Obito-Sensei Chapter 51

Who Can You Save

It felt to Naruto like he staggered around looking for his team for a couple hours, but in reality it likely was ten minutes at the most. When he pulled himself out of the freezing ocean and scrambled onto the new beach Gaara had turned the docks into, he looked around and found no one nearby. His body was practically paralyzed between his exhaustion and lack of chakra, but practically was good enough for him to slowly make his way east in search of other shinobi.

About halfway through his wandering, the Great Channel Bridge collapsed in the distance. Naruto watched it without comprehension as the lights lining its lengths exploded into darkness one by one, and the massive shadow shattered and crumbled into the sea with a sound so loud and low that he could feel it in his bones.

His leg was twisted and sprained, and though his arm had been hastily patched up the hole Gaara had torn in it still burned fiercely. That was all that kept Naruto from sprinting to the bridge; he had to settle for a pathetic limp as he crossed a desert full of death that had once been a stretch of residential buildings. The whole time, he was wondering what he could have done better.

There must have been something that could have kept this from happening, right? He'd fought a Bijuu and it looked like he'd lived to tell the tale, but living wasn't enough. If he'd wanted to prevent this, he would have had to win.

He didn't find anyone who was still alive in his ten minutes of searching, but eventually Sasuke found him.

"Hey!" Naruto's head jerked back, and he found Sasuke approaching from behind him. They were in the center of what had once been an apartment block, but now it was just a land of dust and corpses, with a cloud of debris thrown up which refused to be driven away by the rain and sleet and reduced visibility to less than a hundred feet. Sasuke skirted around a body that lay face-down in the dirt as he approached, his face stuck in a permanent grimace. "Naruto. Is that you? Are you okay?"

Naruto considered, took in the numbness that suffused his entire body, and then shook his head. "Nope," he said, feeling like his throat would crack open. "I don't think I am."

"Yeah, that sounds right," Sasuke muttered as he reached him. Naruto's eyes were drawn down to his friend's right arm: the entire limb was red and black, like meat that had been left on a fire for hours. The fingers were barely intact, and it sagged; there was no muscle tension in it whatsoever. Sasuke held it limp at his side, but Naruto could see that even tiny movements of his torso was causing Sasuke incredible pain. It was amazing he was even able to move.

"Have you found anyone else?" Sasuke said, pointedly ignoring his own useless limb.

Naruto couldn't look away. Could he fix that? Could anyone? "No." He could barely get the word out. "I dunno where Sakura went, or anyone else. It looks like Gaara… well, you can see."

"Okay," Sasuke said. He took a deep breath, wavering as if he were about to fall over before he caught himself. "Okay," he said, and this time it was in a jonin's voice. "We've gotta find Karin or Hinata first. They can track down everyone else for us. I think Karin was fine: I saw her heading south last, away from Gaara, but that was a while ago."

"I think we should go for the bridge," Naruto muttered. Sasuke glanced at him. "It fell. There must have been a reason."

Sasuke hesitated, and then nodded. "Yeah," he agreed. "Bridge first. Maybe others will have gone there too."

They started heading north, and Naruto could see Sasuke giving him worried looks as they went. Did he really look that bad, he wondered? Surely Sasuke looked worse. At least Naruto's bum arm still had skin.

"What was the last thing you saw?" Sasuke eventually asked. Naruto shrugged.

"I didn't see much. I got tossed into the ocean; that's how my leg got messed up," he said, gesturing to his dragging foot. "But one of my clones lasted a while longer: Zabuza showed up after Gaara went crazy, and I'm pretty sure he cut something off him. Maybe his arm. After that, he started running, and my clone ran out of chakra and couldn't follow him. I got out of the water just a little bit after that. Couldn't find anyone; went to where I saw Sakura last first." He sucked in a breath. "We're gonna get him for this, right Sasuke?"

"If he's still alive," Sasuke confirmed. "Zabuza's a bastard, but he's a strong one. He might have chased Gaara down and finished him."

"Good," Naruto muttered. "Let's hope."

