Chapter 60 - Ophiuchus Etamin

The initial concern was raised by a Hyuuga member of the border patrol. It was the night shift. Quiet, normally. And there hadn't been any sort of major attack to the city in decades—minus that debacle with the "terrorist" from the Land of Earth at the chuunin exams a few years back, which was more of a half-baked publicity stunt than anything. And sometimes the occasional bandit newbie that thought they could be intimidating. Those were almost cute.

No, stuff the size of the Day of Pain and the Day of Crushed Leaves didn't happen any more.

But they still stayed on their toes. This kept the civilians happy.

Therefore, even though he was sure it wasn't a really big deal, the Hyuuga guard Hidokei decided to speak up. "Hey, senpai."

"What's up, Hidokei?"

"I see something weird."

"Weird? What is it, you think?"

The veins around his eyes increased as he concentrated. "I don't know, but there's two of them, and one of them has a lot of chakra."

"How much we talking?"

"This guy could be a jinchuuriki for all I know. He's lighting up the area like a miniature sun on my Byakugan."

"Well jeez, you suppose they're ninjas?" His senpai, Urokawa, poked his head above his shoulder. "Kind of a late hour for someone to be out. You think it's maybe a returning cell?"

"Nope. There's only two of them," Hidokei replied. "Besides, I dunno who the hell else in town has that much chakra b'sides the Hokage. And they kinda… don't look like ninjas. I think."

"That's… weird." Urokawa thought for a moment. "Hidokei, you wanna go check it out? I'll send some guys to go with you."

"Oh man, really? Sure, I'd love it!" Hidokei said. And his senpai smiled.

"Cool, then. Come with me."

Hidokei had a heart that thirsted for action. Call it the result of a lifetime within Hyuuga walls. Even this job hardly ever allowed him much.

A four-man cell was almost literally thrown together (Urokawa, in one instance, yanking a medic from the back of his collar to join the team) and was sent out to go investigate.

Hidokei was, of course, the scout. Duh. He was a Hyuuga, that was what he was supposed to be.

Their plan was drafted out beforehand. Standard procedure. Maybe they were just a pair of drunkards fooling around in the forest. One of whom happened to have a ridiculous amount of chakra. Who knew. They would be cautious but practical. It was four in the freaking morning, anyways.

Eventually, there was visual confirmation. Two males, roughly the same height.

The first was young, maybe in his early twenties. He had very pale skin and very dark hair that fell in his eyes, and he was dressed simply and had a leather bag slung over his chest.

His companion was taller, if only barely so, dressed in patchy blue and black. He could have been fifteen, or fifty. Hidokei couldn't tell. His hair was grey and his face was curiously ageless, and undefined.

"What do you mean you can't tell us what he looks like?" one of the chuunin said, when Hidokei reported this.

"I don't know, I just can't get a good handle on this guy!" Hidokei whispered back. They were maybe forty, fifty feet away from the men. Observing. "It's like every time I take my eyes off him his face changes. He's the one with all the chakra."

"Maybe you ought to get your eyes checked."

"Shut up and let me see if I can get a better look," Hidokei said. He was a Hyuuga, for fuck's sake. He didn't need to have his eyes checked. They were perfect.

Neither of them were armed, it seemed. All they seemed to be doing was talking. The dark-haired one seemed far calmer than the other.

"They're probably lost or… something. Sure seem like travelers," someone said, when they moved back a fair bit to discuss their strategy. Hidokei kept an eye on them.

"Dunno about the taller guy," someone else said.

"He gives me the creeps," Hidokei said.

"Well let's just go at it amicably," said the reluctant medic. "Don't want to cause any trouble."

A flashlight was produced and turned on for a proper announcement.

"Excuse us, sirs? May we help you at all?"

The next thing they knew, a wall of water was thundering their way. A large wall of water.

Evidently, the grey-haired man knew how to use his chakra too. To great effect.

"Sirs, please, just explain yourself, we don't mean to-" and suddenly the second guard was drowning.

"Everyone fall back! We don't wanna fight with you!"

"Don't touch my master don't touch him don't touch my master DON'T TOUCH HIM DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH HIM."

The forest had suddenly become a river and it was a loud river and a strong one, and the second guard was still in its grip.

"Sage ALIVE, what the HELL?" someone said.

"Fall BACK!" someone else said.

"STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP DON'T GO NEAR HIM."

"Please, please, dear, calm down! Just get them away from us, we need to get out of here!" the dark-haired man said. His voice was deep yet quaveringly feminine.

