Yooooo
I'm so excited to present you Part 2 of "Take Everything by Storm"! Apologies for taking so long again, but I've been writing my Master's thesis (finished, btw!) and also, this thing is a monster. I think there might be almost 2000 words of deleted content before I finally finished it, lol.
Before you dive in, though, I'd like to address three issues: 1) A tumblr post made me aware that, apparently, a "frown" can be understood as a motion of different parts of the face. Americans tend to think of it as the turning down of the corners of the mouth while everybody else takes it as a the furrowing of brows/the forehead. I belong with the "everybody else"-crowd, so whenever I write "frown", I mean the forehead.
2) FFnet has problems with reviews showing up. I still get email alerts, however, so rest assured that I read every single one of your reviews and that every single one makes my day. I hope ffnet fixes this issue soon. Don't let this deter you from reviewing, please!
3) Rating has gone up to M for gore and blood (also language). Please be cautious while reading!
OK, that's it, I think. Now, open the curtains for the next chapter! Thank you NightsBlackRose13 for being the most amazing beta. And also for not losing your mind whenever I announced something like "I deleted half the chapter :-)".
Take Everything by Storm Part 2
"GO!" Hanako yells and before I can say anything, do something, Regashi's hand closes around my arm in a painful iron grip and yanks me around. I have no choice but to stumble along, my feet falling into a run just so I don't get skinned alive between the forceful pull of his hand and the uneven forest floor.
Around us, chaos reigns
The air is thick with cries of pain and swirling chakra, Hanako's usually so familiar and bright brand pumped close to bursting with malicious killing intent, viciously smothering any foreign signatures and making it hard to breathe. My whole body is shaking even though her power isn't even directed at me.
And while Hanako rips through the enemy nin, while the sound of stone maiming bones breaks up the cacophony of screams, while the leaves of the trees turn red and begin dripping -
Regashi pulls and pulls and pulls, over tree roots –
Don't get entangled in the roots of the tree –
- past moving shadows –
Concentrate on running –
- away from the screams and the sound of metalrippingopenskinandflesh and ohgodIrecognizedthatvoice –
Do not linger, no matter what you hear –
- he pulls –
Until suddenly, there's nothing.
No, it's not really nothing. It's more like – less sensory overload. And no running anymore.
Regashi's drawn face appears before my eyes. His mouth is moving frantically, but it takes him seizing my shoulders and shaking them until my ears finally pick up on the auditory signals.
"… come on, Etsuko, I need your help with this! I can't carry you and Nawaki both, please, please snap out of it –"
I start. I've never heard him so desperate. It's enough to reactivate my communication center.
"I – yes – I'm sorry" I croak, my voice dragging over the dryness of my throat like gravel.
"Thank the ancestors!" he breathes out.
"Listen, the camp isn't far from here. Nawaki's ankle isn't getting any better and I think something hit his head, so I'll have to carry him all the way. I need you to make sure that nobody is following us. Can you do that?"
Wait, oh god, what.
"Something hit Nawaki's head?!" I blurt out. With another violent start I realize that Nawaki is indeed not a participant in our conversation. I almost twist my neck in the attempt to find him and when I do, the sight of him sitting against a tree trunk, jaw locked and trying to endure the pain is not particularly elating. At least he's conscious.
"Yes, he probably has a concussion," Regashi explains. "Please, please, Etsuko-chan, we need you at our backs!"
Abruptly, everything snaps back into focus.
I have been trained my whole second life for this. My boys are in danger. They need me.
I can do this.
I don't need to see the image of myself mirrored in Regashi's eyes to know that my eyes have turned crimson. There's a steady, throbbing pulse behind them, the sign of Sharingan-induced exhaustion courtesy to that one moment in which I thought it was a brilliant idea to copy a jutsu that was not only completely unfamiliar to me but also of a chakra nature I have never practiced in.
But it doesn't matter. Nothing matters now but the survival of my team.
I straighten my shoulders and give a curt nod.
"Understood. I'm back. I got you."
His grip on my shoulders slackens and for a short moment, he closes his eyes and lowers his head in relief before he looks back up and smiles a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.
"Let's get Nawaki to safety. And then we come back and help sensei kick ass, ok?"
I breathe out and nod.
"Ok. Let's do this."
)()()(
Hanako keeps her word. There're no pursuers behind us, but I still keep my Sharingan activated, at least until we have reached the camp. I'm not taking any chances here.
We arrive a scant hour later and are greeted by a contingent of tense looking shinobi in lab coats. One of them, a woman with short blond hair and thick glasses steps forward.
