse. The other hostiles croaked too though. Found one of the Scourges dead from poison—same symptoms as the one in the woods half a mile from here, so I'm guessing we got you to thank for that."

"What happened with Juzo and the other two?" Kisame asked. "I get the feeling you guys retreated from the battle site and managed to split them up to try to look for you, but what I don't get is why none of you died during the second fight."

"Partway through the battle with the bakuton user, he exploded a tree next to me which pelted me with fragmented wood, including a large piece embedded in my right thigh," Ao responded gravely. "At that point, Juzo turned sides and attacked me while revealing his intentions to defect, forcing me to retreat."

He paused to hiss in pain as Sute went to examine the gash he just mentioned, peeling off the makeshift bandage to reveal a noticeable chunk had been cut from the fleshier part of his leg. "Damn, that's ugly," she muttered, more to herself than anyone else. "Won't be walking on that anytime soon." As she began pumping numbing chakra into the wound he slowly relaxed, sucking in a small breath before continuing.

"I should note that before our final fight with the bakuton user, we had managed to cover enough distance to feel secure enough to rest and recoup our strength for a few hours. Juzo had asked me to take first watch so he could sleep, citing my implanted Byakugan as making me most suitable for the position. In retrospect, I suspect he had already planned to defect then, and had wanted to maximize my exhaustion so I would be easier to eliminate."

"Definitely sounds premeditated," Kisame mused. "This side of the island is the closest to the mainland, and there's plenty of fishing boats around here. If he managed to conserve enough chakra during his fight with Sute-chan, he should probably be able to run across the ocean long enough to find a fishing boat to hijack." Not many people could manage the chakra necessary to cross all the way to the mainland by foot alone, the distance was just vast enough to make it unfeasible.

"Ringo," Fuguki said, knowing she wouldn't speak up on her own in her current state of concentration. "Did he use a lot of chakra during your fight?"

"Mostly he just swung Kubikiribocho," she said with a small shrug. "He never really threw around hand seals that I can recall, up until the water clone at the end."

"That brings us to another point," Kisame interjected, eyes narrow as he peered at her. "What the hell made you think you should go up against a Swordsman?"

"I didn't expect to win a blaze of glory if that's what you're thinking," she responded dryly. "I'm not delusional. I know my strengths and weaknesses. I also know that it'd be better to try to keep Kubikiribocho in Kiri. I knew I had the flash-bang in my pouch and you would still be pretty close, so I figured I could at least stall for time."

And beyond that, she knew Juzo wouldn't kill her.

If he had wanted to kill her, he would've just cut her down the moment she turned to look at Ao rather than order her to move out of the way. His first move had been to slash at her ankles, a definitively nonlethal target, and she'd been able to tell the swipe had been shallow enough that it would have only sliced the tendons instead of severing them. It would have crippled her, but Sute could have healed that before it caused permanent damage, a fact he knew.

She understood then that the fight wouldn't be intrinsically dangerous, and that she could focus on biding her time. All of his cuts had been purposely shallow or aimed at areas he knew she could heal. The only time he ever came close to a lethal one had been after she'd created the thick mist, when he swung down Kubikiribocho on her from above. Visibility had been incredibly limited then, and she'd been very quiet when she landed on the branch so he could have easily misjudged her location. She felt certain his surprise had come from more than just his blow being blocked by an obstacle he couldn't see.

Her hands stilled briefly, her fingers strangely numb as she recalled the sight of peachy flesh replaced by solid wooden grain and fused together with the hilt of her bokken.

A small shudder ran down her spine, and she swallowed before she resumed cleaning out Ao's wound. "By the way, did you see my bokken?" she asked, grabbing her bag to pull out a med kit and a roll of bandages. "I kinda threw it away in the middle of the fight."

Kisame responded by tossing the wooden blade her way, the bokken hitting the rocky ground and rolling a few feet to stop next to her. "For the record that was really stupid," the blue man remarked blandly, and she snorted and rolled her eyes.

"Hey, you KNOW that thing has ridiculously short reach. I decided it was better to have my hands free to do hand seals." And also to minimize a chance of a repeat of her mokuton unintentionally activating.

Thank kami she'd used the Hiding in Mist technique. If Ao had seen that—she didn't even want to think about it.

"I'd say she made the right call," the man in question offered gruffly. "She managed to survive the battle without any major injuries, which is the main detail. That said, you threw around several powerful ninjutsu today. I'm surprised you have the energy to heal me."

