Chapter 8: Trust
Moriko ran as fast as her legs and feet were capable of, looking for Sakon and hoping to find her companions along the way as well. She then heard a muffled conversation somewhere deep within the woods. Moriko tried her best to follow it and found herself on the ground. Moriko saw three figures and decided to hide herself in a bush a few meters away.
Moriko squinted at the figures before letting out a small gasp. "Kiba! Finally—Is that Kankuro? What's he doing here?" Someone else stood several feet away from them. "It's him—wait, no. He doesn't have the necklace… but he definitely looks like him." Moriko didn't realize that she was staring at Sakon's older twin Ukon.
Moriko felt the murderous aura enveloping the area but she watched intently as she waited for the right time for her to come out. Kankuro's puppet appeared behind Ukon and locked him in its barrel-like body. Its limbs, including the head, disconnected from its body and turned into long daggers. Moriko frowned when she saw drops of dark liquid forming at its tips. "Poison…"
The daggers advanced towards the barrel and Moriko realized the fate of the ninja inside it. She jumped out from her hiding spot and hoped that it would distract Kankuro. "Wait, stop!" The daggers were too fast to stop in time and Moriko did the most reckless thing in the entire mission. She pushed the barrel to aside and, not being able to move fast enough, took its dangerous place. She managed to dodge two of it but barely on the other three that found its way to cut her at the sides of her stomach, leg and arm.
The blades Moriko had dodged didn't stop and headed straight towards the barrel with a powerful thrust in the slits where it originally was. Moriko grimaced when she heard Ukon's scream of agony. Kankuro quickly cut the string chakra that was connected to his puppet and its blades. Kiba ran to her bloody figure and brought her up carefully to his arms.
"What're you doing?!" Kiba yelled at her, frantically placing his hand on her wounds. "Kankuro! Those daggers were poisoned right?" Kiba looked up at Kankuro with a horrified expression.
"Are you alright?" Kankuro asked and Moriko replied with a weak nod. "Why did you do that?" He asked again while searching for the antidote in his pockets.
"Nothing… uh… personal reasons." Kankuro raised an eyebrow at her. Kiba grabbed the bottle from Kankuro's hands and brought it to Moriko's lips. She coughed up blood, causing her gashes to squeeze out more of the same crimson liquid, before quickly but carefully drinking the antidote.
"What?" Kiba asked. There was a quick silence before Moriko spoke again. "I just wanted to… finish him myself."
"Well, you won't be able to do that anymore because of your recklessness." Kiba said calmly, running a hand comfortingly on her back. "Is the antidote working?" Moriko nodded.
"Yes, I feel better now—"
"Of course it's working. I made it for my own poison after all." Kankuro snapped.
"Besides, even without being wounded I, most likely Shikamaru and the others as well, would've forbid it."
"But—"
"Personal intentions are not to interfere with a ninja's mission." Moriko frowned she knew he was right. Moriko looked back at the barrel where the twins were locked in. He was stabbed in a vital area but if she could make it in time she could still save him from his wounds and blood loss.
"Kiba, please. Just let me…"
"But he's dead—"
"Not yet. Not until you let me finish the job." Kiba eyed her wounds with a worried face.
"Can you move…?"
"Yes!" Moriko jumped up from Kiba's comfort and flailed her arms frantically. "I am perfectly--! Ehhh" Moriko helplessly and reluctantly fell into Kiba's arms who quickly tied a cloth around her open lacerate. "Not fine…" She hissed. Moriko already suffered from blood loss and she knew that moving too much with a condition like that would give her a pounding headache and a blurry vision.
"I thought you said you were fine." Kiba raised an eyebrow at her.
"I am." Moriko weakly placed a hand over her wounds one by one and emitted the green healing chakra. "I've closed them already but the insides are not completely healed yet. I can't do much more of this until I rest." Kiba looked up at Kankuro and gave him a nod. Kankuro scooped up Moriko in his arms.
"Eh? Kankuro, what're you doing?" Moriko asked with a tint of panic in her voice.
"We're going."
"B-but I just said—"
"He's dead already, believe me. It's my puppet we're talking about." Moriko tried to wriggle out of his arms.
"Hey, stop it!" Kiba held her wrists forcefully trying to stop her from childish movements.
