[Thread] That's three, three ninjas
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
( And a cook )
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
( And a cook )
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.
There was probably the lingering smell of snake with that blood that ran over the white ground in the mid of the commons. Sasuke stepped through the snow at a slower pace than the blonde completely silent. He didn't need those scarlette hues to tell him that Shikamaru was out of chakra.
He remembered this scene minus the fox with the addendum of a couple more bodies. A full ANBU squadren skattered over the ground. Not a single's heart stopped. He wouldn't end their life, but he didn't need to save them either-- and he didn't. Parasite desings heavy over white flesh, one yellow eye, the stentch of something inhuman, the sound of a serpent under his breath.
He stopped- considered to say something- said nothing.
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However, there was simply no breaking this jutsu. Whenever he tried to increase his pain in order to force himself to snap out of it, the cuff on his wrist intervened. If it was an invention of Sasuke's mind, it was quite a clever device to maintain the illusion.
Whatever the case, Shikamaru would have to play along. He'd been sitting out there long enough, trying and failing to devise a plan of escape. He needed to accept help, even if it wasn't real.
Curled up against the wall, he had his arms pressed against his stomach to stop the bleeding as best he could. He'd taken a glance at it but it was difficult to tell the severity of the wound. A very deep gash that extended across his abdomen, but as for any vitals it might have hit, he couldn't tell yet. It was the blood loss that was going to do him in first, he guessed.
Blood-smeared mask pushed to the side so that his face was visible, he turned his eyes up as Naruto appeared before him. Lips twitched into a sardonic little grimace. That was his Hokage, for sure. "Do I look alright?" he retorted, drained.
And then his gaze moved past Naruto to the other figure. Sasuke, considerably less monstrous but, after that fight, intimidating nonetheless. To try to finish the job now would be pure stupidity on Shikamaru's part, but the thought crossed his mind. Sasuke had just slaughtered his entire team.
Shikamaru looked away.
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Of course, the cuffs got in the way of actually being able to do anything about it, as did the huge wall around the compound. For the forseeable future even naruto had to admit they were stuck, but they'd get out eventually, he was sure of it.
And there was that familiar face and grin that Naruto knew so well, his Shikamaru, he knew it, had to be. He could see it as well, Shikamaru knew him and recognised him in return, it was a breath of fresh air to realise it, but for now it didn't sooth his worry any. The blonde frowned down at the gash, lips curling in a childish pout.
"So it was a stupid question, I know!" he huffed, clawed fingers almost drfting to the wound but then not, Naruto wasn't a medic, didn't really have that much knowledge of it. The blonde after all never needed one, he could heal terrible injuries that would kill other shinobi in minutes thanks to the demon chakra fused with his own.
He glanced back at Sasuke for a second thoughtfully, "We'll get you to the infirmary, they can fix you up there."
Naruto had no idea how good Sasuke was with medical techniques either, but they didn't have bandages or anything on them and sitting out here in the snow would definately not do the shadow-manipulator any good.
Infirmary, right.
He looked back just in time to see Shikamaru look away, a small frown came to his tanned features then, but he didn't ask, just simply moved to wrap and arm around Shikamaru, "Come on." He could probably pick him up and carry him if necessary, but for now he'd just support him.
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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 button and tossing in a few new loops for the shits of it.
Sasuke wasn't a medic nin either. He didn't really need one either. However, he had learned the graces of regular medical attention baring the chakra gifted techniques. All in which worked just fine. The problem was that at this point Shikamaru was severly damaged, and for lack of more gentler terms, likely dying.
Sasuke shifted forward a smudge more and--
"Dont," he spoke and another step forward, "move him."
He sighed- even a transferral jutsu might have a negative effect on Shikamaru's body. It involved him even if it wasn't initiated by him, obviously.
"Make sure he stays conscious and keep pressure on the wound," he spoke turning to look at the ANBU for a moment. There was no marked opinion there. Shikamaru was doing what he had to. Sasuke was doing what he had to. He pulled out his PDA.
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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."
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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.
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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. Twice
A 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 hiss: kill him, the voice said, Orochimaru said. Sasuke was not as merciful as Orochimaru was. Let him rot was what Sasuke said. Let the maggots feast on his body. Worm food. Let the vulchers pick him apart. It was bitterness.
... You followed me for an entire month and you pitied me. All of you.
It made him want to gag. His foot pivoted in the snow away from the both of them in time to see blue. A woman walking forward. Mercury, he suspected.
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By sheer luck, the former medical student hopeful still had some basic supplies in her room. She brought these with her, along with the snow globe from Yuuko and a broad range of spell components.
Twice in the space of a few days. Amusing. No wonder she was able to become a doctor so young in that world her counterpart was from (and that world Mio was from, hadn't she?); she'd have practice from Econtra. Or some versions of her would. Or something. Econtra made for mind-reeling possibilities.
Rarely did Mercury de-transform these days. The girl that arrived on the scene had blue hair and wore a sailor-suit themed uniform that left not an indecent, but a surprising, amount of flesh bare - given the weather. Snow crunched under her boots.
It had only been a few minutes, but-
Mercury stopped short.
The contrast of the blood against the white snow, she knew was making it look even worse than it was. Still, even allowing for that, it was bad. Multiple wounds, he looked to be barely moving, his grip on whatever he was using to staunch the flow (why was he using it and not one of those two helping him?) - she couldn't quite make it out - loosening.
About an hour, Sasuke had said. That was probably correct - a little less by now.
