So I mentioned last chapter in the disclaimer of sorts, that this is an AU, and there would be things that are changed. The White Zetsus were nearly indestructible, but I plan on changing that, somewhat. I also am not going to focus as much on the main storyline of Naruto, but I am following it to a degree. There will be events that differ from the Manga and like I said before, I want to delve deeper into the dark on this as well as delve into the psychological struggles that people face when they go to war. It's more of a loose connection to the Manga when it comes to timeline and events. Thank you all for your time, and please leave a review if you can! It's much appreciated!
Pulling Tides
Chapter Two
I think the worst thing so far about being a rookie, at this time at least, was all of the seminars. The last thing I had expected when I was promoted to the front lines was seminars. We were at war-which seemed to be more still than I expected. I also didn't expect there to be so many seminars. Seminars on the importance of following order, staying in groups, what the white zetsus are, why we are at war, and sex.
Ino laughed at me when I looked particularly confused at the last one.
"Most of the time, we sit here, nursing the injured or waiting for orders. What do you think people do all day? Train? Sit around? Stare into the abyss of snow?"
And finally the medical exam.
I would have felt more comfortable if it was Ino-but it wasn't. And they didn't have my file, which made it even worse. I hated being in the doctor's office. Even before I became a shinobi.
"Any disabilities or hindering injuries worth noting?" The medic asked, unenthusiastically. She was a bit plain faced with brown hair and brown eyes. Her bored expression was a bit grating; because I wanted out of here as fast as possible and she looked about ready to throw me out herself. Her eye lashes though, they were jealousy inducing.
"No, not anymore." I replied.
She raised a disbelieving eyebrow and nodded towards my bare arm; heavily scarred, but healed. The burn marks on my hand had healed nearly completely. Just some scabbing and blistering on the inside of the wrist.
"It doesn't hurt. Just cosmetic." She sighed, writing it down anyways. It wasn't completely true; but compared to how it felt two weeks ago, I could deal. I could use it without wanting to punch something; so it's perfectly fine.
"Any history of illness?"
"I had greenfield fever when I was a child." Her eyebrows rose, writing it down quickly.
"And no side effects because of it? No heavy breathing, or dizzy spells? Frequent colds?
"No. Not anymore."
She paused, before flipping her paper over. "Any history of sexually transmitted infections or viruses?"
Trying not to choke, I shook my head no.
"Are you a virgin?" She asked, eyeing up and down.
"Yes." I muttered, trying my best not to blush. We were at war for kami's sake, why the hell was this being brought up so much? She nodded. This was getting more and more uncomfortable as time went on.
"Is your menstruation cycle regular?" She asked.
Nodding, I prayed that this would be over soon.
"It is highly recommended that you take contraception, regardless of whether or not you plan on having sex anytime soon. Even if you have a regular period, it will help alleviate pain and lighten your cycle." I nodded. "It comes in tea form, just drink at least once a week and it'll work-but it's best used if you drink it for the first month at least three times a week, they hand it out at breakfast every morning. I'm sure Ino can show you. Do you have any recurring nightmares?" Blinking, I struggled to take in all of that information all at once.
I shook my head no. A lie. And she could tell-but she didn't mention it or call me out on it.
"Well, if you ever do happen to develop them, there is a medication that can help with them. A lot of shinobi use them."
"Fill out the rest of this paperwork, drop it off to the secretary and you're done."
I did so quickly before I left hastily, only to run into Ino.
"Awkward, huh?" She said, eyes sparkling.
"Yeah, it was. That tea?"
"I'll get it to you tomorrow, why do you plan on putting it to use anytime soon?" She asked, grinning.
I rolled my eyes. "Not likely."
She grinned, hooking her arm around my own and she began speaking in hushed tones.
"Have you ever encountered a white zetsu?" She asked seriously.
"Seen them, but most of my missions were to evacuate towns before they got there."
She nodded.
"They're impossible to kill. Make sure that they don't touch you-they'll drain chakra from just your touch. That tanto of yours will have to be put to good use, but you should start working on deepening your chakra reserves. All you can really do when they show up is injure them enough that they can't move-but they won't die. Cut off their heads, arms, cut them in half, anything. Be careful, be precise."