"Team Hanako?" she asks.
"Yessir," Regashi answers. "Senju Nawaki, Uchiha Etsuko and Sarutobi Regashi reporting in. We have one injured needing medical attention. And we have the antidote."
The woman nods and at once signals at two shinobi to come and take Nawaki off Regashi's back. Nawaki mumbles something unintelligible before he's carried away, his glazed-over eyes landing on me last. It occurs to me for the first time that whatever hit his head might have been poisoned.
Fuck.
The woman turns back to Regashi and I. "The antidote?"
I hurriedly pull the straps of my backpack from my shoulders and reach into it. My hand comes back with the vial, still unharmed, and I hold it out for the woman to take it.
She frowns. "This is not the antidote," she says.
What.
The woman holds her hand over the vial and releases a burst of chakra that causes a puff of smoke to cloud over it. It clears – and reveals nothing but a flat rock. On the surface, the words "YOU WISH" are written in Hanako's bold script.
"Oh," Regashi says.
Fuck squared. When the hell did Hanako have the time to do that? I'm pretty sure that the vial she gave me before the first fight had still been the real one.
The woman frowns. "Did she give you anything else?"
Regashi and I are both at a loss for a few moments, but then he suddenly swings his own backpack over his shoulder and grabs a small scroll stuffed into one of the side pockets. "The chocolate!" he gasps.
It takes another moment for me to realize what he's on about, but – oh my, Hanako is a genius.
The storage scroll is swiftly rolled open and unsealed. A huge pile of Hanako's favorite chocolate bars spills out and there, right in the middle of it, is a padded envelope. Regashi snatches it up, opens it and takes out a vial with a transparent amber liquid.
The woman nods and takes it. "That's it. I'll show you to the Commander of this camp now. He will listen to your report and assign you your next task."
No, wait.
She signals us to follow her and turns to leave, but before she can make even one step further, I dart forth and grip her arm. "No!" I pant out.
She turns her head and gives me a mildly affronted look. I hurriedly press on.
"Hanako-sensei is still out there and in danger. We need to go back and help her right now! Please. Please!"
She opens her mouth to say something, but hers is not the voice I hear next.
"What a rude child, talking to a superior that way. What are you going to do about it, Yoshina-san?"
Everything around me stills.
That voice.
Smooth as silk, with an edge like a serrated blade under a thick layer of confidence that borders on arrogance.
I step away slowly and turn to my right, whence the voice came from, until I am face to face with the only person who could make the whole situation a thousand times worse than it already is. And he's looking straight at me.
"Orochimaru-rikushou," the woman, Yoshina-san apparently, salutes. I can feel shivers running down my spine and dread settling deep in my gut.
I need to get Nawaki away from here.
"I was just going to bring the remaining members of Team Hanako to you to report."
He mustn't touch him.
"Though there seems to be an emergency here."
Regashi must know. He has to get away, too.
"And what might this emergency be?" He sounds casual.
This time, Regashi decides to answer. "Hanako-sensei had been in a dangerous situation when we left. She might be severely injured and weakened from the fight. I formally request a mission to retrieve her. Please, Orochimaru-san."
Orochimaru finally shifts his gaze from me and looks at Regashi. "How many were there?"
"At least a dozen, probably Iwa nin. We encountered an Iwa squad not half an hour before that."
Without further questioning, Orochimaru nods once. "I will go myself. The lab team can handle the synthesizing the antidote themselves. Yoshina-san, you're the acting commander of Camp Sakana as of now. You," he looks at a shinobi behind Yoshina I hadn't even noticed before, "fetch Inuzuka Fusa. You two," here he looks at Regashi and I "stay here."
We both start protesting at the same time.
"You can't leave us here! She is our sensei!" Regashi shouts, visibly upset.
"Leave Regashi here, but take me with you! My Sharingan will be useful!" I shout over him.
It is followed by stunned silence.
Regashi looks at me with confusion and betrayal written all over his face.
I quickly turn away from him and take one step closer to Orochimaru. "I can be of use. I can scan chakra traces and record everything with 100% accuracy. I am not injured and I promise, I can keep up."
Regashi steps to my side and grips my shoulders with both hands, just like a little over an hour ago. He refrains from shaking them though. "Etsuko, what the hell are you doing?"
The right thing, Regashi.
Because this is the solution.
If I can keep both Nawaki and Regashi here in camp, a safe place with fortifications, perimeter guards and other well trained shinobi while I have an eye on Orochimaru a distance away from camp, they'll both be safe. They won't die.
I have to do this.