First priority, then: buying time. That was what she needed to do right away. Mercury was already talking to the wounded man, all but ignoring Sasuke and Naruto until she at least had the situation in hand. Unsure of what he would or wouldn't be accustomed to in his world in terms of technology or magic, Mercury kept it brief.
"There's a spell I'll need to use to keep you with us for a little longer first, then I'll be able to examine you better," she told him.
She knew she'd brought that glass phial with her... It was a component in a spell that had precisely this sort of potential medical application. Mercury found it quickly and pulled it out. It was filled with a clear liquid.
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Shikamaru smirked. Now who was getting sentimental?
And maybe it was all over now, but he couldn't be too worried about it. The fight was finished and Sasuke wasn't attacking anymore. Naruto didn't seem to be in danger from him. Even if this was an illusion it was a pretty nice one. Cold, weird, convoluted, but the illusion of dying with his friend to see him off was a lot nicer than becoming worm food all alone in the middle of the wilderness.
His thoughts drifted to Asuma. Maybe it was time to say a parting speech? Something wise and touching?
...Eh, he couldn't think of anything.
Some woman appeared and she wasn't dressed like any medical nin he'd ever seen, but she seemed certain of herself. Shikamaru tried to listen to what she was saying but everything was very muddled and without response he turned his eyes up to the clouds and just stared.
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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 even on his trousers.
"Oi, this is no time for cloud watching you know." Count on Shikamaru, he might be dying (no he was dying unless Mercury could stop it) and all he could do was stare up at those stupid clouds that he liked so much.
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Still silence.
Sasuke blinked soft black lashes and black hues turned red. He watched the girl with more color of blue. Although he had recalled already her root power was something to do with water; of water and knowledge. He tipped a head just for a second casting a glance to the leaf nin when Mercury came in and began explaining. Shikamaru was colorless. Sasuke noted this. There was much less time than he had originally noted. Shikamaru-- No, they were never close and rarely talked. Circumstances kept them quite far away.
He was interested enough in this magic. Something, a power different from their own but perhaps similar propertied. Hence we he activated his sharingan in the first place. Partially wondering if there was something he could pick up should he himself have the ability to do so. That on its own was enough reason to not turn around and say -- there, I showed you minimal compassion because losing a brilliant mind in a place like Econtra would be stupid and wasteful. Compassion wasn't even the word.
He folded his arms not stirred by the presence next to him. The smell of blood and intensity of Naruto's chakra tingling his flesh and making itself very clear to those red ringed hues. Vivid orange-red flailed about and around Shikamaru begging him to live.
No, it was rationality. Loosing someone like Shikamaru would indeed be wasteful and stupid. He was many a thing. Wasteful and stupid was not one of them.
As for anything else-- well. He couldn't say he cared. He didn't regret it... Kusanagi had a nasty after effect when it was bound with lightening. His muscles were likely fried and nervous system pretty fucked. The stomach wound was probably the least of his worries-- Sasuke tipped his head subtly-- and it did almost look like his spleen just might fall out if he moved the wrong way.
He parted his lips -- He's not going to make it -- and exhaled.
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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 factors including his current rate of blood loss, Mercury estimated she had given the man an extra hour or perhaps a little more. It was the best that could be done. The sigils gleamed faintly until the sake gradually evaporated, leaving no trace or mark behind as they finished their task:
"He won't die while that spell lasts." Certainty. She trusted her power.
Now the actual medical work began.
Bandages. Better antisceptic. Medicine. Water and cloths to clean the wounds.
Mercury noticed finally the tension in the two boys nearby as she prepared those items. One was obviously worried - Sasuke? They'd never met face to face after all. If Mercury's scent was of water to the blond, it held the sharp tang of its solid state as ice and snow. The other boy was more distant, detached, black-haired.
(ooc: technically a self-only spell, fudging for the sake of rp)
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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.
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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 Shikamaru, not surprising but not reassuring either, Naruto would like it better if he kept talking so he knew he was alive.
Not that he couldn't hear his breathing and even the beating of his heart if he concentrated hard enough, but the sound of his voice would be that bit more comforting. Silly, maybe, but Naruto was like that, particuarly when worried over someone.
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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.
For a spare moment coals shifted - just coals shifted - behind black locks to the blond. Still, he said nothing. Her just continued to watch.
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She pressed a hand to the ground, laying more weight on it than strictly necessary, holding herself up. Hopefully, it would go unnoticed. The boys seemed preoccupied, which she decided meant it might. Mercury took a few deep breaths, centering herself.
And Sasuke approached just as Mercury had been thinking that. Had he noticed? Did it matter? She was fatigued, not useless. She could still see the rest of this through; it would take much less of her energy and only require normal actions. She shifted slightly, allowing him a better viewpoint but not pausing in her work to do so.
After disinfecting the area as best she could, the blue-haired girl now unpacked what at first looked like another phial. A closer look would reveal it to be a snow globe, to appearances no different from the toy sort. When she opened this and held it over Shikamaru's body, there was no odor - or only the smell of actual water this time.
That water was magical, too. As it dripped over the wounded areas, it would begin their healing, though it wouldn't stop the bleeding or close the wounds on its own, not when they were that severe. It should also take care of any lingering risk of infection. Good.
A mixture of magical means and mundane to save this man, with the balance shifting rapidly to the mundane now that those steps were out of the way.
No one was talking much, a detached part of her noticed. That was fine, perhaps even preferable; if those other two boys had become distracting, she would have had to remove them. She supposed really it was the tension and her eyes almost flitted away from the approaching black-haired boy to the blond as well. That sort of feeling, that strong desire for someone to be saved, she knew it could be powerful. She remembered it. She said nothing.
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