Chapter 2: Survival of the fittest
The first thing he saw when he woke up was a white ceiling. The strange smell of antibiotics and sanitizers penetrated his naval cavity, miraculously helping him regain his consciousness bits by bits. His first recollection was the same, bloody scene he hoped to be just a nightmare. At this point he wasn't sure if it was but it was negligible for now. He felt his left side of the face tightened unusually as he moved his jaw. He lifts up his left hand to touch it.
There was a loud mental scream before he could.
Yagura had totally forgotten about his wound on the left shoulder, which was just as severe as the cut or scar that was on his face. He looked down at his shoulder but couldn't make anything out of the wound since it was bandaged tightly. He tried to jerk his left shoulder.
Another scream.
He should've known it was foolish to move any limbs that involved his left shoulder, because now it felt as if his left arm was detached from his shoulder except just the bone and the bandage holding it together. An unimaginable pain was clutching onto his shoulder, a pain he'd never experienced.
So this is what a shinobi is like, He thought to himself as he gripped tightly onto pain's metabolism inside him. He looked down on himself. The rest of his body seemed fine, but he could still feel the stinging pain coming from all parts of his body. He peeked into his shirt. True enough, his whole body was bandaged as well, but the pain wasn't as critical as the one on his shoulder which he purposely allowed Gozu to stab through just to save his own life.
He felt his heart swell up a bit and let the reality sank in. He killed Gozu, and it's real.
Yagura had to admit, he was selfish. When his eyes met with the tip of Gozu's sword, the only thought that was pressing him was to protect himself, and he knew there was only one way to do it.
He recalled what Kushimaru had always said, "The world is a cruel place and you must fight to survive." Yagura never understood those words, neither did any of their friends, except for Jinpachi who merely smirked at his words, but now he did. It was probably everyone's first encounter with cruelty, and everyone was forced to kill to prevent being killed. Yagura wonders if this was always how the system had always been.
As much as he was supposed to feel guilty for taking down one of his close friends – along with few other kids who looked down on him, all he could feel now was peace.
"Is this the kid's room?"
Yagura's ears perked up as the muffled voice said on the other side of the room door.
"Yes, Mizukage-sama. But he has not regained consciousness yet."
"It doesn't matter. I just want to see him."
The door squeaked opened and revealed a tall man, roughly in his late-fourties and had a distinguish mustache Yagura noticed foremost than anything else on his body. The man smiled upon seeing him awake. "Ah, he's awake. Quite the fast healer you are, eh?"
Yagura said nothing. This man seemed vaguely familiar. He dug deep into his mind to recollect any images of a man with an unforgettable mustache, but the closest he got to was his own father, minus a decade of age and the mustache.
The man sat on the visitor's chair beside the bed and studied Yagura, which Yagura returned with a stare – at his mustache.
"What's your name, kid?" asked the mustache man.
"Yagura." He croaked. He swallowed emptily to clear his throat, but only a pain in the esophagus welcomed the action. It made him wonder how long he had been in bed, not receiving any water.
The mustache man noticed Yagura's cracking voice, and poured the child a glass of water at the table beside his bed that he never took notice of. The man held it out to him. Yagura slowly sat up, with the help of only his right arm and careful enough to not disturb the left to avoid any further mental screaming. In the process, he felt a few cuts on his back open up, but he ignored them. Yagura took the glass from him.
"Do you know who I am?" the man gestured to himself. Although Yagura heard the earlier conversation going on between this man and a female voice, he shook his head after a gulp of water. He didn't want to nod and disturb the scar on his face.
"I'm the Mizukage. Do you know what is a Mizukage?" the way this man spoke was starting to irritate little Yagura, as if Yagura was some newborn child. Everyone knew who, or in this mustache man's case, what is a Mizukage. But knowing that the Mizukage just poured him a glass of water with no worry for credit, Yagura decided to be respectful for once. He nodded.
"Good. Someone told me you used ninjutsu during the test, is that true, Yagura-kun?"