"Oh, I'm not REALLY healing you right now," Sute corrected him cheerfully, packing away her med kit. "I'm just doing enough to make sure you don't keel over before backup gets here. You'll need to get treated back in Kiri for sure, but none of the damage should be permanent and I got you started on fighting the infection. Now that I know you're not at risk of suddenly dying, I think it's time for me to pass out."

She had to admit, the shocked look on everyone's faces as she then slumped over was pretty funny.

In the end, she got to ride back to Kiri piggyback on Kisame instead of walking. That was a thing.

Chakra exhaustion was also a thing. A horrible, exhausting, annoying thing.

Sute moaned pitifully as she lay in the hospital bed, staring at the plain white ceiling with unmasked disdain. Making it to fourteen without experiencing chakra exhaustion was actually pretty impressive, all things considered, but still. Bed rest was not fun, even if she could acknowledge it to be necessary.

At least she had it better than Ao. Reinforcements had arrived after Kiri received the notice from Kisame's messenger shark, including another medic who had finished what she'd started with Ao and stabilized him long enough for transport. According to Sagawa he'd be stuck in bed for two weeks, and then on crutches for even longer while his leg healed.

Compared to that, she had it good. She'd only had to stay for one night, and even that was more to keep her under observation. As long as she didn't over-exert herself after getting discharged, she'd be back in fighting condition by the end of the week.

Still, it was weird to be the one stuck in bed for once. And also slightly annoying.

"Are you just going to sit there?" she asked. Next to her Utakata just sat in the visitor's chair reading a book, showing her absolutely no sympathy to her boredom and misery. When he didn't respond, she huffed and muttered, "You could at least try to talk."

"Talking would distract me though," he responded blandly, turning a page. "And this book is very interesting."

Sute glared at him sourly. "Is this revenge for me teasing you about getting hit so much back when we were kids?"

No response, but the faintest twitch of his lips confirmed her suspicions.

"Why are we best friends again?" she questioned flatly. She noticed Utakata stiffen slightly, fingers tensing around the book and squeezing a little tighter. She didn't know whether to feel smug or pitiful that he still reacted to her casually calling him "best friend" with surprise at this point. It had been five years since they first met, and he still seemed to have trouble wrapping around the idea of anyone spending time with him willingly.

"I don't know," he said, pointedly not looking at her. "You tell me."

In most fictional works, Sute thought this should be the point where she'd start listing off his awesome qualities and make him blush or something. She considered doing that briefly, then dismissed it because that sort of sappy scene really did not fit her personality at all. "Probably because we're both outcasts who wouldn't be able to make friends with our age group otherwise," she mused.

This time Utakata did wince, finally raising his head to regard her with a small grimace. "You really don't pull punches, do you," he muttered.

"Guess not," she agreed with a half-hearted shrug. A knock on the door drew their attention, and they both glanced to see a trainee open it and poke his head inside. It was that gray-haired boy, the one who gave her that strange sense of déjà vu, though she still didn't know his name.

"Sorry if I'm interrupting," he greeted, pushing open the door further before turning around. "I brought a delivery for you." He pulled in one of the supply carts, and both Utakata and Sute went slack-faced at the sight of the vase of flowers sitting on top.

"What," Sute said.

"Who sent her flowers?" Utakata asked incredulously. She didn't take it as an insult, because people in Kiri just didn't bother with flowers.

"I don't know," the trainee said with a shrug, picking up the vase. The arrangement looked pretty, consisting of soft pink roses mixed with violet verbena and white camellias. Overall, a very soft and gentle-looking arrangement, in very sharp contrast to Sute's brash and sharp personality. Setting it on the table next to the bed, he picked up a card from the vase and held it up. "According to this card, it's from a secret admirer."

Sute and Utakata both just stared at him in mild disbelief. "What," Sute repeated.

"Who would like her!?" Utakata sputtered, dropping his book and jumping to his feet. Once again, she didn't even have reason to be offended because she was just as baffled.

"Gimme," she ordered, holding out her hand. The trainee complied, handing over the card, and Utakata quickly crowded around her to read it:

'To Ringo Sute,

May your health improve swiftly, and you find the strength you seek.

Signed,

An anonymous admirer'

She just stared at the card blankly. "There's no way it's my looks," she declared bluntly, grabbing a strand of hair and rubbing it between her fingers. It looked even more stringy and seaweed-like than usual due to being unable to wash it since the mission ended. And that was just her hair, her face wasn't that pretty either. She had three moles under her right eye, three. Combined with her hair it just made her feel kinda dirty and slimy, so yeah, looks were out.