"I'm willing to take one of you with me, but only one," Orochimaru announces. "Decide between yourselves, but be quick. I'll leave as soon as the other one arrives, no matter if you have agreed on an outcome or not." He walks a couple paces away with Yoshina and gives her further instructions in a low murmur.
"What the hell, Etsuko?" Regashi repeats, but now he seems more angry than anything. I've never seen Regashi angry.
I exhale. "Remember when I promised you to tell you when I see a sign of danger to Nawaki?"
He stills.
"It's Orochimaru. He mustn't be near Nawaki. And I need you to stay here and keep an eye on him."
His eyes widen. "But … no, Orochimaru would never hurt Nawaki!" Regashi objects. "They're practically family!"
Family. Orochi-nii. But no one knows what I know, not even Nawaki. Or Tsunade.
"I know," I say firmly. "I never said that Orochimaru would hurt him. But I've seen Nawaki dead, Regashi. And Orochimaru was there. He was there, took the Shodai's necklace from his corpse and gave it to Tsunade." I pause to draw in a breath. "It doesn't have to be this way, though, because you and the whole camp can protect him here. And I will go with Orochimaru to bring Hanako-sensei back. Please, Regashi. You need to trust me on this."
Regashi is silent for a long time. I almost think that he's not going to answer anymore, leaving us at this impasse and both at camp, but then his hands fall away from my shoulders.
"What about you?" he asks softly without looking at me.
My lips curl into a humorless smile. "I didn't see me dying, if that's what you're worried about."
Regashi nods, hesitantly, and takes a step back. He looks exhausted and closed off.
"Stay safe," he whispers.
It breaks my heart.
"Have you decided?" Orochimaru's voice cuts in.
I turn around, away from Regashi.
"Yes," I answer him. "I'm coming."
"You know the way?" he asks.
I nod.
Orochimaru starts walking away towards the entrance of the camp. "Tell Inuzuka I'm leaving without him," he calls over his shoulder at Yoshina. "He can stay in camp."
I hurry to follow him and throw back one last glance.
Regashi is watching me.
I nod at my teammate and turn away for good.
This is for the best. Regashi and Nawaki will be here, safe, and Orochimaru far away. I'm doing the right thing.
I'm really doing the right thing. I have to believe that.
I have to.
)()()(
Running beside Orochimaru feels – even considering this whole train wreck of a situation – unreal. Possibly dreamlike, even.
There he is, hopping from tree to tree with the grace of a damn fairy, what with that entirely too long and beautiful hair to be practical and all those long limbs and elegant poise. Right beside me. Like he's not the most durable and cunning villain in Narutoverse that was ever written, but just another regular fellow leaf shinobi who I'm supposed to trust with my back.
Yeah, fat chance with that. I might be far away from ready to battle him, but at least I'm not stupid enough to believe his act.
I know him. Better than Nawaki or Regashi. Better than Tsunade or Jiraiya. Oh, so, so much better than the Sandaime. I know what he's capable of, what he will do once his hunger for power outgrows any lingering attachment he might have had for Konoha at some point. And when that moment comes, when nobody is looking too hard, I will be there.
I will have been there for a long time. And I hope I will be ready.
We make good time, although I suspect that I'm much slower than Orochimaru would've liked –
"Short legs just mean you have to take double the steps, China Doll!"
- and the farther we get, the more antsy I become. Hanako should've met us somewhere in the middle already. That she doesn't turn up means she's probably heavily injured which makes me increasingly worried. Damn this minuscule body. I have never been more aware of its limitations.
"I wish I was smaller. For my pranks, you know? Ah, imagine all the havoc that I could wreak if I were your size!"
Shh, shut up.
To make matters worse, because clearly, the situation isn't already bad enough, it starts to rain midway through. Initially, there're only scattered drops falling here and there through the thick canopy of the trees but that soon changes as heavy drops start pelting us like water bullets.
"See that drop there, mochi-boo? I can make that drop swallow your weak little Goukakyuu if I feed it with enough chakra. So you better feed your fireball first, got it? Come on, I'll show you!"
Oh, for fuck's sake. I'm just trying to think about rain here! Because I am completely drenched within minutes and one look at Orochimaru confirms that he's not much better.
Except for his hair.
His damned hair still looks freaking fabulous.