The way the Mizukage addressed him sent cold shills down his spine. There were some people who didn't sound right when they call him "Yagura-kun", and the Mizukage was one of them. People like Jinpachi and Kushimaru were exceptions. It's still a mystery why certain people just sound nicer addressing others as "-kun", Yagura thought. Then he remembered he had to answer the question.
"Yes, Mizukage-sama." Answered Yagura, whose voice was recovering back to its original tone with the help of a medicine called water.
"Who thought you ninjutsu?"
"Saruki-sensei."
"Saruki, huh?" the Mizukage stroked his chin, trying to recall which one was "Saruki" in his memories. Yagura curiously watched him as he finished his glass of water.
"Ah, that Saruki." the Mizukage said. "You managed to pull off such a technique at a young age, even Kushimaru and Ao couldn't have done it at your age." The mention of Kushimaru and Ao's name surprised Yagura a bit. The Mizukage actually knew those two personally, which meant he had his eyes on the duo due to their extraordinary abilities. And now, Yagura wonders if he's about to be marked the same way.
"You're pretty talented." The Mizukage pat his head lightly, which caused Yagura's shoulders to stiffen a little. "You look like the lady at the maki stall. Is she your mom?"
Yagura nodded. Everyone could tell that the chef at the maki stall and the kid that hung around with Saruki were related. He was told on many occasions that everything about his physical appearance featured his mother, none inherited from his father. He was quite relieved about it though. He wouldn't want to inherit that huge black mole on his father's chin.
A nurse came in and asked to examine Yagura. She had a few words with the Mizukage at the door before the Mizukage excused himself. The nurse smiled at Yagura, politely telling him not to worry. Yagura didn't know what is there to worry about, until the image of a syringe appeared in front him at his right hand and soon he fell into deep sleep.
One week later, Yagura was discharged from the hospital with a cast on his left arm. When he woke up from the shot, his left arm was completely numb. The same nurse who gave him the anaesthetic shot explained that doctors had to perform surgery on his shoulder because he broke a bone called the clavicle and had it replaced with an artificial bone. Not that eight year old Yagura could understand any of the babbling the pretty nurse did, but she did mention that his mother came by earlier and had heard the explanation. On top of that, a doctor with a thinner mustache than the Mizukage rewarded him with a lollipop for being well-behaved, as if Yagura could do anything while he was knocked out by drugs.
In that one week, he was tottering around aimlessly like a stray cat. He had never been in the hospital before, so he was eager to find out how it looked like outside his hospital room. Sometimes he was caught wandering around alone by the head nurse, but Yagura took care of that problem after the second day. A lot of dodging and hiding were involved.
He ran into a few people he recognized. On the second day he walked past a post-mortem examination room and spotted a couple dashed right into the room despite the doctor's orders. He peeked in. The woman was crying over a smaller figure lying down on the bed as two nurses held her back. As the doctor pulled back the sheet covering the body, Yagura saw the face of the boy with spectacles who tried to kill him after Gozu. While his parents continued to mourn over his sudden, cruel death, vowing to avenge their son, Yagura slipped away, deciding that he won't ever walk past another post-mortem examination room again.
Apart from that, the experience was pleasant to him, especially when he got free fizzy drinks from just standing in from of a vending machine. Some nurses took sympathy of him and bought him drinks, not before pinching his right cheek as a payback. Instantly, he became pretty popular among the young pretty nurses to the point where their male secret admirers got jealous of Yagura.
After he was discharged, the first place he headed to was his mother's maki stall.
"Hey Yagura!" one of the three familiar figures sitting at the stall waved at him. As he inched closer, he recognized his three friends.
"You survived!" Jinpachi looked surprisingly joyful to see his little friend that he grabbed Yagura by the back of his neck and nuzzled his hair. Kushimaru rolled his eyes. Yagura was so caught into the moment when he felt himself getting dragged by someone else.
"Oh my god, Yagura, you're okay! I'm sorry I couldn't come to visit you often – I did drop by your room but you were still unconscious. Does your arm hurt? Oh my gosh, your face!" Yagura's mother started checking all over her son's body as his friends giggled behind, even Kushimaru. Yagura flushed with embarrassment.