"Oh I'll get them away, Master, I'll get them, I'll, there's, a Hyuuga, scout, scout, KILL THE SCOUT."

And the look on that man's face, twitching and shifting and uncertain, carried with it only one possible meaning for Hidokei:

He was going to die. He was dead.

The second guard was still enclosed in a globe of water, trying to calm himself so as to not waste oxygen.

"Hyuuga scout, DIE, kill the SCOUT."

He lunged forward.

"KILL THE SCOUT!"

"Oh SHIT!"

Hidokei felt hands grabbing him that were far too strong to be human hands and he felt the bones in his left arm creak from the strain.

He felt his joints separating and his arm pulling out of its socket and he felt his joints tearing.

And he screamed.

"Dear, dear, dear, dear, DEAR, let him GO, I don't want us to make a mess!"

"But I'm not, I'm not making."

TUG. Another scream. The medic stood, frozen and drenched.

"I'm not making, a mess, Master, there will not be, blood, there, there won't, I'll just."

His other hand enormous and strange and barely resembling skin clamped around Hidokei's neck.

"I'll just snap his neck then, I will, that won't be messy, Master."

Tears were leaking out of Hidokei's beautiful eyes.

Eyes that would be ruined when they finally found his body.

(Were those really going to be his final thoughts?)

"No! No! Put him down and focus on getting us out of here!" the dark-haired man shouted over the water.

His eyes were yellow behind that dark hair.

(He tried to think of something else.)

Somehow, the message got through.

(And couldn't.)

Hidokei was very suddenly dropped. He clung to his arm as irrational torrents rushed around him, trying to scream more but finding water blocking the sound in his mouth.

All he could see was water and pain and.

Suddenly the river was gone and his medic, water dripping from his nose, was at his side.

The pain was still there.

"Hidokei, answer me! Are you all right?"

And all Hidokei could do was sob.

He was too out of it to aid in the flustered report to the Hokage an hour later.

Yes he most certainly needed to hear about this.

"Wait so say what?" Naruto was rubbing his eyes, still half in his pajamas, somehow, in his office.

"Kage-level. At least one of them," someone said.

"We can't just go ignoring this skirmish," someone else said.

"And he knew to target Hidokei-kun," the medic said. His face felt tight from stress. "He recognized him as a Hyuuga first, and then identified him as a scout."

"Whoa, that's… bad," Naruto said. "I mean, Hyuuga are pretty well-known, but…"

"Not so much outside of Konoha, much less the Land of Fire," someone said.

"I've got a seriously bad feeling about that, especially," the second guard said. His breath still felt thick from his half-drowned lungs. "This guy knows about us."

And Naruto thought on this, for a moment, eyes half-closed, mouth drawn tight.

"We'd better go find him, then. And his buddy. Send some squads out to investigate right away. In the meantime." He yawned, deeply. "Close the gates and stop all travel, in an' out. I don't want a guy like that in the city, y'know? 'specially not with…" Another yawn. "Not with the chuunin finals so close. This sorta thing can't be good for travelers."

"Absolutely, sir," someone said. "We'll get on that immediately."

Naruto had one eye closed. "…say, uh, why isn't your commanding officer with you guys?"

"He's preoccupied," said the medic.

"With Hidokei."

"He got hurt kind of badly in the skirmish."

"A broken arm. At least."

"Ouch. Well tell him I said get well soon." Naruto rubbed his eyes. "I mean it, that kinda really sucks."

"I'll be sure to pass that along, sir," said the medic.

Other news was, eventually, passed along.

To a certain few, it was just another, awful thing to worry about. Clones and Orochimaru beside.

And to Karin.

"What do you mean, I can't leave?"

"I'm sorry, Karin, but it's a city-wide ban on travel, in or out. A security issue. It shouldn't last more than a day," Sakura said. "I'm really sorry, I know how badly you need to get home."

"Well what the hell kind of security issue?"

"An S-rank threat. That's all the detail that's been released."

"…fuck, that is serious." Karin looked around, for a moment, afterwards.

(The boys were nowhere in sight. Well, boy. Asaoto she didn't worry about, but Shingetsu was a horrible little mimic.)

"Have they honestly not said anything more?" she continued.

Sakura shook her head. "Nothing. Honestly, I only know because, well. Naruto. Everyone else is being told it's just routine maintenance and… guard quality checks or something."

Karin's face became very red.