I looked up at her-but she wasn't focusing on me. Her eyes were serious and cold.
"There's thousands of them, but recently they've shown the ability to regenerate-albeit slowly. But how do you fight an enemy who can regenerate, fight, and move without stopping when you're just human?"
I frowned. "Well, if they're clones, there must be some sort of weakness. Theoretically, I mean? Everything has a weakness. Even Gods." She shrugged.
"None that we've found so far. But then again, this war is turning out to be much longer than I think anyone expected. Sasuke Uchiha recently just took out an entire city-hundreds were killed and thousands dislocated from any sort of help. It's been a struggle and we haven't found a way to stop them."
I frowned but I didn't reply.
"You have an animal summons?" I looked back at her, nodding. "How'd you do that?"
"My sensei. My teammates and I have very different styles of fighting, so in order to adjust to each of us, he taught me an Animal Summons while he taught them some more advanced ninjutsu. It' proved useful since the War has started."
"What is it?"
"What is what?" Kiba asked, Akamaru happily by his side.
"Momo has an animal summons, I want to know what it is." His eyebrows rose-and then he grinned.
"You have an animal summons? What is it?"
"I already asked that, baka." Ino snapped and then turned, putting herself directly in my path.
I looked at both of them before sighing.
"Wolves. I can summon wolves-but they don't really like to be summoned unless it's a last ditch thing."
Kiba looked excited.
"Wolves? That's awesome! They'll probably have you use them, to send messages and such if you're on missions."
I snorted. "You'd think-but they're pretty lippy."
Ino rolled her eyes. "You don't seem like a wolf person." She said, head tilting.
I shrugged. "It's the same summon as my sensei. And they're pretty useful. They can send messages, track, and fight."
She sighed, seemingly disappointed before she grinned.
"Are you hungry? They have ramen today for lunch, which is better than the horrible soup that they make." Immediately I can feel myself being dragged to the mess hall, with a laughing Kiba following.
"So Momo, you have to tell me something interesting, I'm bored out of my mind."
Kiba grunted, but ducked under the flap entering the mess hall shortly after me, and followed us straight into line.
"I'm sure that you know more interesting things than I do, Ino."
She moaned. "There's nothing to do here. Tell me some gossip from back home."
"I...heard they might be putting in a new strip mall in Konoha?" Kiba groaned in aggravation as Ino's eyes lit up.
"Well, at least there's one positive thing out of changing things. More shopping, oh, Sakura-chan and I could get whole new outfits!"
I smiled back at her grinning face, taking the bowl of ramen and following her to a table where Shino already sat, reading a book.
Carefully I placed my bowl on the other side of him, and sat across from Ino, who wasn't quite as gentle with her bowl, spilling some broth out of the sides. Groaning, she sat down.
I could feel Shino's eyes on me-though the glasses kept the contact limited on my end. I flashed a small smile before Ino began talking animated about something that some girl named Yuki was hiding.
No one really stopped her-though Kiba included himself in the conversation, egging Ino on. Quietly I ate my lunch-not really tasting anything.
Most of the food here tasted bland.
Actually, all of the food that I've had so far is bland.
I miss my mothers cooking.
"You're injured." Blinking, I look up at Shino, whose staring at my scarred hand. I realized that I hadn't put my gloves back on.
Ino and Kiba halt their conversation and Ino grabs my hand, eyes narrowing.
"This is older, maybe a week or two old?" she says as she rolls up my shirt to show more scarring. "And this is even older. The blistering and scabbing though, why didn't you get it healed?" She asked, eyes narrowed.
"I did, when it first happened. But the medics were more focused on the person I pulled out of the fire than my hand. So I just made sure that it was clean and let it heal naturally after the first healing session. The rest of the scarring is from before the war."
"You pulled someone out of a fire?" Kiba asked, looking surprised.
"Fire jutsu. One of my missions before being promoted was evacuating a town under control of rogue nins. They didn't really care about civilian casualties."
"Is the person you pulled out of the fire okay?" Ino asked, as Kiba began inspecting my hand over Ino's shoulder, who is presumably looking for any sign of infection.
"50% of his body was badly burned. They did what they could, but it's unlikely he'll ever be able to walk again." I muttered.