"Hey!" Both their heads snapped up at the yell, which had come from atop a particularly large mound of sand about forty feet away. Shikamaru Nara was up there, waving with both arms; he seemed untouched by the world, and Naruto instantly felt odd seeing him so whole. "Naruto, Sasuke! Still alive?"

Naruto got a glimpse of Sasuke's Sharingan, but it faded as soon as it appeared. Because Sasuke was too exhausted to keep it up, or because he'd confirmed that Shikamaru was real? Naruto was sure it was both. "Close enough!" Sasuke yelled, trudging up towards Shikamaru as Naruto trailed after him. "Do you know where everyone else is?"

"I've got them, yeah," Shikamaru said as they crested the mound. Naruto wondered if there was more than rubble and sand under it. "But, Sasuke… I think Zabuza Momochi is dead."

"What?" Sasuke asked. Naruto couldn't feel anything, not even surprise or anger. If Gaara had killed Zabuza, he was just another person among hundreds or maybe thousands.

But…

"Is Sakura okay?" he rasped, and Shikamaru gave him a double-take and then gestured for the both of them to follow him. He talked as they descended the ridge, still heading towards the ruined bridge.

"She's alive," he said, which was uncomfortably vague. "Hinata was leading her and Haku after Zabuza and Gaara, but she collapsed, even with a soldier pill. I think that poison did a number on her, even with your help Naruto. I don't know what happened after that, but Haku made it sound like the bridge fell on top of all of them. Gaara and Zabuza were both buried, and Haku dragged Sakura out of there. She…" he sighed. "She's really messed up, Naruto. Do you think you can still use any medical jutsu?"

Naruto knew the honest answer was no. He'd been beaten to the edge of death several times over the course of the night, and had only been able to fix up the most critical injuries. He'd made over a hundred Shadow Clones, splitting his chakra countless times, and was still covered in dozens of cuts and bruises that stung like razors being dragged across his skin, not to mention his messed up leg and barely working arm.

"It's Sakura," he said without hesitation. "I'll fix her up no matter what."

"Pfft." Shikamaru couldn't hold back a grin. "You'll follow her anywhere, huh?"

Naruto didn't have anything to say to that and Sasuke seemed busy processing what Shikamaru had said, so they went the rest of the way without exchanging anything of consequence. They arrived at a hollowed out building that looked to have once been a hotel and found Kurenai, Hinata, Ino, Suigetsu, Haku, and Sakura inside the wrecked lobby. Karin was still nowhere to be seen.

No one there looked particularly good. Kurenai and Ino were both laid out with obviously broken legs on a couch that had been dragged to the center of the lobby; Suigetsu and Hinata were both unresponsive and pale, barely conscious and exhausted beyond belief; Haku and Sakura were at the center of the group, Sakura lying on the ground and Haku at her side, his hand squeezing hers.

Naruto looked over everyone and found himself subconsciously categorizing them. At least his medic-brain still worked. Everyone except Sakura was exhausted, but not critical; they didn't necessarily need medical jutsu, just time and rest. But Sakura…

There was a hole in her shoulder; it would be a miracle if the joint was intact. Her bicep was shredded and coated in blood, and her neck and back had been torn up. That was the most dramatic injury, but her whole body was covered in cuts besides that, and there was a particularly nasty gash on her head just behind her ear that was still sluggishly bleeding. If Naruto had to guess, it had probably been caused by falling debris.

Haku looked up at him, his eyes empty. He didn't seem to realize Sakura's hand was still in his. "Zabuza saved me, so I saved her." He said. His normally beautiful and measured voice had no life to it. "But I couldn't…"

Naruto ignored him, falling down at Sakura's side with a painful thump and checking her pulse. It was fast and thready, her heart beating rapidly even though she was unconscious. Upon closer inspection, he could see that Haku had frozen many of Sakura's wounds shut; not enough to push her into shock, thankfully, but at least enough to keep her from bleeding out. It was probably the only reason her shoulder wound hadn't killed her yet.

"Why didn't you bandage her instead?" he asked, running flickering yellow chakra across Sakura's entire body and diagnosing her other injuries. Broken ribs, but not punctured organs by some miracle. She had to be the most stubborn person alive to still be breathing despite having a bridge dropped on her after she'd already fought Gaara beyond the edge of her endurance.

