Shizune let out a contented sigh as she watched some bird fly high in the afternoon sky. It had been a long and tough week and the embassy was finally in order. Now, they were just waiting on the staff from the many shinobi nations to arrive so they could hold the opening tea ceremony. The Sand, Stone, Rain, and Grass delegations had already arrived. They were just waiting on a group from Kumo and one from Kiri.
It was the Mist delegation that she found herself currently waiting for. Word had arrived the day before that the Mist delegation had made landfall in Fire Country and were making quick progress. In fact, she expected them along any time now.
Shizune fretted over her kimono, making sure she looked completely professional. She hadn't expected to wait so long. At least she wasn't alone.
Shizune glanced to her counterparts. One of them with shoulder-length brown hair, a bandana, and clad in the standard Konoha jōnin uniform, was leaning up against a tree with his arms crossed. He idly shifted a senbon around in him mouth as he patiently waited.
"Remind me why you decided to tag along?" Shizune asked politely with a soft giggle.
Genma shrugged shifting the senbon again, "I heard Chōjūrō was going to be in the delegation for the opening ceremony. We fought together in the Fourth Shinobi War and I wanted to catch up. I should have figured he would be late." Shizune giggled having expected the small crack from Genma.
"Yeah, well if I had known I might have packed a lunch," Another man replied letting out a soft sigh. From behind, this man would have never stuck out, but one look at his face and you would never forget him. The man featured a weal-like scar running across the bridge of his nose and down the left side of his face. He had very common brown hair, dark eyes and was also wearing the standard Konoha jōnin uniform.
"No one told you to come along Raidō," Genma prodded light heartedly and the two shared a chuckle.
"Eh, why not," Raidō replied calmly, "Nothing ever happens any-"
A series of explosions sounded somewhere off in the distance snapping the three to attention.
"Now you've done it," Genma cracked jumping into the tree tops. Shizune and Raidō quickly followed him. The medic-nin rapidly scanned the horizon from her perch in a panic. Then she saw the smoke in the distance. A cloudy trail leading straight towards the village. Most were small explosions, but even further in the distance it appeared that there had been battle from the jutsu devastation.
"Quick come on!" Shizune ordered dashing across the tree tops making all haste towards the explosions. Two yellow flares popped into the sky much closer to the commotion than her own team was. It was two patrols signaling each other of an enemy presence. She closed the distance between her and the trail of explosions by another half mile. Red flares popped into the sky, signaling initial engagements between the patrols and the enemy.
Almost as soon as the red lit the air, a purple flare followed. That signaled the enemy had been eliminated or were beginning to retreat. Then, the real explosion happened. A large thundering explosion rippled through the tree tops merely some five-hundred meters away. Dust and debris clouded the air in a thick haze. Shizune covered her mouth with the sleeve of her kimono as she entered the cloud quickly closing on the scene.
A red star cluster popped in the air and she felt her heart start pounding. Red star clusters signaled that a squad needed immediate medical attention. Shizune didn't even have to think about it as her legs were already rapidly propelling her towards the cluster. Yellow star clusters popped from Konoha almost two miles in the distance meaning they had read the situation and were sending all available personnel to respond to the crisis.
Shizune had made it to where the red star-cluster had originated and spotted two shinobi by a tree. She squinted through the debris and was shocked as she dropped into the clearing. A whole segment of the forest had been torn asunder. Trees were splintered, wood chippings and splinters littered the area from the large blast. She dashed towards the two shinobi and felt herself swallow hard.
One of them was laying on the ground. His shoulder was twisted in a grotesque fashion and blood drenched his right side. She didn't recognize him immediately through all the grime coating the shinobi, but the blue hair sprouting from the top of his head gave it away.
A Konoha chūnin she didn't recognize was doing all he could to stem the bleeding from the mist-nin's side. Upon seeing Shizune the man seemed to immediately recognize her.
"Shizune-san," The chūnin murmured, his voice strained. He scrambled out of her way as she dropped down to her knees by the mist-nin. Charging her hands with green healing chakra she began to scan the man's body for injuries.
"Oh shit, Chōjūrō!" Genma said from somewhere behind Shizune and ran up on the other side of the injured shinobi. Shizune let out a small sigh of relief as she finished her scan.
"It isn't as bad as it looks," She called out to Genma over the wounded shinobi's pained groaning. "He has a shallow puncture wound above his right hip. That isn't the worst of it though. Several splinters of wood have pierced his legs in several locations. I don't want those removed until we have him at a hospital."
