There was no time.
Why was there never time?
Ibiki screamed as the byoki decimated an Academy student in front of him, screamed as the byoki stopped targeting the Uchiha in favor of everyone—
What could he do?
What could he do?
Misaki went to run forward, but the student was already dead—Ibiki held her back.
What could he do?
"What—" Ibiki started.
He didn't finish his sentence.
He didn't even know how to.
The byoki had realized its target was dead, launched itself at another student who dodged out of the way.
And then Ibiki felt something in his ear, and he had a very, very bad idea.
He swallowed.
Looked at Misaki.
"Help me after."
"What?"
Tapped the firefly in his ear.
"Byoki can be fought with acid."
Felt a responding wriggle.
And then Ibiki summoned.
Fireflies were, as far as summons went, ridiculously low in chakra requirement—when you were summoning one.
When you were summoning as many as Ibiki was now—
Fireflies almost seemed to pour out of him in every direction, they came in such great numbers.
Every single one of them could fly, every single one of them would be risking their lives to try to keep anyone off the ground—
But they saw the byoki.
And, as Ibiki began to tip forward in exhaustion, he saw the fireflies headed straight to the nearest food warehouse.
.
Acid.
Ibiki said acid.
Citrus had acid—that's clearly what the fireflies were headed for.
But—Misaki leapt, forcing herself higher than she'd ever gone before as byoki appeared through the ground underneath her feet—but what else?
"Acid!" Misaki screamed. "Fight them with acid!"
She thanked the kami for Ibiki's aunt, for how she believed Ibiki should be told things.
It took time for any information about the byoki to get disseminated, and she hadn't heard about the acid thing, was sure most others hadn't either.
And those that had were almost definitely hours away, fighting Kiri.
Only the children, the disabled, the elderly, and civilians were here.
But they weren't defenseless.
They had acid.
(Somewhere.)
"My paper factory!" a voice shouted. "I use acid!"
"I do too!" another voice. "I make paint!"
And that was when Sadao took control.
Still holding Ibiki's body, Sadao began shouting orders, looking to the group of mostly civilians and Academy students that surrounded them.
"You, you, and you—with papermaker. You, you, and you—with paintmaker. You five, you're going to the nearest warehouse with fruit. You, you know the nearest warehouse in that direction? Yes you do, you're an Akimichi. You take those four and go there. You,—"
Misaki stared at him, then stared at Ibiki.
Now it was her turn.
First, Ibiki.
It was really gross, shoving a chakra pill to the back of his throat and forcing him to swallow, but it was necessary.
Second, everybody else.
Misaki was a genin.
She was a very new genin, at that.
She did not have years of top-level training, of experience—she had no idea how to start a heart beating again, how to perform surgery, how to identify even the most obscure diseases and which treatment would work best.
But she had, for the past several months, been working directly under Sensei Tsunade.
And Sensei Tsunade was the best in the world.
Misaki dashed to the nearest grocery store, filled the storage seal Ibiki gave her with fruit, and began running.
When she found someone in the midst of a byoki attack, she squeezed whichever citrus came out right at the black blob, and—while it was clearly more than strong enough to keep going—the byoki always flinched back first.
Then it was a matter of getting the person away—usually with their help, because the civilians were killed far too quickly to save, so the only ones still alive were ninja—and five-to-ten seconds of iryoninjutsu to make sure they could keep running while she explained the acid thing.
And then it was running again.
And again.
And again.
And around her everyone that could got their hands on their own acids, and the fireflies carried what acid they could and dumped it on the byoki or handed it off to anyone unarmed, and time kept passing.
And they didn't have enough.
And the byoki didn't like it, but the acid they had wasn't strong enough to destroy the byoki, only cause it to hesitate.
And people kept dying.
And the fireflies were beginning to perform suicide attacks, thousands swarming a single byoki and trying to hurt it with whatever acid made them grow.
And it wasn't enough.
The sun, far in the west, began to sink, and as it did so too did Misaki's heart.
Looking out for the byoki in the daylight was one thing—in the nighttime?
And then the train arrived.
Misaki assumed.
But it was a perfectly reasonable assumption, given that hundreds of ninja were pouring in from the north, each with a seal that must have artificially generated a strong acid, and targeting every single byoki they could get near.
More ninja poured in behind them, fire jutsu blasting into the air, illuminating everything and anything below.
And then—
A roar.
Misaki felt it everywhere from her skin to her very bones, felt it in her soul.
It told her to run, to flee, to give up.
But the Konoha jounin in front of her—they only smiled.
And that's when the chakra of the Six-Tails loomed over the village walls.
And Misaki wept.
In school they'd gone over the tailed beasts, memorized what was known about each force of nature and how it attacked, how it killed.
The Six-Tails, because Konoha had successfully managed to capture it in a jinchuuriki, was one of the ones they knew the most about.
And there was one sentence, taken from a textbook she'd long since forgotten the name of, which she would now never forget:
The Six-Tails' primary weapon is a corrosive acid that has the ability to destroy almost anything upon contact.
The Six-Tails wasn't free, which would lessen its effectiveness, but considering the byoki already hated acid…
And then Sadao, with an unconscious Ibiki strapped to his back, shouted. "Back to work, Misaki!"
And Misaki was running again, ready to help anyone she could stay alive.
.
Ibiki awoke in a hospital bed, which was a good sign.
There was still a hospital to wake up in.
Of course, he was sleeping in a hospital bed with Sadao and two other Uchiha Ibiki vaguely recognized as Sadao's first cousins, and there were about as many injured in the other hospital bed in the room and even more injured sleeping on the floor, but.
They could sleep on the floor.
They could… sleep.
Ibiki tried to force himself to smile, gave up, and closed his eyes again.
If immediate safety was not an issue, then what he needed most was rest.