Shikamaru shrugged. "We went looking for you instead. We figured that if you or another medical ninja wasn't around…"

Naruto swallowed. He hated to think about it, but Shikamaru was right. Sakura was past the point where mundane medicine could save her. Maybe if there was a modern hospital in Fukami City, they could take her there, but those places were probably already full of wounded people. What would they do then? Push out someone else who needed help?

It had to be him.

He focused, drawing out his chakra and trying to do the same for Sakura's. They were both empty. His energy cut out and Naruto sagged, his hand sinking into Sakura's stomach.

"Naruto?" Sasuke asked, and he let out a ragged breath, trying again. He had to dig as deep as he could, past the point of no return if he needed to. The alternative was unthinkable. His chakra came out again, dancing across Sakura's shoulder, and Naruto felt an irreplaceable part of himself start to drain away with it.

"We've got to get going," Sasuke said, and Naruto looked up at him sharply. "We can't afford to do this here."

"We can't move her," Naruto said in a low voice. "She's too hurt."

"Just do the best you can then," Sasuke said. "We have to leave immediately."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Naruto muttered.

"Gaara may still be alive," Kurenai cut in. "Hinata can't verify one way or another, and your sensor is still missing. If he is, he might come for her. And besides that… most of Waves hired shinobi died, but the ones that survived probably saw that he went mad because of Sakura."

"He went mad because he's crazy," Naruto said. His voice was cold; his whole body was cold. All his warmth was pouring into Sakura, but it wasn't enough to fix her, only keep her alive.

"Of course. But they'll still be looking for someone to blame. If you are all unlucky, it could fall equally on Sand and Rain." Kurenai shifted, obviously uncomfortable, and closed her eyes. "That would be even more unjust than what's already happened here."

"She's right, Naruto," Sasuke said. "We did our best, and we accomplished the mission." He swallowed, looking like he wanted to throw the words up. "There's not much more we can do here."

"I could help," Naruto muttered. "We'll look guilty if we run, and I could help. There's a lot of dead people, but I bet even more are hurt. I could…"

"Do what?" Shikamaru cut in with a harsh tone. "You're barely able to fix up Sakura right now, let alone the rest of us. What, do you think you could make a difference like you are now?" He was pacing, and Naruto was sure he was keenly aware he was the only one of them that wasn't badly injured now.

"I'd have to try," Naruto declared, half-dead and moving steadily towards full as he did his best to stabilize Sakura, and Shikamaru snorted.

"Who can you save?" he asked. Naruto twitched. "Seriously. I'm not trying to be mean, Naruto. Just think about it. Right now, you can barely manage one person. Sasuke's arm will need help too. Beyond that…" His face fell. "I don't think you can go beyond that. You're a medic. You should know this."

Naruto did, but he couldn't accept it. His head dropped, the edges of the world going dark.

'Who can I save?'

The answer was obvious. He could save Sakura, and that would be it. After that, he'd be done.

But he was okay with that.

There was a commotion, people moving to shield him, and he glanced over as his vision started to flicker. There was a dash of red in the entry to the lobby.

"D-don't." He recognized the voice: Karin had finally found them. She stepped into the lobby shivering, rubbing violently at her arms as though she were freezing to death. "Naruto, don't. You don't h-have enough."

"Karin." Sasuke, sounding like he was miles away. "Looks like you're alright?"

"I, I'm not." Naruto's head was too heavy to lift. "That feeling… all this… I couldn't handle it. I ran a-away. I'm sorry."

"Well, you're here now. Sakura's gonna die without help." Sasuke was starting to sound frustrated.

"Naruto will too if he keeps going." Karin, on the other hand, sounded sure again. "But I can help." She staggered forward. "Listen, Gaara's run away, him and his siblings. That's the only reason I was able to come this way. I'm so sorry, but I can actually do something now."

She sank down across from Naruto, on the other side of Sakura, and he was just barely able to look up at her.

"He's alive?" Naruto said, murder obvious in his voice, and Karin nodded. At her side, Haku twitched, but he seemed to have been rendered mute.

