Ch. 4: Escape
"Oh my god Deki, are you okay?" Yumi shrieked, running to him.
"Yeah. Nothing like a fucking shuriken in your fucking side to fucking help you get to your fucking point!" he groaned spitefully.
"Kazu! Kunai at 7 o'clock!" He dodged as I ran over to Deki. "Yumi, get back in there! Deki, you can still talk, so talk! Washi, throw me some water!"
"As I was saying," he started as I began to wash his wound, "They're rogue ninja! They heard the fucking fighting, so those bastards decided to take the stinking 'prizes' from afterwards!"
I applied a thick red liquid from a small bottle in my pouch, then waited for it to dry. For once, I condoned his swearing, for I knew that the more he swore, the more pain he was in.
"Take that, lesbo!" Washi yelled as he toppled a particularly masculine adversary. Yumi was next to him, sending out kunai, shuriken, ice spikes, whatever she could think of.
"We're going to be late," Kaida said calmly, as if nothing was bothering her. It was true, for she was used to dealing with blood. But I could see how desperate the situation was, even from where I was still crouching next to Deki, for Kaida was now fighting dual-bladed, with both her ice katana, and her huge, summoned, water-affinity mace.
"There's too many of them!" I shouted exasperatedly, shrieking involuntarily when a kunai almost cut my stomach open. "Let's take to the trees!"
We all hopped quickly into the trees. Kazu was supporting Deki, so I quickly blocked our pursuers with a dense wall of branches and vines. It wasn't strong enough, so Kazu threw some chakra-proof ninja wire so it crisscrossed, making a web, and Yumi reinforced it with a thick layer of ice.
Kaida stayed up front, lopping away branches in our path, while Washi stayed right behind her, looking for possible places to hide. "Deki, would we be able to hide from them?" Washi, our camouflage expert asked.
"Yes, yes, yes, I'm sure of it. FUCK!" he yelled as a particularly rough landing jarred his wound—it was worse than I had thought. Deki turned and addressed Washi by his last name. "Warami?"
"Kay, drop down… NOW!" Washi yelled when we came to a particularly narrow opening in the branches. I quickly moved some vines to soften Kazu and Deki's landing. Deki still grunted in pain.
"Over here!" Washi shouted as he ran back in the direction we came.
"WHAT!" Kazu yelled. "Are you trying to get us killed!"
"NO! I'm getting them off our trail! There's a spot in the roots of this big old tree, with lots of plants in the opening! There!" I was relieved when I saw plenty of feathery ferns in the opening.
We all dove into the gap between the roots, finding a low but spacious 'room'. I quickly grew some roots over any openings and moved in some fluorescent fungi so that we could see.
We made it just in time: we soon heard our first barrier shattering. "Shut the hell up and don't move," Deki murmured.
We waited while Deki sat agitatedly, then we tensed up when he relaxed. Are they gone? I thought, looking at him meaningfully. He nodded, so Kazu moved. He moved his knee into Deki's side.
"FUUUU…" he hissed. I glared at him out of habit. But, my glares must have been pretty frightening because he ended, "…UUUJAH."
"Kaida, check how far those assholes went," Washi commanded. For once, Kaida complied without a word. I lowered our extra defenses.
After I let Kaida and Washi out, I turned around to find Deki leaning against Kazu with a hand to his side and his eyelids fluttering closed.
"SHIZ!" I almost swore, I was that worried. His wound was on his left side, below the ribs. "Kazu, Yumi, keep him on his right side and send out a burst of chakra if he faints. Talk to him, keep him talking no matter what. I need to gather my supplies."
Yumi looked up fearfully and Kazu reassuringly smiled at her, although the smile never reached his eyes. I nodded then sprinted out into the cool shade of the forest.
I yanked out a kunai, then started slashing away at the bark of likely trees. "Just my luck. I knew I should have learned that medical jutsu when that woman offered. Bingo!" I cheered when I saw the thick red sap dripping down from the cut. "That's dragon's blood all right, just what I need for a refill." I snapped off some of the leaves of a kalanchoe plant to use as an analgesic and sedative, then threw some rose seeds, usually stored in my hip pouch, onto the ground. I sprouted up some blossoms from the seeds, then removed the parts of the plant I needed. "Rose hips, check…" I ran back to the tree and snatched up some small, thin, and feathery ferns for bandages as I slid through the opening of our hideout.
"Have Washi and Kaida come back yet?" I asked as I burst through the gap.
"Washi yes, Kaida no," Yumi answered.
"Yumi, go get him. Kazu, I need your help."
Yumi ran for Washi, while I wiped some blood from Deki's wound and summoned a bowl carved out of sturdy wood and covered with a tough tree-sap glaze from a scroll. I motioned for Kazu to fill up the bowl with water he could find and bring up from pure underground aquifers, all the while asking Deki questions to keep him talking and awake, while gently peeling off the dried dragon's blood 'skin.'
"Deki, I need you to be unconscious for this part. Do you feel comfortable with this?"
"Yes," was the weak reply.
"Do you trust me?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Yes, you do. I could tell someone else to do it while I instruct them on what to do."
"No, you're the expert. I trust you and only you."
"Very well then." What I left unspoken was, I am able to deal with blood, which is a good thing.
His eyelids finally shut without the help of the kalanchoe, but I squeezed some of the leaf juice into the wound anyway, just in case he woke up early. Yumi came rushing back in with Washi. I ran over the step-by-step process once more in my head.
I threw the rose hips into the bowl filled with water, then handed it to Washi. "Washi, hold it here, apply small but intense heat with your fire jutsu, then get it to boiling. Kazu, when that happens, put in the ferns, but leave the stems hanging out." They both gravely nodded back at me.
I looked at my 'patient' carefully. His face was even paler than before due to blood loss. I carefully poured my chakra into his body the way I would push chakra into plants I was growing and moving. I used the chakra to search for the metal projectile in the wound, and found it deep within the cut. I willed the muscles around it to slowly maneuver out the fatal object until the edge showed. I got a grip on the shuriken shard, then cooperated with the muscles to slowly remove it. I let out a deep breath. The hard part was over.
I checked to see that the ferns were supple enough, then sent Yumi back out to find Kaida, and partly to help her recover from seeing the blood and her good friend in pain.
I gently washed off the blood, then applied the dragon's blood sap over the wound, ignoring the metallic smell of blood and silently thanking Washi for finding a hiding place so close to a provider of this antiseptic and antifungal sap. I covered up the wound with ferns so no dirt could sneak in while the sap was drying and hardening into a bandage-like covering over the wound. Yumi soon came in with Kaida.
I sat back and smiled. "I've done what I can, let's just pray that none of his organs were punctured."
Everyone else relaxed as well, even Washi. "Well, it's a good thing that he has you on your team," Washi admitted.
"Washi, you do know that not everyone can be on your team? There's a limit of three people," Yumi said in a slightly annoyed tone.
"Glad it happened in the lush forest instead of in a barren desert somewhere," I said shakily. I was exhausted, and Deki couldn't be safely moved anyway, so we stayed put, and as soon as we leaned against the walls of our hideout and on each other's shoulders, letting Deki stay lying in the center of the space, we all fell asleep.
A/N: So, love it? Hate it? Constructive criticism is what helps authors and stories get better, readers! Thank you for your time.