"Put me down right now! If you don't I'll keep doing this on our way and die." Kankuro breathed an exasperated sigh and carefully put her back down on the ground. "Please, just leave me on my own for now. I promise I'll catch up. You should find Naruto and the others before it's too late. I just want to…" Moriko paused and glanced at the blood-bathed barrel. "Reassure myself."
"What is wrong with you?" Kiba stared menacingly at Moriko, obviously vexed. "That's ridiculous. You're acting so immature right now. Leave you alone? Look at yourself. At least let one of us stay with you for safety."
"I think you should go together. I'm not the only injured." Moriko stared at the bloodstains on Kiba's shirt. "And what if they're injured? You need assistance."
"I'm sure Temari and Gaara saved their asses already so there's no need to worry about them." Kiba smiled.
"See? We're only waiting for you."
"But still--!" Moriko frowned and immaturely snapped at him.
"Stop being so obstinate and selfish!" Kiba argued back.
"Enough!" Kankuro cut in between the two. "Let her be, Kiba. If something happens to you we won't be responsible for it and it will be recorded as disobeying your orders and responsibility." Moriko looked down and sighed inwardly. "But in our part… we'd want you to be careful and stop acting so childish at such a crucial time."
"Thanks." Moriko grinned up at him. "I'll keep that in mind." Kankuro turned to his barrel-like puppet and started maneuvering it open with the chakra string coming out of his fingertips.
"I won't forgive you if you die out of internal bleeding or something ridiculous like that." Moriko chuckled.
"Who do you think you're talking to? I won't die."
"You said yourself that you only closed them up but the insides are still not healed, which means you won't suffer blood loss but internal bleeding. If you don't catch up in about two hours, I'll come back myself and drag your ass." Kiba crossed his arms on his chest.
"Huuh? A time limit?" Thump! The conversing pair looked at Kankuro's direction and followed the chakra strings from his fingers. Sakon's body lay limp on the ground like a rag completely soaked in blood.
"Well there he is. Dead." Kiba said surely to himself but with an intention to rub it in Moriko's face.
"He's not dead, he's just barely alive." Moriko huffed.
"Kiba." Kankuro had finished assembling Kuroari. Kiba nodded and Kankuro jumped up ahead on the boughs. Kiba glanced back at Moriko and followed Kankuro. Moriko looked at the almost undetectable body several meters away from her. She limped her way closer to the lifeless body, leaving drops of her blood draw a trail behind her.
Dropping her herself beside Sakon, Moriko weakly ran her hand to the hem of his shirt and slowly pulled it up to check on his injuries. "Tsch. Deep." Moriko frowned and looked around. "I need to find a place to treat him. He'll die if I wait any longer." She pressed her thumb on his wrist and tried to feel his dying pulse. "Shit--" Moriko quickly pressed her ear against Sakon's chest and swallowed.
It was a very slow and faint thud. So soft that Moriko thought for a second that she was just hearing things. Closing her eyes, Moriko breathed a sigh of relief. Fluttering her eyes open, she lifted her hand to her face. "I can still… maybe, make a bunshin. No, I'll try making a couple of them." Locking her hands together and forming a fixed seal, Moriko concentrated and waited. And waited. She thought her heart skipped a beat when she heard multiple poofing sounds behind her.
"Thank God!" She exclaimed to herself, her arms dropping down to her sides. "I don't think I could ever carry him in this condition." She sighed. Moriko looked up at her clones and told them, "Find me a place near a river or just a place that has clean water. Hurry, Kankuro's poison spreads fast." The clones disappeared in a flash and Moriko felt that waiting for them to come back was the longest five minutes of her life.
Moments later, they reappeared in front of her and pointed to a direction. Moriko's vision started to blur and dizziness knocked her head like a bulldozer. "Take us there and please carry that." She pointed weakly at Sakon's body, who she referred to as a thing, with a crooked, trembling finger. The other clone took Moriko's arm around her shoulders and supported her by the waist.
"I found a girl's body. Half of her body is buried under some logs." The clone supporting her said. Moriko looked at her then to the other one who was carrying Sakon easily on her shoulder. "You pick her up. We'll meet you in the place you guys found." The clone rolled its eyes before disappearing. She limped the whole way to the "place" while cursing Kankuro's deadly weapons. Her slowness made her feel like she was being left behind by time.
Moriko felt a glint of hope in her when she saw her clone standing beside a small cottage. They approached them and Moriko could see a headful of pink over the clone's shoulder. It took her blood-drained self a couple of seconds before realization smacked her in the face. "She's one of Sakon's teammates."