"He is. So you and Sakura have to stay alive, okay?" she said. She stuck out her arm in front of his face. "Naruto, you've got to bite me."

"Eh?" That absurd statement managed to break through Naruto's exhaustion, and he stopped fruitlessly pouring his life into Sakura as he stared at Karin. She was earnest, terrified, her arm shaking in front of her. "Come again?"

"There's something I can do," Karin said in the tone of someone revealing a disgusting habit. "It's supposed to be a secret, but now's not the time to keep those. If you bite me, you'll take some of my life; it should get you back to a hundred percent." She smiled, still terrified. "But I've never done it with another Uzumaki before. You might take all I've got, so catch me if I fall over, alright?"

"Uh… okay," Naruto said. He tentatively leaned forward, aware that everyone present was watching them with curious eyes. The Leaf team probably didn't know Karin was an Uzumaki. Well, that didn't matter now.

"It's gotta be hard," Karin said as he opened his mouth. "Enough to draw blood, alright?"

Naruto nodded, and then he bit down.

Biting into Karin's arm was the weirdest experience of his life. She was warm, unnaturally so considering the weather, and when some of her blood trickled into his mouth, there was only one word that came to Naruto's mind.

Delicious. He wondered in an addled and absurd way if he was becoming a vampire or something. Karin's blood was sweet and thick, enough that the expected feeling of disgust didn't come. Instead, he almost felt drugged.

There was more than just blood. Karin let out a yelp as chakra, so much chakra it almost rocked Naruto back like a tide of water, poured out of her arm and into his mouth. Naruto's entire body lit on fire as foreign chakra poured over his entire being and instantly assimilated with it: like a balloon that was stuck to a tap well past the moment it should have popped, he found himself filled beyond safety by a burning golden light. His arm and leg popped, twisting back into place as hastily formed scar tissue was obliterated, and steam rose from his body as all of his injuries smoothed over at once, not even leaving behind a scab.

He breathed out, a migraine forming and disappearing just as quickly at the base of his skull, and found that he'd never felt better in his life. Karin's eyes rolled back into her head, and true to his word Naruto caught her before she could even begin to fall. He marveled at how quick he was, at the effortless strength in his hands, and gently laid her down beside Sakura.

"Jeez," Karin coughed. Naruto noticed something bizarre; golden chakra was dancing not just at the wound on her arm, but in the small of her back. It sparked once, twice, and then vanished; something in Naruto's brain skipped a beat at it, but the thought was gone long before he could grab it. Right now there was too much for him to worry about. "That was worse than I-"

She passed out before she could even finish the sentence, and Naruto blinked as he stared down at her. He felt he should scream out his thanks, but there wasn't any time for that. He'd been given a miraculous second chance and couldn't afford to waste it.

"You good?" Sasuke grunted, and Naruto looked up at him. He could feel his face stretch into a smile, but it didn't go beyond an expression.

"Yeah," he said. "I got this."

The lobby was silent as he went to work on Sakura. There was too much to fix, enough that he couldn't consciously catalog it. Weeks and months of training with Kabuto and Nono moved his hands and guided his chakra. It was like with Kagami, Naruto thought afterwards, an almost out of body experience guided by spite and desperation that wiped his mind clean and left only the work of healing, binding muscles and rebuilding tendons as he demanded that a broken body put itself back together.

When he was finished, Naruto had no concept of how much time had passed. He was sweating, tired once more despite his chakra being completely refreshed, and everyone in the room seemed speechless, staring at Sakura. She was whole again, though Naruto was sure she would be in a coma for a time. There was only so much even he could do in the face of total exhaustion and a body pushed beyond its limit by every kind of trauma and a hasty soldier pill.

But she'd wake up. He was sure of it. He collapsed back on his butt with a gasp, hands splayed in the dirt, and laughed.

"Okay," he grunted. "Who's next?

"Get Sasuke," Kurenai said, and then shot Naruto's friend a glare when he started to protest. "The rest of us can sleep this off. But that arm needs to be saved."

As Naruto worked, refreshing skin and restoring charred muscle, he finally asked what had been on his mind from the moment he'd seen Sasuke's blow a Bijuu's arm off.