Seriously, this man must be so vain, who the hell has the time to condition their hair in the middle of a war?! And keep their routine in the middle of a camp? I don't think I've ever met anyone in Konoha with hair like that. Well except that one time when Sakumo came back from war with Sayu and I almost ran against someone. That person had had fabulous hair, too. Long and black, actually, not unlike Orochimaru's, and oh god now that I think about it –
What if I have met Orochimaru before and my literal first thought was how fabulous his hair looks?! Like, how superficial is that? What the fuck was I doing, running against him and not realizing wh-
Something hard hits my forehead protector and sends me falling straight on my ass.
Oof.
For a moment, I see stars and everything around me blurs together into spots of shiny, vibrant color, but I'm quick to shake it off, because ohmygod we're being attacked!
I scramble up, wildly looking around and trying to focus on any approaching danger – but there's nothing. Nothing except the rain and Orochimaru perched on a branch one level over mine – and phew, lucky there was one, otherwise I would've fallen from the tree – looking down at me with a nondescript expression.
"What happened?" I croak. "Were we attacked?"
He raises one eyebrow.
"No," he drawls a length. His voice sounds deceptively mild. "But your attempt to best that tree with nothing but your forehead was rather … entertaining. You should try harder next time."
…
DEAR.
GOD.
My face has grown hot all of a sudden and I don't know what's worse – that I was so distracted that I apparently ran into a tree – and because of Orochimaru's hair, of all things! – or that Orochimaru just made a joke about it.
Argh!
I'd like to disappear please. Into the ground, thin air, dissolve into water, I DON'T CARE, I'M NOT PICKY, OK?!
Orochimaru abruptly stands up from his crouch and turns his back towards me. "You said you'd keep up," he says. "Was that a lie?"
All of the embarrassment and humiliation falls away in one fell swoop.
Hanako is still out there. We need to hurry.
"I'm coming," I call after him and once again, we're running through the rainy forest.
Running.
And running.
And then – we're not. Because suddenly, there is no forest anymore.
One moment, we're jumping from branch to branch, between trees and past greenery aplenty. The next, there's nothing but destruction, heralded by the initially faint but distinct smell of burnt organic tissue.
Trees uprooted and upturned, the soil ploughed open like a plundered carcass and …
And bodies. So many bodies.
Orochimaru and I stand at the edge of the carnage and don't move for a few heartbeats. His eyes are narrowed as he checks the area for threats and the likes, scanning the battlefield for clues and signs of life, and while rationally, I realize that I should be doing the same, I find myself very much unable to.
The reason is simple: I think I'm on my way to my next retching session.
The air is pervaded with the acrid smell of burnt flesh and smoking hair and dripping with the stench of blood and gore. Clouds of insects are buzzing over the corpses – already! – and the whole bloody sight of it all, with those glassy eyes, the melted flesh, the spilt out intest–
There's acid burning at the back of my throat. With a vengeance.
I really, really want to vomit.
Maybe I should ask Orochimaru if he could turn away for a second. Politely, of course. Throwing up over his open-toe-sandals would earn a frown at least, I think.
"I do not sense any living chakra signatures. Use your Sharingan," Orochimaru commands.
I swallow down the rising bile. My eyes sting when I let the chakra flood them, the sudden sharpness of my vision almost overwhelming the already strained nerve endings, but my ability to see chakra traces remains unfailing. Or at least it appears to be when I'm looking at Orochimaru and his strong, purplish flame. No surprise about the color here.
A brief scan over the battlefield reveals nothing, however.
The bodies remain colorless and as I start walking through their lines, no recognition whatsoever at seeing their faces, hope starts blooming in my chest. No recognition means no Hanako and since no color means no life, I'm rather glad about it.
So I turn around to look at Orochimaru.
"She's not here," I say, my voice sounding wobbly with relief.
Orochimaru is not looking back at me.
Instead, his gaze is fixed on something several paces away at the other side of the battlefield, where the tree line begins again. He doesn't say anything, just starts walking towards it and I have no choice but to follow.
He comes to a halt in front of a tree with particularly gnarly roots and crouches down to examine something between them. Even with him doing that I'm still too small to see over his shoulders and instead, I have to walk around him. It's not a real issue of course, I mean, how could something as trivial as taking three more steps after traversing a whole field of corpses be –
...
...
I can hear myself breathing.
I can hear the blood rushing through my ears.
I can hear my own heart beating.
But.
I can't see.
I can't see.
No flame. No color.
I can't see.
No.
No. No.
There're plenty of people with purple hair. Even with Konoha hitai-ate. There are.
It's not her. It can't be her.
Not Hanako.
My fingers tremble as I move my hands to lift the chin of the corpse's head – how did I even get here, on my knees, beside this corpse – and my eyes, my sharp, focused, all-seeing eyes, they burn the image of her face into my memory with the unerring precision and searing heat of a laser cutter.