"…then why the hell did you tell me? I don't need this stress, okay? At all!"

Sakura stood, very small and very shamed, for a moment. The day before was fresh and wet in her mind.

"I'm… I'm sorry, Karin, I should have considered. You were just so angry, I just-"

"No, no, no, it's… fine. It's fine." Karin was wiping a bang away from her forehead, her eyes tightly closed, then opened. "You said these things usually take a day to resolve, right? Even with an S-rank threat?"

"Knowing our guys, yeah. It might not even be that severe, and they're just saying that to get them to work harder."

"That's some method of encouragement," Karin said, crossing her arms.

"Well, kids these days. They've never had any real… experience with what we've had to face." Sakura folded her arms, as well, but by clasping her elbows instead of knotting them into each other like Karin did. "The prospect of experiencing the things that we had to deal with excites them, more than anything."

"They should feel grateful that they've only had to imagine," Karin said, softly.

Sakura's silence and lowered eyes was her reply.

"Regardless of what it is," Karin continued, "I'm going home before the end of the week, 'S-rank threat' or not. Suigetsu can protect me."

"Let's hope we won't have to fall back on that," Sakura said. "I'll let you know if anything changes."

"Thanks. I'll pass the news on to Suigetsu, okay? It'll be easier for us if I'm the one that's dealing with him."

(Suigetsu, as it happened, was getting breakfast-lunch-something outside, with Shingetsu.)

("Can we 'splore, Daddy? I never been inside Konoha before.")

("No. We're heading back soon.")

And Sakura left, to attend to other patients.

Namely, Hyuuga Hidokei.

His senpai, Urokawa, was sitting at his bedside when she came in. "Things going all right?" Sakura asked.

"He hasn't woken up, yet." Urokawa had wide, fish-eyes, and they looked very pained.

"I would imagine; they put him on some pretty strong stuff for his shoulder."

Sakura went to pick up his chart.

"I can't help but blame myself," Urokawa said.

"Huh?"

"For what happened to him."

Sakura's eyebrows knit together in well-practiced sympathy. This happened often, with accident victims. "Please, don't. It's not your fault. You had no idea that what was out there was such a threat."

"I still feel at fault."

Sakura put a hand on his shoulder. "You'll be feeling better when he's feeling better. At any rate, he'll probably appreciate you being there when he wakes up." She covered her smile by flipping through the papers on her clipboard. "Do you know if anyone from his family's come by, by the way?"

"They were here. Earlier. I think." Urokawa's thumbs whirled, slowly, around each other. "I mean, they must have been…"

"Mm. Well, let me examine him, quickly, so if you please."

"Oh, sure, sure, sorry, Haruno-sensei." Urokawa stood, quickly, and pushed his chair out of the way.

"It's okay, I'll be right out," Sakura said. She put the chart down and concentrated chakra into her hands—not to heal, but to inspect, sending it out in short bursts that could bounce back and be read. "Hmm, the tendon damage is still pretty bad. I'll have extra mending sessions added." Her hand moved from his shoulder to his arm. "Fracture same as usual. That's good, at least. I haven't seen crushing damage like this since…"

Urokawa tried to clear his throat.

"…at any rate, that can be healed more easily. He should make a full recovery, and relatively quickly." She made quick note on the chart with her pen, and put it back at the edge of the bed. "I'll leave you be."

And she did.

And when Hidokei finally woke up, minutes, hours later, he could do nothing but gasp for a good long while.

"Hey, hey, you all right?" Urokawa said, putting a hand barely on his hand. His relief was entirely genuine.

"Wh-where am I…?"

"You're in the hospital. Are you in any pain?"

"What, what happened with the hostiles? They escaped, didn't they…"

"They did, but we have ten teams out searching for them now." Urokawa's fingers tightened. "It's okay, we'll find them and figure out what happened."

"He was going to kill me…" Hidokei closed his eyes and put his good hand on his face. (They had already wrapped his forehead for him. Thank goodness.)

"But he didn't, okay, kohai? You're okay, now."

Hidokei's eyes were still closed. "Those eyes, those yellow eyes."

"Whose eyes?"

"The man he called Master."

The investigations came to very little fruition. The grey-haired spook and his dark-haired master had, apparently, done far too good a job at disappearing.

Searches had been conducted both along the border, inside and outside, and in a five-mile radius beyond, with Hyuuga volunteers doing scans where possible into further stretches of land. Investigation made way for patrol, following the sunset. Flashlights joined knives.