"Sasuke, what the fuck was that?" he asked, and Sasuke grimaced as several of his fingers cracked back into place, the bones resetting. "I thought you'd be too smart to do something like this to yourself."

"It was this or dying," Sasuke retorted, wincing. Naruto stopped for a moment, observing the muscles redeveloping, and then got back to work. He had a sinking feeling in his chest as he went, and he tried to distract himself by listening to his friend. "And, you know, it was that thing we talked about."

"What thing?" Naruto asked, genuinely unable to recall in a moment like this, and Sasuke shrugged with one shoulder.

"You know. A Lightning Rasengan," he said, and Naruto choked on his own spit.

"Seriously?" As he asked it, Ino let out a weak laugh.

"Seriously?" she repeated. "You added an element to the Fourth Hokage's jutsu? That's amazing!"

"It's not!" Naruto shot back as Sasuke started to give a faint grin. "It's insane! The Rasengan is crazy delicate, and you shoved a bunch of lightning chakra in it? Why not fire? You're better at that!"

"Fire was too temperamental: I found Lightning easier to work with," Sasuke said with a shrug. Naruto blanched.

"Sasuke…" he started to say. He shook his head. "How long have you been working on this? You didn't tell us."

"Around six months," Sasuke said, and Naruto started to wonder if his friend was insane. "I thought it might be… I dunno, a trump card. I guess it was."

"You should have told us," Naruto said, letting his hands fall away. Sasuke's arm hung limp; it looked fixed, but Naruto knew the truth. "You really should have told us."

Sasuke tried to lift his arm, and Naruto watched, stricken, as he came to grips with reality. His arm came up, but slowly. It shook like paper in the wind. Sasuke looked at it with obvious annoyance, his eyes narrowing.

"It's weak," he said, and Naruto snorted, feeling like he was about to cry.

"Yeah, no shit it's weak," he said, trying to keep his breathing under control. "The Lightning's not just an explosion you know. You must have seen it with your Sharingan."

"Yeah," Sasuke admitted. "I just thought… well, I guess it was better than dying."

"What?" Ino asked, and Kurenai shifted. "What's up? You fixed him, right Naruto? If you could fix Sakura, an arm's nothing."

Breathe. They'd get out of here, and he still had a lot to do. With Sasuke taken care of, Naruto stood up, creating a dozen clones and feeling himself waver on his feet. He dispelled four of them, redistributing the chakra. Eight of him was less than he'd like, but it would have to do. He gave them a nod and they grimly nodded back before heading off into the city.

Fukami City was fully alive now, thrashing and screaming like a gutted animal. Law enforcement and emergency response personnel were everywhere, swarming over the desert and pulling people from shattered buildings. They'd steered clear of the group of ninja, and Naruto couldn't blame them for it. When his clones started mixing in with the response teams, most gave them a wide berth until they started assisting in moving rubble with superhuman strength and diagnosing the injured and dead they found with lightning speed.

At that point Naruto's clones might as well have been honorable citizens of the Land of Waves. There was simply too much to do and too many to save for it to be any other way.

"Medical jutsu can't fix everything," Naruto said, and Kurenai nodded with a grimace. "For the most part, it mimics natural healing. If I were a lot more experienced, I could probably do more, but like…" He fought back more tears, his whole face clenching. "Sakura was torn up, but it was all structural damage. Muscle, bone, organs, I can fix that. That Lightning Rasengan was like Sasuke's arm got hit by a lightning bolt, and then a million tiny ones. The bone almost exploded, and a lot of the blood did. All the nerves are fried, and the chakra system there got turned to paste. It's a miracle it didn't just fall off, or kill him from the shock, but…" He turned to his friend not as a friend but as a medical ninja delivering a diagnosis. "Your arm's dead, Sasuke."

Sasuke paused. Visibly considered the fact that he was down an arm for the rest of his life. Nodded.

"Alright," he said, and Naruto couldn't help but laugh.

"Goddamn it." Maybe it was crying instead of laughing. Naruto couldn't tell at this point.

"My arm for a Tailed Beast's," Sasuke said, and somehow he had a smug look on his face. "If Gaara got away, I doubt it was permanent… but I'll call that a decent trade."