They tell me what I don't want to be told.
"Her wounds were not lethal. She died of chakra exhaustion."
What am I going to tell Regashi? And Nawaki?
Orochimaru crouches down beside me. Long, white fingers grab for her right arm and rub away at a spot covered in soot and dirt until the skin underneath is visible again. It's marked with the curled lines of the Konoha ANBU tattoo.
Oh.
I didn't know. I'd never seen that tattoo on her arm before, even though she enjoys wearing sleeveless shirts. Enjoyed. She must've concealed it.
"The exhaustion was absolute. There wasn't even enough left for the seal to activate."
I turn to look at him.
What is he talking about. What seal.
Could it have saved her? Can it still?
"Seal?" I rasp.
"The ANBU seal for body incineration, supposed to activate when vital organs take enough damage that death is inevitable," he answers, voice clinically mild. "It's fascinating. I didn't know it could fail."
He finds it fascinating.
He finds it fucking fascinating.
Red-hot rage spreads through my body like wildfire, consuming the emptiness I hadn't known had settled there, and pushing at me from the inside.
One word. Just one other word from him and I swear I'm going to kill him.
He doesn't talk, though.
Instead he stands up, motions for me to move away and, without waiting for me to do so, forms a series of rapid-fire hand seals.
I leap away, barely in time to avoid being caught in the flames of Hanako's combustion.
The overwhelming smell of burnt flesh once again assaults my nose, the sensation amplified a thousand fold by the proximity and the visual accompaniment and I can do nothing but watch in silent horror as Hanako's hair turns black and dull, as her skin melts off like liquid wax and her entire body vanishes into flakes of grey, smoldering ash.
And the smell. Gods, the smell.
Otou-san, with half his body blasted off, had smelt the same.
The same.
The same.
Oh god, I don't think I can do this.
)()()( )()()(
The girl had gone unresponsive.
He didn't notice, at first. There were more important things to observe and put together on the scene at hand, especially since there were some issues that didn't seem to add up properly.
The current hypothesis for the assault was that the antidote was the target.
How had the enemy known then that Mitarashi and her team were going to carry it? At exactly this time and place? How had they gotten past the Konoha front line in such a high number? It was reasonable to assume that they had all been high-level shinobi to accomplish that, but that just made the next question even more baffling: how could such a high number of high-leveled shinobi let three genin, one of them injured, escape with the antidote, the supposed target?
The first two questions could be answered with leaked intel. Even the third one, to a certain degree. But the last?
The last question did not fit the hypothesis. Which could only mean one thing:
The hypothesis needed to be changed to fit the last question. He needed to think like his enemies did.
So what would be achieved by letting the antidote escape and arrive at camp?
The genin's survival made sure that the camp leadership was informed about the enemy presence behind the defensive lines. The reporting of their numbers would ensure that they were perceived as a true threat, which in turn would prompt an investigation.
So the next question was: what would the enemy gain by having Konoha investigate?
He turned around to look at the destroyed patch of forest. The rain was falling so hard now that the water was almost like a solid curtain, making everything in his field of vision blurry and undefined.
He assumed that the enemy had not expected to be wiped out by a single opponent.
If that was true, chances were that they had hoped to fight the investigating shinobi, which would have consisted of more than a two-men-team under ordinary circumstances. It would have diverted valuable resources from the camp itself.
That he had not decided to invest more than himself and a genin in this investigation was simply because he did not consider himself an ordinary circumstance. He knew he and a possibly damaged Mitarashi would have been able to take on any threat of that size without taking lethal risks.
It didn't change the fact, however, that the most valuable resource of the camp still had been successfully diverted. He was its best defense, after all. And he was missing. Which led to following conclusion:
The goal of the assault had not been to prevent the antidote from reaching the camp.
The goal had been to leave the camp as defenseless as possible.
He abruptly turned around again and called out to the girl. "We need to leave. Now!"
That was when he noticed.
Skin deathly pale, eyes wide and empty, breathing coming in rapid, shallow gasps.
He had read the reports of the night in which the Konoha Police Force main building had been blown to pieces and several Uchiha had lost their lives. He remembered that her father had been fatally burnt by explosive chakra.
Apparently, he had triggered a flashback with his incineration of Mitarashi's corpse, leaving the girl unable to operate.
"Why did Okaa-chan and Otou-chan die, sensei? Even though they were strong and smart?"
"Death is an inevitable part of life, Orochimaru. Knowing that is what makes the time we spend alive more precious. It drives us to pursue the greatest achievements."