Shizune was already working her magic even as she spoke. She had quickly clotted the wound on the man's right hip, but she noticed something else. "Damn, a lot of his bones are broken." Chōjūrō's vision seemed to clear momentarily and he looked to Genma with a flicker of recognition. His breathing was labored and Shizune saw his right arm twitch. The small movement elicited a shriek from Chōjūrō and his pained cries filled the air.
"Don't move!" Shizune ordered the mist-nin as she kept stemming his bleeding, but whether the man had even heard her, she didn't know. Catching another breath Chōjūrō reached up with his left arm this time and grabbed Genma by the vest in a surprising show of strength yanking the man's ear down to his mouth.
"Koga," Chōjūrō rasped, his breathing heavy, "Find Koga!" Then the mist-nin's eyes clouded again as he let out another groan of pain.
"Koga?" Genma asked looking up at the chūnin.
"I-I don't know," the chūnin shook his head.
"Help! We need help over here!" Another chūnin called from somewhere in the trees. Raidō and Genma shared a look, then left to assist the needy chūnin. Shizune did another scan of Chōjūrō when the man started coughing up blood.
"Shit!" Shizune cussed immediately investigating the man's lungs. "Two ribs on his right side have punctured his lung." That was bad. Shizune pumped some her chakra into the problem area forcibly removing the ribs from the man's lungs. As she got them out she sealed the internal wounds with chakra.
"Shizune! We need you here right now!" Genma yelled. Despite his calm voice and demeanor, he portrayed a sense of urgency that had Shizune quickly finishing up her patch job on Chōjūrō. She stood looking to the chūnin.
"Get this man on a stretched and have one of your teammates help you rush him to the hospital now! Don't stop for anything and don't touch that shrapnel," Shizune ordered in a clipped manner. Then without another second spared she dashed towards Genma. It was only maybe twenty-five yards away, but she could tell this had been where the blast originated.
The trees were heavily damaged. The damage was so extensive some of the larger trees had been completely shattered in the middle and toppled over. Crowded around a pile of debris were two chūnin, Genma and Raidō. Shizune navigated her way through the debris towards the commotion.
She didn't even have to ask what she had been called over for. She could hear it. A man's cries of pain filled the air. His exhales were little more than a continuous, pained grunt. The intakes were sharp and wheezy. Shizune couldn't see him though. Her sight was obstructed by some fallen logs, branches and other debris. She made her way around the debris, already worried about what she would see.
One of the chūnin had gone green in the face and turned away. He vomited. Genma and Raidō fared better but even them, veteran shinobi, looked a little pale at the sight. Then Shizune saw it; a man with his legs pinned under a large log. His face was completely covered in blood, and what she imagined had been white or silvery hair was stained pink.
The man's hands were on his gut. No, Shizune shook her head in disbelief. Those hands were holding in his guts. The front of his mist jōnin flak jacket had been completely split open by the blast. She imagined if he hadn't been wearing it he would be dead. She dropped down next to the man and ran her hands over his form to check the damage.
"Do you want us to remove this log?" Genma asked indicating the one trapping his legs.
"No! You touch that log and he is going to die," Shizune warned as her hands expertly assessed the damage.
"How? How is he alive?" Raidō asked in disbelief.
"He is in bad shape," Shizune called out, "I can't believe it, but he is actually holding himself together with chakra. I don't know how long he can keep it up." Her hands were already healing several deep lacerations along the man's arm. She ran a hand over his head, scanning for damage. There she met some inconsistencies. His ears were missing. No, not missing. The anatomy was inhuman.
"He has strange anatomy, but the head laceration is light. I am more concerned about traumatic brain injury," Shizune announced. It was for her own benefit. Years of working with other medical shinobi, she called out what she found even if no one was there to hear it. "There is so much shrapnel," Shizune stated in complete disbelief. This wasn't the worst case she had ever seen, but out of the hundreds and hundreds she had seen over the course of two wars, it was in the top twenty. The man should be dead.
"I can't, I can't, I can't," The man cried out looking Shizune in the eyes. His yellow eyes pierced through her calm demeanor. She gasped a little. The man was still completely conscious and aware. She couldn't even begin to understand the pain he must be in. She sensed the chakra holding his guts and crushed legs together slip a little and understood his words.
"You have to, you hear me!?" Shizune yelled at the man, "You will die if you stop doing what you are doing. Buy me time." The man winced and let out a guttural cry of pain. She felt chakra surge through his body again and the bonds strengthened. But whatever reserve that chakra had just come from, was going to be tapped out soon. Her hands shifted to his abdominal wound finally having stopped the bleeding in his arms and upper torso.
