[Thread] That's three, three ninjas

[kazenorokudaime]

Characters: AU!Naruto, AU!Sasuke, AU!Shikamaru, OU!Mercury (PGSM) and AU!Watanuki
Where: The commons
When: Immediately after Shikamaru's arrival in Econtra
Summary: Shikamaru's injured, Naruto goes to help and drags Sasuke with him, and Kimi comes too!
Warnings: Swearing I imagine

Comments

[embalmment]

He was partially amused at this turn of events. More of what Shikamaru believed rather than what condition he was in. As true to typical Sasuke he didn't particularely care about the condition. Less so in Econtra where someone was bound to find him. Something somewhere extremely distance whispered to him a different story but he didn't listen.

Clothing was his main motive before this escapade took place. Poorly drying off he tossed on some clothing and followed with ever so gentle guidence. Sasuke did not want more people from his universe here. It was their Shikamaru. He recognized it immediately. Happened.. not entirely too long before he was brought in to Econtra himself. A few days.. actually

[nephologist]

He was entirely skeptical about this. He'd never heard of anything with the true power to manipulate time and space in such a way as to draw him out of his own world and into another. Logically speaking, genjutsu was far more likely, even if it was a very strange story to tell and he couldn't quite see the purpose

[kazenorokudaime]

Not so much power as machinery, and Naruto really didn't get that, he only just knew how to screen on these PDA things after all. He could probably do better, but he hadn't had a reason to try yet. He didn't really have to understand it, he just knew it was the key to bringing people here, and to sending them home

[embalmment]

Motionless coals just continued to stare. It felt good. He could have laughed. Felt good to destroy. Torment. Slaughter but not kill. No mercy. Left there to rot.

No mark of sympathy came over his features. No mark of regret came either. No mark of satisfaction neither. No mark of anything. Shikamaru's muscles were tense and torn. His chakra drained. Wounds gashes through that metal plating. He knew every little injury on that body--

For a moment he thought upon what exactly this meant if he were to go with the theory that everything happened for a reason and Econtra was more than just a place to gather those for wars. However he didn't think too much on it, or at least didn't show that he was. -- Can't bring myself to care. Somehow he cared about that fact. .. Bitterness?

A familiar look-- cast away. Like I had a choice.A dropless of water from still damp hair ran down white skin. More silence. He didn't actually feel any sympathy here. Felt no wrong. Nothing. An obscenely strange place to be. Right here. Pressing the repeat

[nephologist]

"Heh..."

Stupid Naruto. As if he could go anywhere. From the feel of it, he was fairly certain that if he moved too much, he might lose a few organs. This was bad. This was Sasuke's work. Sasuke never went easy on someone. Not his friends, and definitely not his enemies.

"Don't think I'll be going anywhere, Naruto..." Shikamaru mumbled, laying his head back against the wall. Think I'm dying, he added pessimistically to himself.

It was getting fairly difficult for him to keep pressure on the wound by himself. His arms were getting weaker and blood was soaking into the snow around him.

He turned his eyes up and sighed as if this was just another bad day. Such a burden. Like taking out the trash. "...It's damn cold here."

[kazenorokudaime]

"Oi, don't talk like that." Naruto muttered, recognising the tone behind it, not so dumb and oblivious, he could sense the tone easily enough. Fuck no, Shikamaru was not allowed to die, he was't going to lose anyone else, too many people were already gone from his life in recent years.

Sasuke's words reached his ears and he relaxed his grip, not like he could argue with that, he trusted Sasuke. At least more than himself when it came to knowledge on these things, he could hear him typing away on the PDA, must be asking for help, for someone who did know what they were doing.

"There's snow, of course its cold." Naruto snorted, pointing out the obvious, but so long as it kept Shikamaru talking and not dying... a cold fear settled into his heart as soon as he thought it. He would't die, the keepers wouldn't bring someone here just to let them die, that didn't make sense, dead people couldn't fight wars...

For the first time maybe since he'd arrived in Econtra, he wasn't focusing entirely on Sasuke. Don't die you lazy bastard.

[embalmment]

He had asked for help. Someone he knew capable and smart. Not quite a doctor but she had powers. What exactly, he was unsure. Nonetheless-- and besides that she had been in the infirmary. He'd noted that. A practicing doctor.

That thought wasn't true. This system wasn't flawless. It read energy when it was strong enough to be detected and-- that would have been that moment. Their fight. It was likely the one time Shikamaru was not being entirely lazy and slacking. Sasuke knew first hand however that people could die here just like anywhere else. These cuffs did not stop the inevitable.