"What use are achievements if we all die anyway? If they all waste away to diseases of the body? To diseases of the mind?"
I cannot accept death. I won't.
He did not have time for this.
The air turned as heavy as lead as he poured out enough killing intent to paralyze any living thing within a ten-feet-radius and watched as the girl turned even paler than before and her panicked eyes landed on him.
Good. He had her attention.
"Your choice," he said, every syllable carefully enunciated and unambiguously clear. "You can either stay here and be a slave to the weakness of your mind, wallowing in self-pity and stuck in your deficiencies. You'll die fast that way, which you might consider merciful. Or."
He held out his right hand into the streaming rain.
"You return to camp with me. Now. It will most probably be under attack when we arrive. Your teammates will either be dead or in danger of dying if you hesitate. The chances of their survival decline with every second we spend talking." He paused.
"What will it be, Uchiha Etsuko?"
)()()( )()()(
We're running again.
Around us, the world is a single blur of muddy wet colors and moving through the rain feels like hitting one wall after another. The weather has gotten even worse and I can feel the electricity of an oncoming storm resonating with my chakra.
But we're running. Fast. Hard.
Because running might be the only thing that saves Nawaki and Regashi now.
"The camp … under attack?!"
"Decide quickly. I won't ask again."
Orochimaru's words echo in my head over and over, the only things holding the overwhelming sensation of drowning under the stench of burnt flesh and the visuals of Otou-san's massacred body at bay. They are the wall that separates timeless despair from the urgency and worry of now, they alone make it possible for me to focus on the task at hand – and they are the reason I am able to move at all.
We need to get back in time. I need to get back in time.
"As soon as we arrive," Orochimaru instructs, "you are to head towards the field hospital. Fight your way through if you have to, but don't stop or get distracted. Once there, find the head medic. He will have the antidote. If he is dead, search for it. Retrieve it, if necessary. It has absolute priority."
I snap my head around to look at him. "My teammates –"
"Will probably die either way if you don't get the antidote!" he snarls."Did you think the enemy would attack without their most potent weapons?"
I clench my teeth.
He's right.
It still won't stop me from looking for them first.
And then we're there.
We're greeted by the sound of frantic shouts and the feeling of heavy elemental chakra usage in the air. At the entrance two crumpled bodies with Konoha hitai-ate are lying carelessly thrown one over the other. My stomach churns.
"The field hospital," Orochimaru says.
I have barely enough time to nod before he disappears in a swirl of leaves that's immediately beaten down by the rain.
Fuck.
Oh crap. Oh shit. Bull. Horse load. Fucking monkey poop.
GAH –
...
Breathe, Etsuko, breathe.
You can do this. Orochimaru thinks you can do this.
Oh god, Orochimaru is a source of comfort. How sad is that.
Now get your shit together and move. Nawaki and Regashi are waiting.
Please be waiting.
With my Sharingan activated, I start moving through the tents in the direction the medics carried Nawaki to earlier. It shouldn't be too far away – the entrance goes out in Konoha direction, which means that the other end is the war front. Not the best place for a hospital, so the back it is.
As it turns out, I simply should have followed the sounds of shouting.
The uniform mass of field tents, trampled down and collapsed for the most part, opens for a small space in front of three rather big tents. Long before I actually arrive there, flying projectiles and flickering shadows announce fighting shinobi and I slip in between the few still standing tents to avoid being seen.
I nearly stumble over a slumped body in a lab coat leaning against a tent frame. The person is wearing a Konoha hitai-ate around their neck, half covered by shoulder-length brown hair.
I skitter to a halt next to them and fall on my knees.
"Hey, medic-san!" I urge softly. "Are you alright? Can you tell me where I can find the head medic?"
They don't react.
"Hey!" I grip their shoulders and shake them.
Their head rolls to the side, parting the curtain of hair and revealing a masculine face with blank eyes that are wide open.
I release him abruptly.
Broken neck.
Oh fuck.
I hurriedly move my hand over his eyelids to make that blank, blue-eyed stare stop, turn away and start dry heaving.
I don't think I have anything left to throw up.
No big deal. I can find the head medic on my own.
I get up and make my way through the tent rows to the hospital tents. It's surprisingly easy to remain undetected – the shinobi on both sides are completely wrapped up in their fights and busy navigating through the storm. As long as I don't attack myself, I should be fine.
I should be fine. I should be fine. I should be fine. I should be fi-
Oh, look, there's a loose tent cover fluttering around. Goddammit yes, it's time that I get lucky for once, too. I slip inside.