The lack of results was maddening in how it couldn't be relief, only more difficulty, only the promise of a greater challenge.

This set people on edge.

A retching man found in the bushes turned out to be just that—a sick, drunk chuunin, separated from his team and come home too late from a mission. But he was pounced upon all the same.

Naturally, apologies were given, and he was sent home with a few bruises.

It began to rain, after the sun set.

Another set of poor creatures, some early-bird tourists from the Land of Earth who hadn't heard of the happenings in Konoha but were eager to travel there all the same, were thoroughly interrogated and scanned for genjutsu use and any other sort of disguise. This greatly offended one of the travelers, a woman with a wide and window-like jaw that had been mistaken for a man. Though the cause of her offense was unexpected.

"This is how I naturally look, you boneheads!" she said, crossing her wide arms. "I don't need to do anything to look this good. I'll have you know that I'm mistaken for a man all the time back at home."

"M-my sincerest apologies, sir," the squad captain said.

"Don't call me sir," the ma'am said.

They were sent into town with severe confusion and red faces for everyone involved.

Therefore, they were extra cautious when they found a man crunched over himself about four miles east of Konoha's border.

Especially considering his injuries, which were already richly apparent from the smell of his blood several feet around him, even mixed with the rainwater. He was moaning, softly.

Yeah, they couldn't mess this up.

They shined a flashlight on him, first. His hair was dark and it stuck to his face and his cheeks. "Excuse us, are you okay?" The medic was the first to speak, on instinct.

"…I seem to have… done something to my back… I'm… finding it a bit hard to…" He began coughing. Blood mixed with saliva came out of a very pale mouth.

"Sir, what happened to you?" They began surrounding him, the medic drawing nearer, the others with their backs toward him. On the lookout.

"Another victim?" someone whispered.

"This isn't like with the Hyuuga," someone else whispered.

"Please, just… help me, would you…"

"We'll help you, sir, don't you worry," the medic said. Her flashlight moved up and down the man's form. His clothes were wet with rain, and the blood of injuries unseen. "Can you tell us what happened to you?"

"If I told you, you'd likely have to… kill me, dear…" he replied.

The medic laughed, though it was a strained laugh. The paleness of his skin was worrying her. "Sir, please, I appreciate you trying to keep the mood light, but..."

He began laughing, though his voice was thick and the laugh was hard and joyless. "I'm sorry… Just help me, please, I'll explain everything… later…"

"We should bring him to the hospital," someone said.

"Unless you think you can treat him here?" someone else said.

"I would… indeed appreciate being taken there… I rather would…" the man said, curling in deeper into himself. He began moaning again, his shoulders tensing.

"Please, sir, we'll take you there. I think you're too injured for me to treat right now." The medic's hands were gentle as she tried to unfold him. "Can you stand?"

"Oh, I suppose I could… try."

He tried, and crumpled to his knees.

"Dear, I'm… sorry, I suppose I'm… just too weak…"

"Don't blame yourself, sir, you've lost a lot of blood." the medic said. She cleared her throat, her voice gaining needed power. "Guys, I need some volunteers! You're gonna get your hands dirty but I don't care, we gotta get this guy to the hospital!"

Reluctantly, she gained her needed few. Blood was just blood. Most everyone else was drenched from the rain.

Glances were everywhere as they began on their way. This man was injured. Horribly so.

And something had to have caused those injuries.

"So can you tell me your name?" the medic asked. "At least?"

And the man just laughed, again. Though it sounded more like a wheeze than anything.

"You're so young…"

"Hm?"

"Perhaps I should be… grateful. Will you… make a promise to me… young lady? Since you've been so… wonderful already…"

"A promise?" She blinked, and shifted the injured man further up her shoulder. "What do you want?"

"When we… arrive back home. No matter how I'm… received. Please… allow me to be treated as any other patient. I am injured, after all…"

"Well of course, why wouldn't I?" the medic said. She tried to make her smile reassuring, but it only ended up looking nervous.

"I'm not exactly a… welcome visitor," the man replied. His own, inexplicable smile was grim. "I get the feeling that Konoha won't… appreciate one of her most infamous prodigal sons returning so unexpectedly."

"Infamous…?" Her voice was suddenly very quiet. "Sir, who are you, exactly…?"

His hair was very black and it was matted with blood, and in a subtle shift of his head he shook aside his bangs.

His eyes were very yellow and his smile was very thin.

"Does the name Orochimaru… ring any bells to you, dear…?"

The medic had to break her promise.