The medic-nin's breath hitched as she began to try to move the man's hands, but they were surprisingly strong. She cupped his face.
"I need you to hold those legs together, but I am going to take care of your stomach," Shizune ordered prying the man's hands away from his guts. As soon as she did some of the man's intestines spilled from him causing another of the green chūnin to lose the contents of his lunch.
"Shinji rarenai," Genma cursed as he watched the display.
"Genma!" Shizune yelled drawing the jōnin's eyes to her own, "Where is Iwashi?!" Genma shook his head for a second.
"I don't know, should be on patrol why?" Genma asked causing Shizune's eyebrow to furrow a little.
"If that means he is nearby you go get him right now and bring him here," Shizune ordered. Genma knew better than to argue and dashed off into the tree tops to complete his task.
"It hurts, fuck! It hurts so bad," the man beneath her hands cried in pain.
"I am sorry, I need you to brace yourself, you can't pass out on me okay. You will die if you end that jutsu you are using," Shizune pleaded with the man she could feel slipping through her hands. She didn't wait for a response and began to stuff the man's guts back into him. She needed to get him stable enough to make it to that hospital. Nothing else mattered.
The man howled and began writhing as the pain became excruciating. A few tears welled up in her eyes, but she blinked them out. They mixed with the sweat pouring down her face.
The man's hands reached up and latched onto her face dragging her attention to his yellow eyes. "Kill me please," The man pleaded as whatever jutsu he had been using slipped. Shizune pushed her chakra into overdrive as the man's bloody hands continued to clutch to her face.
"Just kill me, I don't deserve to live," The man gasped at her, "Kill me, it hurts so bad." The man started to slip into unconsciousness. Despite needing both hands she took one from the mist-nin's stomach and batted his hands bloody hands off her face. Then she raised the hand in the air and brought it down hard across his face with a massive smack. The man's eyes stopped clouding.
"Don't you fucking give up on me," Shizune demanded giving him another harsh smack, "Don't you give up. You reactivate that jutsu now. You are going to get through this." The man gasped and let out another guttural cry of pain as he forced the chakra back into his legs clotting what she imagined was severe arterial bleeding. But even the few seconds he had let the jutsu slip had done inflicted significant damage. She could feel his control of that jutsu continue to slip as she desperately flooded his stomach with chakra.
She gave it every drop she had, but she was quickly getting exhausted. Then, back-up arrived. Two more shinobi she recognized, drenched in sweat from a sprint from Konoha. They were skilled medic-nin, but she needed more than mere skill.
"Where is Sakura?" Shizune demanded still working her jutsu to seal the large gash in the wolf-eyed man's stomach.
"She was off-duty today, I don't know," The shinobi replied dropping to the other side of the Mist-nin who was still crying out in pain.
"He is slipping," Shizune called out feeling the jutsu end again. "Apply tourniquets to both of those legs now!" The medic-nin immediately jumped to the task. Once applied, they pulled a marker out and wiped the blood from the mist-nin's brow with their sleeve. When it was clear they wrote, 'TT-1314' for the time the tourniquets was applied. She felt a hand scramble for her own. She glanced down and saw those piercing eyes looking at her again. The man's cries quieted and his eyes clouded a little more.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry," The man whispered over and over. She wasn't sure he was even speaking to her. His hand settled on her wrist squeezing it in comfort as he started to slip into unconsciousness. She slapped him again, but there was no effect.
"Patient is going into cardiac arrest, we're losing him!" One of the other medics called out.
"Start compressions, we need to stabilize him!" Shizune ordered. A medic popped open the tattered remains of the mist-nin's flak jacket and began chest compressions as Shizune turned her attention to his legs.
"Left leg is badly broken, but no immediate danger," Shizune shifted to the other, "Right leg has a deep laceration. The artery is severed below this log. Tourniquet has slowed the bleeding. His bones are disintegrating. I need him awake now."
"Administering adrenaline!" The medic performing compressions moved out of the way as her partner produced a shot. She searched the mist-nin's chest briefly, then seemingly finding a spot she brought the shot down in a hard strike, plunging the needle into his chest. As the shot injected into him, the wolf-nin gasped in some air and his pained cries flooded the air again.
Shizune felt the man reactivate the jutsu. His bones stopped being slowly crushed by the heavy trunk.
"I need help here!" Shizune called to the last remaining chūnin. The other two had long since left with the previous patient. To his credit, the man jumped to attention and nodded. "We are going to lift this log from him. We need to do it quickly understand? Then you have to watch for shifting debris. I don't want anything disturbing our work."