While she silently puzzled over this turn of events Utakata just stared at the card. "Maybe they just respect your skills?" he offered quizzically. "People are attracted to strength... right? Because I mean, it's definitely not your personality."

"I love you too, Utakata," she quipped sarcastically, and he snorted and rolled his eyes.

"See?" he drawled. "Charming. Men must be fighting over you all the time."

The trainee watched their exchange with a small amount of bemusement. "I'm sorry I can't help you with this. But that said, I'm afraid I need to ask you to leave, it's almost time for Ringo-senpai's checkup so she can be discharged."

"Alright, alright, I'll go," Utakata sighed, putting the card back and grabbing his book. "I need to get back to training anyway. Shishou said he'll visit you at home either tonight or tomorrow after you're discharged."

"Finally," she sighed. "I've been wanting his input on this new seal for a while now. Actually, I've drawn up a bunch of other ones while waiting for him. What the hell is that secret project he's working on, anyway?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," he said with a shrug. "I'll see you later."

"Later, Uta." Sute nodded at him as he left, and then turned to the trainee, tilting her head. "So out of curiosity, did Amuro and the other kid quit while I was gone?"

He seemed startled by the question. "Er... Amuro-san didn't, but Suzuki-kun did transfer to the general corps."

"Figures." She didn't know who Suzuki was—no point in learning names when trainees tended to leave so fast—but process of elimination made it pretty obvious it was the boy who'd seen the burn patient code. She pushed the thought aside as she sat up. "Anyways, Mio-san is the one in charge of my pre-discharge checkup, right?"

"Yes, she is," he confirmed with a nod, and she glanced at the clock.

"Then we've got a good hour before she'll head over here. She always takes late lunches around now. Do me a favor and grab a wheelchair."

"Pardon?" The boy (she should probably ask for his name) seemed surprised and confused by the order. "Why do you need—"

"Because I'm not allowed to walk until I get the all-clear, and I want to go on a field trip," she cut in bluntly. "Now, be a good trainee and get it." He looked a bit off-put by the order, but nodded and left to oblige.

Five minutes later, Sute was rolling herself down the hall alone, having released the trainee to the care of another medic. It didn't matter much, since she knew exactly where to go, and soon she was knocking on a door.

"It's open," a tired voice called, and she easily opened the door and rolled inside. Ao lay sprawled on the bed inside, his torso and hands swathed in bandages. The bruising on his face had been mitigated by another medic, leaving his face much healthier-looking than before, though he still lacked some color due to blood loss. His eye narrowed as he saw her, sitting up a little straighter. "Ringo."

"Ao-san." She nodded at him. "Did you always have the Byakugan under there?"

He looked a bit surprised by the question, his stern expression briefly replaced by a blank look before schooling back into that cool mask. "Did you seriously come all this way to ask me that?" he asked dryly, and she shrugged.

"I'm getting discharged in about an hour. I have time to kill."

The look on his face made it clear he didn't believe her. "Why don't you skip straight to the point?" he suggested, and she nodded, taking in a deep breath.

"I want to start training my accuracy again," she told him bluntly. "Fighting Juzo made it clear I have a lot of weak points and I need to work on them." As she spoke she folded her arms over her lap, leaning forward. "Lately I've been working on a new strain of poisons. Recently I modified the seals on the that bokken to store it and release it on contact."

Poisoning the bokken had been both a simple and complicated process. She'd inscribed a basic storage seal onto its side and filled it with the poison made with Mushi-Mushi's venom. By flaring her chakra into two symbols on either side of the hilt, it would release the poison and the bokken's edge would sharpen enough to cut someone. Not enough to do much damage, but just enough to let the poison transfer. It had been tricky to make it work with the pre-existing double-reinforcement trigger, but she'd done it.

"I couldn't hit him though," she growled, eyes narrowing as she looked down. "I couldn't get in range long enough to touch him."

Her hands balled on her lap, her teeth grinding in irritation. If she'd touched him even once with it, he would have been poisoned. It probably wouldn't have killed him, but it would have affected him enough. The impact wound would have swollen, the surrounding tissue weakening and liquefying. The pain from it would have hindered his mobility, which would have given her an edge. But obviously, that didn't happen.

"Back during the war, you once told me that I was wasting my poisons by only using them short-range. I still think that bokken is a good idea, but it wasn't the right choice to fight someone with a six-foot-long sword. I would've been better off with a volley of senbon and kunai."