"Your mom's gonna kill you," Naruto laugh-sobbed, and Ino rolled her eyes.

"She'd probably do that if she saw him again anyway," she said, and Sasuke chuckled. Naruto barely cared that he'd almost given away the game. There was just too much right now, and Haku, Karin, and Suigetsu were barely awake anyway. What did it matter at this point, in the face of such horrible destruction?

He kept himself busy as tears dripped down his face wringing himself out to fix up everyone else, determined that they all would walk away in one piece. As he did, his clones expended themselves over time as they ran dry of chakra. Through that, Naruto came to understand more about what had happened to Fukami City than anyone else in the world.

Gaara had cut a rough path north east from the docks to the bridge, and devastated a mix of residential and industrial zones as he'd gone with zero regard for life. The trail got smaller the closer it got to the bridge, which had left the buildings closest to it paradoxically unharmed even as the city to the south was torn down and buried in sand and the bridge to the north fell in on itself. Even its foundations had been devastated: Naruto wasn't anything close to an architect or engineer, but he imagined that something that big would take a tremendous amount of time and money to fix, the kind that the Land of Waves might not immediately have on hand.

The amount of casualties was devastating. Naruto's clones couldn't see everything, but between all of them Naruto could estimate that close to five-thousand people were dead, and more than twice that were injured. It was a number that he couldn't really wrap his head around: even in all his life he would probably never know the names of a thousand people, let alone five-thousand, but that was at least how many were dead now. The idea that one person, even someone in control of a Tailed Beast, could have done this was completely beyond him.

Could his mother have done this? The Kyuubi was supposed to be the strongest Tailed Beast, that's what she'd told him. If she went all out like Gaara had, would there even be a city left afterwards?

As Naruto's clones assisted in rescue and emergency efforts, his real self rested. By the time he was done with them, the Leaf shinobi were back to full strength. It might have been a dumb move to help people who'd try to kidnap Sasuke just the day before, but Naruto didn't care about that kind of stuff anymore. He just wanted people to be okay, and by his hands they were.

Kurenai and Shikamaru left Ino and Hinata behind, though Hinata was still unconscious, about an hour after Naruto had saved Sakura. They needed to clean up loose ends; they departed into the sand and ashes to retrieve the ROOT agent's body and to see if there was anything left to find of the counterfeit conspiracy. It was wordlessly agreed upon that the Leaf team would take the body back to Konoha; Rain had no business with it. When they got back hours later, the sky was becoming the dark blue that heralded and eventual dawn, though Naruto didn't feel like the sun was supposed to come back up after a night like this one.

Between the explosion and Gaara's rampage, any evidence was long buried and destroyed. They had a corpse and a story to show for their efforts: hopefully that would be enough. By this point, Naruto was almost as unconscious as Sakura.

His final clone checked the remains of the bridge on its own initiative, knowing that Karin wouldn't be wrong but hoping it would find Gaara's corpse there regardless. There was a cairn of concrete and steel that had been upended, part of it soaked in dried blood. Gaara had been buried and then dug his way out, that much was clear. Whether he'd retreated of his own initiative or been dragged away by his siblings, Naruto couldn't tell.

Of Zabuza, there was no sign. Naruto had a cold certainty that the older ninja was buried on the seafloor along with his sword. If he hadn't been, he would have shown up by now, and Karin had made no mention of him. Even though he'd been a pain in Sasuke's ass and a creep on the few missions they'd been on together, Naruto still felt something crush his heart at the idea that such an experienced ninja and someone that was so obviously important to Haku, someone that had saved him from a life of slavery, was dead, and wouldn't even have a proper grave.

He'd taken Gaara's arm though. He'd done even better than Sasuke in that respect, cutting off a real one instead of blowing apart a chakra construct. Naruto didn't think the damage you caused was the true measure of a ninja, but he thought that Zabuza probably did: maybe he'd take that thought to the afterlife, and be content.

Eventually, the sun came up, and by then Naruto had to admit he'd done all he possibly could.