"Hai!" The man nodded.
"One! Two! Three!" Shizune called and they both grunted a little as they lifted the heavy log from the man. The mist-nin's cries of pain intensified. They heaved the log and let it drop a short distance away. Shizune didn't waste any time dropping back down and going over the man's legs.
"I am entering the wound," Shizune stuck a finger into a wound along the inside of the mist-nin's right thigh. She dug around for a while, but guided by chakra from her other hand she quickly found the target, "Found the artery! I am going to pinch and seal it." Shizune channeled chakra into the fingers she had gouged into the wound and then pinched the artery with a concentrated pulse of medical chakra. A few seconds later and she had the artery temporarily sealed.
"Artery is sealed with chakra, removing tourniquets," Shizune loosened the tourniquets. She could barely hear herself over the man's pained grunts. One of the medics pulled out another shot and was about to inject it when Shizune slapped it from her hand.
"No morphine, we need him conscious, patient is using a jutsu keeping his leg bones intact. If he stops that jutsu, we lose the legs. I want to move him. Damn it!" Shizune cursed looking around the clearing for Genma. Almost as if on cue he appeared from the tree tops with Iwashi in tow.
"Genma, Raidō, Iwashi," Shizune yelled getting their attention, "Get over here right now." They didn't waste a second reporting to the blood covered woman.
"I want you to use the Flying Thunder Formation Technique to get him to the hospital," Shizune explained.
"We can only use it to travel to set locations," Raidō began to explain but was cut off by Genma.
"We can get him to the Hokage who is in Konoha and move him from there, but we can only take him. You will have to go back on foot," Genma looked to Shizune for understanding.
"Okay, give me a second," Shizune shifted back up to the man's face and held it in her hands, clearing the blood from his eyes.
"I need you to bear this pain a little longer. You keep that jutsu going, I don't want you to lose your legs. Okay?" Shizune asked searching the man's eyes for a little clarity. She gave him a little slap and his eyes cleared. "You hold that jutsu okay!?"
"H-hai," The man let out barely a whisper. Shizune squeezed his hands and got to her feet.
"Okay, do it now! I will meet you at the hospital. Get him to Sakura!" Shizune ordered. She didn't even look back as the Hokage Guard Platoon began executing the jutsu. She was already leaping from tree to tree at maximum speed to make it to the hospital.
Kakashi paced about his office awaiting news about the disturbance outside of Konoha. Reports indicated that the enemy had fled the scene and were fighting an extremely successful and aggressive tactical retreat. His door burst open revealing Sakura. The woman's hair was disheveled and her uniform looked as if it had been hastily thrown on. Today she had been off duty but the Hokage had called her in given the incident.
"Hokage-sama!" Sakura called out reporting for duty.
"Sakura," Kakashi nodded, "I just received a report from a chūnin at the site of the blast. Two shinobi were injured, one was moderately wounded but the other was in critical condition. The first should be arriving at the hospital, but I need you to go out and help Shizune rig-"
A flash of blinding light flooded the office and there was a thud on his desk as papers exploded all over the room. Kakashi recognized the jutsu. In a split second the office went from a relatively calm scene, to a horror movie. A man's body thudded onto the desk where the papers had been forcefully displaced by the Flying Thunder Formation Technique. Blood immediately started dripping onto the floor and cries filled to room.
Genma blinked as his eyes adjusted to the difference in light, but Sakura had reacted far quicker shoving them out of the way and immediately assessing the injuries of the wounded man writhing on the Hokage's desk.
"What the hell?" Sakura asked herself immediately identifying the man's use of some technique. She guessed the purpose as well as the reason he hadn't been administered morphine.
"Get me a stretcher now!" Sakura called out as she began to administer medical jutsu to the groaning mist-nin.
Shizune burst through the doors to the ER breathing heavily from over-exertion. Her black kimono was crusted with dried blood. The same blood that now covered most of her face and her arms all the way up the elbows. Nurses jumped out of her way as she charged down the hall.
"Where is Sakura?" Shizune demanded grabbing a nurse by the sleeve and staining it with the blood on her hands. The nurse swallowed hard and pointed down the hall, "Emergency surgery, room one."
Shizune didn't wait for the woman to finish as she ran down the hall to the room. She entered the sterilization room and quickly threw scrubs on over her kimono. Then she washed the blood from her hands and pulled on some gloves and a mask before entering the surgery room.
She passed through a seal keeping the room germ-free and felt it sweep her body clean of contaminants as she entered the room. Now the real work would begin. The man's pained groans had lessened as if he was going under from anesthetic. Shizune went into a frenzy coming up and looking Sakura in the eyes.