"And you think I'm the best one to help with that," Ao finished for her, huffing softly. "Stop beating around the bush. I know you didn't save my life just to pick up our training three years ago." Sute raised her head to smile at him, thin and humorless.

"You picked up on it, didn't you?"

"You said you wouldn't let Juzo kill me, and then laughed hysterically and said you weren't a hero," he told her coolly. "And despite your claim, you were definitely angling to keep me alive. That tells me you want something specific from me, and helping you with your accuracy isn't good enough incentive to fight a Swordsman."

"Smart man." Sute hummed and her smile faded, her face stony and serious as she leaned forward. "You're right. I do want something from you, I've actually been meaning to track you down. The 'life debt' thing is just a good bit of bonus incentive. This whole situation just makes things a little more convenient, actually, seeing as you'll be out of commission for at least a month."

"Then out with it," Ao ordered, and she nodded.

"I want you to train me to become a Hunter-nin."

Later that night Sute sat in her study in contemplative silence, flipping through the great book of storage seals she'd had since childhood. A good three and a half years had passed since that first fateful day when she accidentally unsealed everything in it, and Sute still hadn't checked out even half of its contents. Each page contained a storage seal with some kanji in the center describing its contents: Spear, Arm, Astronomy, Botany... She idly turned the pages, her mind wandering even as she searched.

Sute did not fight Juzo "just" to protect Ao.

She fought Juzo to survive.

One day, she would leave Kiri. She would need to abandon it and never look back, to cut all ties with it if she wanted to live. Every day she spent in the Bloody Mist was a day closer to death, to being discovered and slaughtered for having a kekkei genkai. Staying in Kiri was a death sentence, and maybe someday it would change but that day would be far away, and she knew that in order to live she must leave.

But to do that she needed to be strong. Kiri had Hunter-nin dedicated to tracking down their rogues, eliminating them and disposing of their bodies as swiftly as possible. Sute had already established herself as a particularly useful resource with her fuinjutsu, poisons and medical expertises. Kiri would not let her leave easily, they would execute her before she could ever work against them.

Right now, Sute was too weak to survive, her skills too unrefined. She needed every advantage she could get, to use every moment and resource she had to prepare for her eventual departure.

And what better resource would she have than joining the very people who would eventually hunt her down?

She paused at this point, her eyes lighting upon one page in particular. "Memories," she read lowly, humming in thought.

Memories. Such a powerful word for one living a second life. Knowledge was power in this world, and limited as it may be, her knowledge of the Naruto series gave her a serious edge. Somewhere in her memories she had fights and battles showcasing each of the Akatsuki's abilities, and a detailed look at most of the Leaf ninjas' future fighting styles. They might have been the main characters from her old life, but now she would be more likely to face them as enemies.

Time had dulled that knowledge though, leaving her with only hazy images of black and white panels on her computer screen and small snippets of colorful cartoon characters speaking on the television. She never even got around to watching Shippuden, save for a few episodes her friend in Doctors Without Borders recommended. She hummed, a small smirk playing across her lips.

Fuinjutsu had so many useful applications. She may as well try to maximize her limited resources.

With that in mind, she pressed her hand to the seal and flared her chakra.

And scene.

So today I have a couple things to talk about. First, Bloody Oracle has officially reached over 1,000 followers! I'm blown away by the popularity, and I seriously can't thank you all enough. I love reading the reviews every time, I seriously wish FF had a decent system to respond to them instead of just PMs.

Secondly, if you haven't checked it out, I seriously recommend reading my other story, Echoes of Light. It's at Chapter 55 now, and I just had the biggest twist yet. That is seriously saying something considering I A) had the main character intentionally fail his genin test, B) gave Kakashi an extra dose of PTSD in Wave, C) provided Gaara some extra motivations and incentive in the invasion besides blood lust, and D) found a way to get some of the Akatsuki into Konoha for the Chuunin Exams. Those are my attempts to explain it with as few spoilers as possible, but I think that should tell you that I go for huge twists in there. I'm seriously really giddy about the twist I just had, so now's a good time to check it out!

It's also a good time to check it out because of this:

I am going to put Bloody Oracle on a brief hiatus.

Right now we're almost caught up on the draft, and I want to tweak what I have written of the next couple of chapters. Between writing these two stories and my summer class, I don't have time to get a satisfactory version done. I feel like this chapter is a perfect time to go on hiatus. My summer class ends on June 19th, so the next chapter will be June 23rd.

So yeah. Not much else to say. See you all on June 23rd!

(Also: today is Itachi's birthday. Happy birthday to him!)