There were still more injured people. It felt like there always would be, but he couldn't go on. All but asleep and struggling to breathe as his body screamed at him for pushing himself past the point of exhaustion twice in a row in one night, Naruto finally decided he'd saved who he could. He felt even worse than he had after he'd saved Kagami, like he had a body full of lifeless blood and a head made of mud.

"Time to go," Sasuke said. He was talking to everyone, not just him. Naruto wearily looked over from his sprawled position on the couch as the shinobi gathered. Haku hadn't said a word all night, still mutely holding Sakura's hand as she slept. The Leaf ninja looked speechless, but Suigetsu finally had something to say.

"Finally," he said. His bravado was buried under obvious exhaustion. "The walk back is gonna suck."

"Yeah," Sasuke said mindlessly. He looked over Kurenai, Ino, Shikamaru, and Hinata last. She was still mostly unconscious, lying back in a chair and occasionally shifting. "Thank you, all of you. We can't repay you."

"You won't need to," Kurenai said. She let a smile flit across her face for a moment. "I don't suppose you want to head back with us instead."

"No," Sasuke said. "Sorry."

"Worth a shot."

He moved to Hinata's side and bent down, taking a knee. Naruto wasn't sure what he was going to say, but whatever it was never emerged as Hinata leaned forward and wrapped her hands around him. She hugged him close as Sasuke froze, one arm dangling useless at his side, and muttered something in his ear; Naruto couldn't hear it, and he felt it wasn't any of his business anyway.

They stayed like that for a little too long for comfort, more than fifteen seconds, and then Sasuke pulled away and Hinata sank back, fully asleep.

"You good?" Naruto muttered, and Sasuke shook his head.

He moved over and hoisted Naruto over his good shoulder. "Hey!" he muttered, too weak to protest with more than his voice. Sasuke just scoffed.

"Suigetsu, you get Karin. Haku, Sakura. We're gonna get back as fast as we can." Both the other boys obeyed without a word, hoisting Sakura and Karin up. Naruto thought that as far as shinobi teams went, they must look pretty pathetic right now.

"See ya!" he called back as he was carried away from the Leaf team by Sasuke. "Make it-" He choked on his words. "Make it back safe, alright?!"

"We will!" Ino shouted back. "Good luck, Naruto, Sasuke! Tell Sakura she's a dumbass when she wakes up!"

Naruto laughed, and then they were out of sight, steadily moving towards the Land of Rain.

"That sucked," Sasuke said, and Naruto nodded, feeling like a sack of straw.

"Yeah," he couldn't think of anything else to say. "I wish we could have actually said goodbye."

"There's no need," Sasuke said. They were moving across the ocean, buffeted by wind and salt, and yet somehow Naruto felt like he could fall asleep. "We'll see them again."

Mmm. Naruto thought he'd said it, but he found that the sound hadn't left his mouth. As he looked back towards Fukami City lit both by the early morning sun and the perpetual lights of any city, he felt a spasm of anger run through his whole body. For some reason, the anger brought an old memory with it. Across a gulf of time and humiliation, Obito spoke to him.

"You'll fail sometimes, all of you," he said. He'd said it when they were signing up for the Chunin Exam, taking on something that in truth meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, though Naruto had thought it the most important event of his life so far. "That's life. If you avoid failure, you'll never improve."

Improving sucks, Naruto decided.

This was just like Waterfall, but a million times worse. There, he'd felt powerless from the start, but here, he could have changed this. If it happened again, he would change it. Gaara might have crawled away, but he was gonna make sure the Jinchuriki paid for what he'd done to the Land of Waves. Him and all the Hidden Sand for being stupid enough to unleash him on the world.

There was another thought, more urgent than ever before. It had been more than a year now that they'd been on a mission, and some days Naruto forgot the original reason. But now, maybe cause he'd seen just what a Jinchuriki could be capable of, the notion was clearer in his mind than ever.

They needed to find Fuu. They needed to find her as soon as possible. Things were going to change now, in ways Naruto couldn't even imagine, and their window might close before they knew it. This night had taught him that the future you expected could always vanish in the blink of an eye.

That was Naruto's sole thought as he was dragged back to Amegakure, and it didn't give him comfortable dreams when he finally fell asleep.