I'm in some kind of storage area. There're shelves upon shelves full of unused syringes, respirators, medical tubes and the likes. I move past them quickly, since the chance of the antidote being here is slim and ready myself to open a flap that leads outside again when I hear the soft sound of a muted footfall behind me.
I whirl around, kunai ready in hand.
"Please don't! I'm a friend!"
I blink. There is a person barely ten feet away from me, but.
The lighting in here is crap. I can't see properly.
Although it is a good sign that the person is not attacking.
"Who are you?" I ask, my voice sounding about as confident as I feel.
"Tachibana Kurose, field medic. At your service!" He takes a step towards me.
"What are you doing in here?"
"I was hiding. I'm not a front line fighter. But together, we can make it out! I just need to find the antidote, orders from Yoshina-san." Another step.
"You know where the antidote is?" I ask, cautiously lowering my kunai. "That's good. I'll escort you there. Lead the way!"
"Alright, though you'll have to take point, ok?" Another step.
He's close enough for me to see his shoulder-length brown hair, bright blue eyes as well as a Konoha hitai-ate tied around his neck.
He's the same medic that I found not even five minutes ago. With a broken neck.
Shit, shit, shit.
I know exactly one thing in Narutoverse that has a penchant for killing people, morphing into their likeness, adapting their voices and even faking their chakra signatures.
Oh Jesus, Mary and her husband Joseph!
"Sure," I say with a smile and take a step in his direction. We're only inches apart now. "Just let me check that one shelf again, ok?"
Just one more step, just past him – NOW!
He dodges the blow to the back of his knee a split second before it can connect by jumping to his left and lands between two shelves on both feet.
"The tiny thing is smart!" he exclaims gleefully.
Shut up.
I dive after him, well aware that if I don't finish him off quickly there will be no telling what his mokuton will do to me. Actually, no, I know what it's gonna do to me and, OH GOD NO I DON'T WANT THAT GET IT AWAY FROM ME –
Wood shoots out of his chest at lightning speed, headed straight for mine, and I twist –
WHO THE FUCK WAS I KIDDING, FINISHING OFF QUICKLY MY ASS –
Vines uncurl from the beam and snap at my limbs –
HE WAS FUCKING AKATSUKI FOR FUCK'S SAKE –
And I somehow manage to twist and turn away from all the wood, thank god for the Sharingan –
The pain of a whip-like branch biting into my side is no distraction from the sensation of slamming full body into one of the shelves. The air is knocked right out of my lungs and for a moment, there're stars dancing in my field of vision. Shelves are digging painfully into my back and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to die any moment now.
As if I could beat freaking Zetsu on genin level.
Hanako is gonna beat my ass in the afterlife for my delusion.
"Not bad, not bad," the annoyingly chipper voice chips, its stolen owner's head popping into view over me. "Master will be pleased to hear. Keep growing little Uchiha, will you? Like a little sapling, grow, grow!"
What.
I wheeze as I try to sit up in the middle of little plastic bags and boxes, but before I can make any substantial progress, the earth goes into a violent tremor and I'm thrown down, my back hitting the shelves a second time.
"Ah, that's my cue to leave. It was nice meeting you! Mayhaps we'll see each other again?" He cackles. "Until then: buh-bye!"
He simply vanishes after that.
A second tremor runs through the ground and I can't do anything but wait it out. As soon as it stops, I scramble to get my aching body up and limp towards the tent's exit flap.
No time to think about things. I need to get out and find the antidote and my teammates. Not necessarily in that order.
I stumble through the exit and am hit full-on by solid masses of water. The storm has truly arrived now, with strikes of lightning cutting through a darkness that seems more like night than day and through these flashes, I see remnants of the destruction the earthquakes have wrought.
The small space in front of the field hospital is completely ploughed open and littered with craters of various sizes. I have no idea what kind of jutsu can cause this kind of damage. The rest of the tents have collapsed, one of them almost completely buried underneath tons of earth that would explain where the material from the craters has gone. It's the biggest tent.
It's the tent in which I would put the injured if I were in charge.
...
I can't breathe.
There's not enough air.
My feet move on their own, carry me over upturned soil and unknown bodies, closer and closer towards the buried tent and before long, I have forgotten the pain that wrecks my body and fall into a run because if I ever want to breathe again I need to see.
There's too much stone and earth on top of the tent. It's impossible for me to remove all of it on my own and I don't know any doton jutsu that could take care of this. But I need to see. What do I do?
Oh god, what do I do?