The boys face comes to my memory-a face that I'd been trying to forget for the last two weeks. The pain in his light blue eyes and the mortifying pain that had crippled him. I had to carrying him back for two hours as he screamed until the last hour of the trip he passed out.
They told me that if I hadn't pulled him out of the fire as I did, he'd have died.
His screams still echo in my head. When I had first met him he reminded me of my sister. It had made me remember him, and picture her when I struggled across a burning forest with all those people for three hours.
"There's no infection, you've kept this clean which is good. But why didn't you get it healed after?"
I looked up at her.
"The medics were ordered not to use chakra unless necessary. My burns were second degree, but nothing pain medication and a first round of healing couldn't fix. It doesn't really hurt anymore anyways." To be honest, it wasn't until after I started to walk back, my team realized that I had been injured.
Ino scowled. "Make sure it doesn't get infected, and if it starts to hurt just come to me. I'll take care of it. The intake nurse should have ordered you to get it healed."
I shrugged.
"It's fine. What were you saying about dango?" I asked, pulling the conversation away.
She started talking again, and Kiba began his teasing of her easily.
I could feel something crawl across my hand though-twitching a finger, I realized it was a bug. A beetle. It started at the tip of my pointer finger and travelled halfway down my palm.
I looked up at Shino.
"Leaving yourself purposely injured is dangerous." He says quietly.
"And getting a medic to waste precious chakra on something so small when any minute someone could come in injured is foolish." I bartered back.
He didn't argue, just nodded, and the beetle lifted itself and flew back to Shino's hand where it crawled under his jacket.
My eyes traced on the words of his book before turning back my meal.
Sighing as I watched Ino and Kiba argue and bicker towards each other, I noticed Kiba's fond eyes, and the slight blush fixing over Ino's cheeks. I hadn't expected to see something like that. Looking back to Shino, he was drawn into his book and I stifled a sigh. I should find something to read.
Taking a sip of my drink, I sit up straight and look off into the far wall of the tent.
The horns make me nearly leap out of my seat.
Kiba and Ino are already standing, and Shino's hand is on my uninjured wrist.
"You've been paired with Kiba and I. We're being called for combat."
The entire mess hall is moving and Ino looks at Kiba, her eyes sending a message that her mouth won't, and he grins at her.
They don't look surprised though, and looking at Shino, he seems pulled together.
It's a call for combat, idiot. I immediately stand.
"Don't worry about me." And then she looks at me and smiles.
"C'mon Momo, you're with us!" Kiba shouts.
I pull down my sleeve and slip on my gloves, and place my hand on my tanto.
I follow them, but there's a hollow sense of fear that sinks in.
I follow Shino's large body quickly behind him, his body creating a force field, propelling people out of the way for him. Akamaru and Kiba are practically jumping forward, walking quickly.
We're lead through the camp until we hit a huge circle-one of the training 'arenas' that Ino had spoken to me before about. A large man stands ontop of a stool, towering over the two-hundred plus that have gathered around. Shino and Kiba make enough room for me to stand between them, but it's tight.
"You've been broken into teams of three-your orders were given to you this morning-"
My eyes shot up in confusion, but Shino and Kiba looked straight. Shino was the picture of calm, but Kiba was radiating with energy.
"Teams 1 to 50 will be stationed deep within the Land of Fire-White Zetsu's have been spotted. Our mission is to keep them out. Teams 51 to 65 will be in charge of pushing back civilians-the town name is Nori."
Immediately panic sets in as I inhale sharply.
Kiba notices it first. "What?" He mutters.
I looked back at him. "Two weeks ago I just helped evacuated three towns to Nori-over a thousand people. And they already had that many there before. They're going to need more than 42 of us to evacuate that town."
"The boy?" Shino questions.
I swallowed. "The boy is stationed in Nori. I carried him and led the three hundred other people to Nori with my team."
"Well you guys did it." Kiba remarked. I shot him a cold look.
"We had two weeks to move them. This is over two thousand people in an emergency evacuation scenario. There's no way that those teams can get everyone out. People are going to be left behind."
It's quiet between the boys before Shino speaks. "We're team 51."