"This is what we found." The clone said opening the door for Moriko and the other clone.
"Maybe this was made by some ninjas or ANBUs to serve as a resting place in the middle of this forest." The clone carefully placed the two bodies on the wooden floor. Moriko grabbed a pail she found at the corner of the room and dropped it noisily on the floor. The force on the ground creaked a well-concealed, classic, wooden trapdoor open. Moriko picked up the pail and handed it to her clone as the other disappeared with a poof. "Water." She looked back at the trap door and crawled towards it. "It's a pretty big for a small place like this."
Moriko jumped in it and landed with a crash on the floor. Rubbing her rear, she looked around on the floor to look for the object that was in her way. She saw a small, lighter figure a few feet away from her. She squinted her eyes before she exclaimed to herself. "First aid kit!" Moriko scrambled towards it and opened the small white box.
"Mhm… bandages, medicines, blood restoring pills… this is almost perfect for this situation." Moriko lifted an eyebrow at her serendipity. After a couple of minutes, Moriko clambered out and saw her clone arrive at the door holding a pail filled with water. It disappeared the same time Moriko had crawled her way out of the underground room.
"First aid, pair of sleeping bags, a lamp, a few weapons and a hygiene kit." Moriko mentally sweat dropped. "Maybe this was a camping cottage." She opened the hygiene kit and found small towels, an extra shirt, and a pair of slippers. "Lucky" She looked over her shoulders then slid the box across the floor beside Sakon.
"This is gonna take huge toll on me." Moriko thought as she lifted Sakon to her arms. She brought the pill to Sakon's mouth and cupped water from the pail with her hand to push the medicine down his throat. Moriko grabbed a towel and wet it with water then used it to wipe off the blood around his lacerates. "Damn, that's deep."
"I have to squeeze out the last bits of chakra I have left to get the poison out." Moriko shook her head and formed a bubble with her hand. It was transparent and light greenish; you could probably call it a chakra bubble. She placed it over Sakon's stomach and then slowly penetrated it with the chakra bubble.
Though almost dead, the pain must've been excruciatingly painful for Sakon had squirmed a little while Moriko concentrated on the bubble she was controlling inside his body. She could feel beads of sweat roll down to her chin as she concentrated on accumulating all the poison in Sakon's body. The chakra attracted all toxins in his body and when it could no longer magnetize any, Moriko lifted it out.
"Wow" Moriko eyed the blobs of purple toxins floating around the bubble. "How much poison did he put in that puppet of his?" Moriko brought the bubble to a small container beside her. "Now I have to mend the damaged cells." She placed both hands over Sakon's punctured flesh. Slowly, the organs inside bubbled up and healed back like it was never pierced by a puppet's limb.
After the organs, the flesh inside followed until the skin itself was closing up. Moriko bandaged the newly healed flesh as it can tear open if not taken care of properly when it's still delicate and fresh. She smiled at her work and leaned back against the wall. She wiped her bloodied hands with a new wet towel and wiped her sweat with another towel.
Moriko looked over to her side and observed the pink haired kunoichi's body. "Cuts and bruises only. Maybe she wouldn't be able to move her lower body for a while since it was buried under those gigantic logs. But just to make sure blood is still flowing through her veins… " Moriko placed her index finger on Tayuya's chest, where the heart is, and released a bullet-like chakra to startle the heart muscles and make it pump regularly.
Moriko smiled when she saw Tayuya's chest rise and fall slowly but regularly. Moriko winced and lied down on the ground holding the side of her stomach. "Looks like this gash is pretty deep as well." She sighed and placed her hand on it. "Last…" Healing herself was not much of a problem as it was just a laceration. Moriko concentrated on mending the lacerated flesh as the skin was already closed earlier.
"Yessss…" Moriko slurred with a small chortle. She felt proud for a job well done. Her eyes drooped slowly as mumbled, "I'm tired." And with that she completely let the darkness in her eyes envelop her in a deep slumber.
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Rewritten: June 18 2008
Right, it was originally Ukon a while ago? And then it became Sakon. Let's just say Ukon slept and Sakon's body took over before they got injured. Okay? Because, well, I wanted it to be Sakon and not Ukon xD Oh yeah… about the sudden changes of the line thingies… you see I'm using Mac OS and for some reason I can't put those lines. I was able to do so when I borrowed a PC but it's not with me anymore so I started using dashes. If anyone knows how to fix that shit, please tell me 8D