I move along the edge of the tent, desperate for an opening, a sign, anything that might tell me whether Regashi and Nawaki are alive. Almost half of the round passes before my Sharingan picks up a weak, flickering flame, half disappearing underneath a boulder.
It's Regashi's signature.
I'm next to him in a moment, my knees digging deep into the muddy ground and my hands cradling his face.
"Regashi! Regashi, can you hear me? It's me, Etsuko! Regashi, please, talk to me! Open your eyes, please?"
The flame stays weak and mostly unresponsivewhich is a load of bull because he's right here in front of me and he wouldn't dare die on me without talking to me first because that would be rude and Regashi is nothing but polite –
There is a soft gasp.
"Regashi? Regashi?!" I slap his cheek lightly.
Another gasp. "Eh- Etsuko?"
Oh thank god!
Relief rushes through me and with it the chakra in my eyes fizzles out. They're burning from the extended use but I don't mind, they helped me find Regashi.
"Etsuko, I," he stops for a moment and I use the opportunity to prop his head on my knees. He looks at me with pure anguish in his eyes.
"Nawaki … he was still in there. The medic nin, he wasn't – I didn't realize, I didn't realize until it was too late –"
My throat closes up. "What? What did you not realize?"
"He was giving the injured medicine, sleeping pills, I thought. Nawaki … he didn't want to take them and they argued … I told him … I told him to stop arguing and he took them … and when the alarm sounded for the breached perimeter, he wouldn't get up, none of the injured that took the sleeping pills did!"
Regashi sobs.
"You told me to watch over him and I … I couldn't. I'm sorry, Etsuko-chan. I'm sorry. I'm sorry …"
His voice fades into silence.
His eyes close.
He goes still.
"Regashi?"
Silence.
"Regashi?"
Nothing but silence.
...
...
This is all my fault.
I insisted that the both of them stayed in camp. I took Orochimaru away from here. I left them alone.
I killed them both.
I killed them with my misplaced attempt to do the right thing.
Ragged sobs tear from my chest and through my throat into the storm, shaking my entire body with every intake of breath.
I did this. And now both of them gone.
They didn't even get to know about Hanako.
"Lookie here!" a raucous voice suddenly cuts through the air. "A present for us hard-working guys! Dang, Konoha must've been desperate to send toddlers on the battlefield. Complete victory my ass!"
More voices agree.
I slowly turn around.
More than a dozen shinobi stand in a circle around me, clad in reddish shinobi gear and Iwa hitai-ate. They're all drenched in blood and guts, eyes glimmering with bloodlust and the certainty of triumph.
My hands clench into fists by my side.
They want a fight?
Chakra is building up behind my eyes, more than I have ever fed them, and when I blink, the pictures are clearer than ever before. I can see the light of the lightning strikes being broken in the raindrops, every ounce of chakra flowing through their bodies, the currents of electricity vibrating in the air. Something warm and sticky flows from down my cheeks and when I touch them, my fingertips come away covered with the red sheen of blood.
I will give them a fight.
I will kill them all.
With a speed I have never achieved before, I'm on the shinobi closest to me, his own movements laughably slow in comparison. He doesn't last more than a couple exchange of blows when my kunai finds his throat and bites clean through.
It sets the rest of them into motion.
They come at me at once, well-coordinated and with the intent to kill, but I am not worried. In fact, I have never felt as invigorated as right now, with white-hot rage flowing through my veins and the lethal thirst for revenge powering my every move.
They are nothing.
They will all die.
My own lightning chakra gathers at the tips of my fingers and the natural lightning in the air answers. They race at each other, coming from below and above, smiting everything and everyone on their path. Projectiles of all kind fly at me but my body dodges them with the ease of reflexes deeply ingrained through rigorous training.
They cannot touch me.
They realize this themselves and their chakra signatures flare with what is at first surprise, only to turn into panic and fear. I can almost taste it. It's intoxicating.
I want more.
Something inside me surges forward, out of my body, into the nearest enemy and wraps around his flame.
I want it.
Give it to me.
I yank it free.
It rushes into me like a bolt of energy that goes straight into my very core. The shinobi collapses soundlessly, his flame completely extinguished.
Exhilarated, I reach for more.
And more.
And more.
One after the other, the shinobi fall until in the end, there's no flame left.
Silence has returned, at last.
It only lasts for a second.
Excruciating pain explodes from my chest and burns paths of fire through my whole body. Screams tear from my throat and the edges of my vision begin to fade. My legs lose all energy and just before I fall over, I feel a pair of hands gripping my waist.
And then everything goes black.