"Mom, I'm okay." Yagura tries to escape her grasp but her grip was tight.
"What? Oh okay, sorry. I was so worried! The third Mizukage suddenly changed the system and when I heard about it – I'm just glad you're okay!" her grip started to tightened and pulled him into a bear hug.
"Mom!" Yagura protested.
"Oh, I'm sorry! I'm just relieved. I'm sorry, does it hurt? You must be hungry! Sit with your friends, I'll make you something." The way his mother changed the subject so swiftly was strange and new to him. Yagura realized that it must have been the first time his mother was ever worried about anything.
As he took a seat next to his giggling friends, he pouted at them.
"Mothers." Ameyuri muttered.
"Where's everyone else?" Yagura asked.
"What do you mean 'everyone else'?" Jinpachi questioned. "We are the only four who survived in our class."
"We are?" Yagura wondered, shocked. "Everyone else is dead? Even Rui?"
"Hah, about that biatch," Jinpachi proudly thumped his chest. "I took her down. That's what happens when she takes the blade from me!"
"How did you do that with just a wooden club?" asked Yagura.
"What? I just smacked the back of her head really hard and she dropped dead."
Yagura was starting to wonder if he was mixing with the right crowd.
"Mei didn't survive either." Kushimaru commented shortly after Jinpachi's seconds of fame. "She was taken down by the group of students who ganged up on her."
"How do you expect her to win anyways? She picked such a heavy weapon." Ameyuri ridiculed Mei as a big plate of maki was presented to them. Kushimaru and Jinpachi immediately pounced onto the plate and started stuffing their faces with sushi as they fight over pieces after pieces.
"More importantly, Yagura-kun, I think I saw you using a water technique ninjutsu, that was you right?" Ameyuri questioned Yagura. He simply nodded. "You noticed?"
"Of course." Ameyuri said as she broke her chopsticks apart perfectly and prodded Kushimaru with it to get out of her way. "The technique was pretty big and very noticeable, but thanks to that I got distracted and someone knocked my back." Ameyuri glared at the back of Jinpachi's back, gesturing to Yagura who was the perpetrator.
"Oo, anmf fhee goh nock au foo." Jinpachi turned to Yagura and spoke while his mouth was full. A few grains of rice escaped his slobbery mouth and landed on Yagura's right shoulder.
"He said Ameyuri got knocked out too." Kushimaru translated. Ameyuri smacked the two boys with her bare hands.
"Did Ao not survive too?" Yagura asked as he flicked off the rice on his shoulder and wiped his fingers on his beige coloured pants.
"Ao did, but he's still in the hospital. Coma. Don't know what that means." Ameyuri replied before fighting with the other two boys over the last piece of sushi. Yagura watched the three older kids as chaos unfolds. Kushimaru managed to snag the last piece and was about to drop it into his mouth when Jinpachi slapped him and caught the sushi with his hands. He dropped it into his mouth and managed to only chew once before his stomach was ambushed by a powerful punch that sent the sushi in his mouth flying out and landed into Ameyuri's mouth. The three boys looked at Ameyuri in disgust.
"What? Survival of the fittest."
"That's not how it's used, stupid!"
Ygaura chuckled for the first time in a week.
"Oh yeah, by the way, we are going to get our forehead protector tomorrow, which means we will be official ninja." Kushimaru informed Yagura. "Where are you planning to tie it?"
"I don't know. I've never thought of that."
"Just do it the normal way." Jinpachi said, pointing to his forehead. "But for Yagura he may have to tie it somewhere else." He then pointed to his left cheek. Yagura lifted his hand to touch his cheek.
He got the shock of his life.
"What happened to my face?" Yagura desperately cried as he ran his fingers along a very long line of stitches right below his left eye.
"No one told you?" Ameyuri raised an eyebrow. "That cut was just as severe as the wound on your shoulder, but since it was your face, the doctor could only stitch it up. I heard from your mom it was really thick."
Yagura grunted petulantly.