He shifted placing the PDA back under his belt. No, you could die here easily. He almost had. TwiceA hand rested on his hip. Naruto cared; he would keep Shikamaru alive enough until help came. As for Sasuke... coals shifted behind black tressed to the ANBU again. After a few moments of silently thinking things through he realized what it was he felt. Not sadness, sympathy, regret -- it was in fact bitterness. That voice, he could have almost hear its

[waterfell]

She might have seemed a bit snide, but Mercury's questions once she'd received Sasuke's first message had been pointed, purposeful. And she'd left her room the moment he'd said 'medical attention

[nephologist]

Naruto was getting pretty sentimental, he could tell. That was a little sweet. They'd been friends for a long time now, hadn't they? There weren't too many who had survived in their generation. Shikamaru had been through the hardest times with Naruto and was one of the few who lived to see him achieve his dream of becoming Hokage

[kazenorokudaime]

Naruto didn't turn away as another scent arrived on the scene, female, like water almost... he just kept looking at Shikamaru with the express desire of Don't you dare die... It wasn't up until Mercury actually came close and began talking that the blonde forced himself to stand up and move back a little, give her the room she needed to work.

Backing off a few paces, closer to Sasuke, he looked at the older man, noting how he turned away from the scene... well, not like he expected Sasuke to actually be worried for Shikamaru. He knew him better than that. In the terms of closeness of the people of Konoha and Sasuke, Shikamaru was way out there. Naruto couldn't even remember them talking once really.

Instead he just clenched clawed hands hard, uncaring as the sharp nails dug into the weathered skin of his palms, watching Mercury, silently urging her to Save him, save him please. The bright orange of his coat stood out starkly against the white snow, almost as much as Shikamaru's blood did, some of the blood from where he'd knelt was

[embalmment]

He told Naruto to keep pressure on the wound. It wasn't his fault the idiot was deaf. Although the idiot was worried, and he bet the idiot never needed to do things like this. The idiot probably was able to stop danger before damage to anyone became this great. There were medic nins for that. For those who were damaged. The idiots job was to make sure it never happened in the first place, amongst other things

[waterfell]

Satisfied - despite a dispassionate worry for his condition - that Shikamaru wasn't going to resist her treatments, Mercury began them immediately. She knelt by him.

First, despite the risk, the blue-haired girl lifted the wounded man's hands away from the wounds. Carefully, she unstoppered the phial and dipped her finger in. The sharp, sinus-clearing smell of alcohol leaked into the air and dispersed. Specifically, sake.

Mercury traced intricate sigils across Shikamaru's chest with her liquid-coated finger, dipping it in the sake again as needed. It might sting if it hit the open wounds, but it would not be harmful; it would even act as an antiseptic. The blue-haired girl chanted a spell as she drew, designed to keep her patient on the right side of the living. A false life, cheating death, she had seen it described once.

Technically, un-life. It was a classified as a necromantic spell, although if enough further damage were done or the bleeding was left unchecked, he would still die. Taking account of all relevant

[nephologist]

Was there a better time for cloud-watching? It wasn't as if he could move, really. Sasuke's theory was correct. Maybe the bleeding was going to kill him if it wasn't stopped, but if he survived it was the damage from Sasuke's Chidori Current that would be the real problem. His chakra points were fried and it would be a long while before he'd be able to use a jutsu... or move very well at all.

This woman was touching his chest and that was highly unpleasant. Hand seals would have been much more preferable. However, she clearly wasn't a ninja, even if her healing techniques appeared to be working in a similar way. And because whatever it was she was doing made him feel somewhat revitalized, he wasn't going to open his mouth.

And anyway, he tasted blood in his mouth, and talking... He was finished with that, it seemed.

[kazenorokudaime]

Itching, to move, to do something, but there was nothing really for naruto to do here except stand back and watch and hope. Naruto hated it, he was a man of action to coin the phrase, he was the fighter, always charging headfirst into situations and emerging victorious against the odds. But he couldn't do that here, there was no enemy to fight and Shikamaru was already sat, dying on the floor.

The only thing he could do was rely on Mercury's skills. Not that he knew it was Mercury, he'd only talked to her minimally on the network and never met her outside of it before.

He might laugh if he knew what was going through her head right now, Naruto was Sasuke, yeah right. It wasn't concern that mattered, just that Sasuke was always more practical than Naruto when it came to these things. The blonde charged in and did his thinking in the middle of the action, Sasuke was the one who usually actually give something some kind of forethought.

He won't die while that spell lasts. Well Naruto hoped it kept on lasting. And tch, no answer from

[embalmment]

Sake. It wasn't an entirely strange concept actually. Alcohol was good for cleaning wounds although it would sting a bit. He couldn't help but smirk a little inwardly at that. He sort of wanted it to sting. He could have passed that minor sadistic thought off as something along the lines of 'pain keeps you consciense.' Win/win situation he supposed. Alas, it didn't. Shikamaru barely flinched. As for 'magical properties' of sake he couldn't say much. Different world.

However the Uchiha moved. Not anywhere near in her way but he moved more over to the side to better see these skills Mercury had and so firmly believed in as proof of her last statement. Digits tapped his opposing arms for a moment.

Not until the spell wears off. Firm in her ability. Vague in the endurence of that said ability. He watched the shinobi's body coat in color not quite the same as it usually were. Enough to sustain him for awhile and give him life. Interesting. He was living. Sort of

[waterfell]

She was very tired suddenly. Mercury's legs felt weak, and she was glad she was already 'seated' in her kneeling position; she was sure she would have fallen otherwise. Even as she was now, even with greater power, these spells she'd learned in Econtra could still exhaust her, and they were used carefully