"Did you-" She began but the pink-haired kunoichi clipped her off.
"I already condensed the bone tissue. I don't know what he was doing, but between his jutsu and your quick thinking you saved his legs. Now we need to save his life. I administered an upgraded dose of anesthetic, but it isn't taking. His body is pushing it out like a toxin. I can't afford to operate on him while he is awake," Sakura explained. Shizune just now noticed the sweat pouring down the woman's face, probably from exertion. Shizune felt her hand get squeezed and looked down to find those piercing yellow eyes looking at her. They looked scared. He tried to mouth words to her. She couldn't understand them, but she knew what he was trying to say.
"He is responding?" Sakura's brow furrowed, "He is responding to you. Get him to drop his guard."
Shizune barely heard the woman though already taking the mist-nin's hand into her owns and gently squeezing it. She moved a hand to his face and stroked his cheek.
"It's okay now. You did it. You can rest now, we are going to take care of you. You are okay," Shizune urged searching the man's eyes for understanding. He let out a sigh of relief and his eyes grew lidded.
"He is finally responding to the anesthetic already in his system," A nurse announced checking a computerized reading of the mist-nin's vitals.
"He pushed most of the last two doses out through his pores, administer another dose," Sakura ordered and a nurse did so, injecting it into the drip. Then the mist-nin was under. Sakura used her strength to position the large man all on her own, propping him on his side. Nurses set a couple of large sterile trays in front of the man.
"Okay, I am going to open up his abdominal wound again. We need to clean his intestines and resituate them correctly," Sakura looked up at Shizune and received a nod.
Shizune sat on a chair in the hall outside of surgery, completely exhausted. Her face was still covered in the mist-nin's dried blood as she caught a breath for the first time since the incident.
"How is he?" She heard a familiar voice call. She found the source through lidded eyes. Kakashi stood in his kage regalia.
"He is named Koga," Shizune said with determination, "And he is stable. We think he is going to make it."
Kakashi raised an eyebrow at that determination. The Hokage let out a sigh of relief and gave her an eye smile and a squeeze of her shoulder. "Great job Shizune." Shizune nodded in reply still recovering from her own exertion. "Can you give me a report on the damage done?"
"Hai," Shizune relaxed and took a deep breath, then began detailing some of the more minor wounds. There had been dozens upon dozens of smaller lacerations from the shrapnel the blast created. Then she detailed the larger injuries, "He almost lost his legs, but through some crazy jutsu and sheer willpower we were able to save them, but he won't be walking on them for at least a month. In addition to that, we reopened his abdominal wound and cleaned out the foreign material. He is going to struggle with digestion, but we repaired the damage. Just have to keep him off of solid foods for a while."
Shizune scratched at some of the blood on her face and grimaced, "The worst injury is a traumatic brain injury he suffered from the concussion of the blast. Sakura is still working through repairing some of the brain tissue. The damage isn't too extensive. However, we are concerned there will be some adverse effects."
"Is he conscious?" Kakashi asked a bit out of curiosity, but mostly out of a need to gather some information before leads went cold.
Shizune shook her head, "He is unconscious and probably will be for the better part of a week. He has acute chakra exhaustion, I suspect from that jutsu he used to hold his body together." Kakashi let a small frown show on his face.
"Do you know what the jutsu was?"
"No. I have never seen anything like it before. Sakura remarked that it was similar to her own regeneration technique, with a few stark differences. Namely, instead of repairing damage like her technique does, it acted more like a glue, holding the body together and limiting the flow of blood to areas outside of vital organs. Perhaps it was something he developed to continue fighting even if he suffered grievous injury, but we won't know more until he wakes up." Shizune slowly stood from her seat having recovered a little.
"Did you find who did this?" Shizune asked with keen interest.
"Unfortunately, no," Kakashi's eyes frowned a little, "whoever it was fought a brilliant tactical retreat. Using various traps, they managed to disengage from our forces. During our attempt to recover their fallen comrades, the enemy administered a liquid like what we have seen Hunter-nin use before and dissolved any intelligence we might have gathered."
The medic felt her jaw tighten as she gritted her teeth. She wanted the bastards who did this to pay.
"We will get them Shizune," Kakashi assured gripping the medic's shoulder again. "Now, you should get cleaned up and rest. You did really good work today."
"Thank you Hokage-sama," Shizune replied with a little smile at Kakashi's retreating form.
"Aie, Aie," Kakashi sighed aloud waving his hand over his shoulder, "Drop the sama please."