"Don't worry, you look cuter with it!" Ameyuri said as she pinched his poorly abused right cheek. The other boys rolled their eyes.
"Yagura, did you eat?" his mother popped her head out from the kitchen. The three elder kids glanced at the plate, then at Yagura. They smiled sheepishly at the chef.
"Saruki-sensei, can you teach me ninjutsu too?"
"Yeah! How come little Yagura gets special treatments?"
They were sitting at the same wooden railing overlooking the academy. Jinpachi, Kushimaru and Ameyuri followed Yagura to see this Saruki-sensei that had taught Yagura more about techniques and chakra manipulation. Yagura couldn't shoo away the three elder kids, especially with one of his arm casted, so he could only give away one of the spots he hung out frequently with his teacher to three pressuring kids. Saruki only shrugged and said "You'll get your own teachers tomorrow". Nevertheless, it wasn't enough to get rid of the three children.
"Oh hush." Ameyuri said, already given up on persuading Saruki-sensei. "Can you two just enjoy the view?"
Jinpachi stuck his tongue out at Ameyuri before getting hit upside the head.
"Sensei, why did the third Mizukage want to test us this way?" Yagura asked as he pointed to a badly injured child who was in the exam.
"We only found out he wanted to test this new system that morning. We were told it was top secret."
"Why?" Ameyuri interrupted, bouncing her upper back forth and back, trying to get a view of Saruki when the two other boys were fighting among themselves between them.
"It's a way of killing off emotions. You see, when your teammates are being captured by enemies, they usually get asked a lot of questions about your own village just to obtain information. And when that happens, we are ordered to kill our friends." Saruki explained in a way that eight and eleven year olds would understand.
"That's cruel." Ameyuri commented. "Information over lives?"
Saruki shrugged. "Sometimes, Ame-chan, information can kill a whole nation. Losing a few lives is worth it."
"This system isn't going to continue, right?" Yagura asked, looking up to his sensei.
"People complained, and lives were lost. Moreover, you guys are four out of the twenty who passed. Only those who killed passed. It's not effective, so no."
Yagura felt a lump in his throat. Sure, his dream came true, but not in the way he wanted. What came first to him was fear, then relief, and now guilt. He wondered whether this really is the shinobi world, where people just mindlessly slay each other for information. He knows Kirigakure is now in the midst of war against Konoha, but over what, he doesn't know. He'd seen many dead bodies being carried into rooms for autopsy during his stay in the hospital. A nurse explained to him that they were Kiri nin who were fighting at the border of the country to protect the Water country. Yagura learned that war is just a cycle of endless hatred and killing, to protect nothing in particular but dignity. Of course it was his father who told him things like this. His father also told him that to achieve peace, sacrifices are necessary. Negotiation alone is not effective. After all that talk his father would usually just rub his head and tell him 'Now you won't understand, but when you grow up you will.' And leave for his post at the border.
Is peace really that hard to achieve?
"You see those people?" Saruki pointed to a group of people being gathered and taken to somewhere else by chunins. The four kids watched. "Those people are refugees. Their homeland had been destroyed in war but they weren't even involved. Now they have no home. See what cruelty had done to people?"
"Hey Yagura, I think that girl is looking at you." Jinpachi nudged him from the back. "The one in orange." Yagura's gaze landed on a particular girl around his age in bright orange shirt and brown skirt. The girl's face instantly tinted with red and turned her head to look somewhere else.
"Haha! Yagura has a secret admirer!" Jinpachi shouted aloud.
"Kissy kissy kissy!" Ameyuri played along.
"Stop it!" Yagura pleaded as he suppressed his embarrassment.
"Sensei, does this happen everywhere?" Kushimaru changed the subject.
"Yeah. Even in Konoha. And everywhere else." Saruki replied.
"Survival of the fittest." Ameyuri commented, not even realizing that the boys were giving her a confused look.
Yagura glanced at the large group that is about to leave the spot below the balustrade. The chunin said something to them before leading them away. The same girl among the group turned around and glanced at Yagura again, but this time, she didn't immediately turn away.