Book 1: The Three of Us

Chapter 40: Keeping A Promise

There was a chilling silence as we made our way through the village, our faces hidden by our cloaks as the rain poured down. It wasn't a surprise when the mission went from sketchy as hell to next level stupid in mere seconds. One moment Jiriya and I were making our way through Amegakure, from what we could tell, undetected. The next a whole team of orange haired crazies were attacking us. 

The whole village had a light layer of heavy chakra that seemed to blanket everything, setting us on edge. From every direction attacks started, giving us little time to see who was attacking us. It wasn't until Jiraiya and I were able to get some distance between our attackers that we could take time to see who they were.

I could tell the moment Jiraiya recognized one of the faces of our attackers, a slight hesitance in his attack causing him to be thrown into a building. Blocking an attack from another with Samihada, I make my way over to Jiraya to back him up.

I give him a quick look, "Care to explain what that was about?"

"My suspicion has been proven correct. The leader of the Akatsuki is located here and he was once a student of mine," Jiraiya says, a troubled look on his face.

I don't have much time to process what he says before we are once again bombarded with attacks, almost overwhelming us.

"Care to use the sensei card to get him to stop attacking?"

Jiraiya frowns deeply, "I'm afraid that isn't going to work. He is no longer the boy that I knew."

From there, things just got worse. It felt impossible to defeat an enemy that was able to see as one. The two of us couldn't keep up with the six opponents and as the fight dragged on, that only became more apparent. A deep sense of dread filled in me as we fought. There was no way to escape and retreat.

A hit from one of them sends me skidding backwards, Samihada protecting me from the brunt of the attack. With a war cry, I lung towards my opponent faster then ever, tearing Samihada into his side and absorbing a large portion of his chakra. Another one of them quickly backs the other up, attacking me relentlessly, me being unable to do anything but protect myself.

The next attack I could see coming at me but I was unable to move fast enough to avoid it. One of the black rods they use as weapons stabs me through the stomach, the weapon causing a disruption in my chakra and making me unable to control it properly.

Jiraiya makes his way towards me, helping create space between our enemy. He gives me a heavy exhausted look before whispering, "Please forgive me."

He places a seal on me and activates it. The world around me goes black for a moment as I'm hit with vertigo that sends me to my knees. Opening my eyes I'm met with Anko who comes rushing towards me. I look around me in confusion, taking in the cave that she was in.

"I thought you were headed back to the village," I say, trying to understand what was going on.

Anko kneels beside me, examining my wounds, she looks at the rod in my stomach in worry, "I made a promise I intend to keep."

"What promise?" I ask.

She looks me in the eyes, "To bring you back alive."

"What about Jiraiya? We can't just leave him behind!" I protest.

"If he used that seal, it means he knows he won't make it out alive. There's no going back for him," Anko snaps out. 

"You can't expect me to abandon him," I say, hurt at the thought of leaving an ally to die. Leaving a friend to die. 

"Yes, I do. We're headed back to the village right now," Anko grabs me roughly by the arm as she pulls out another seal and activates it. Once we land wherever we are next, I have no time to see where we are before she activates the seal once again. It makes my head spin and feel like it's going to explode.

I scrunch my eyes closed in pain before finally opening them again when the vertigo subsides. We've landed right in front of Konoha hospital and people jump back in surprise at our sudden appearance. Anko looks up in frustration, yelling out, "Quit your gawking and get a medic already!"

I rip my arm out of Anko's grip and pull myself up. Despite the pain in my stomach, I step towards the hospital with steady steps. When I made my way into the hospital, I was quickly surrounded by medics. I was able to walk steady but I was quickly becoming light headed and my body felt heavy. Samihada sent a chirp towards me that told me it wouldn't be able to heal my injury for me. Something about the black rod was blocking our ability to merge and the damage to my chakra network made the problem even worse.

The medics rush me into an operating room and start preparing me for surgery. Laying me down on the table, they set a mask on my face, attempting to give me anesthesia. It sends my body into a panic when the unknown chemical mix causes my lungs to switch over to use my gills. I rip off the mask, gasping for breath, "That won't work. You can't use that. My gills."

"What can we use for you?" one of the medics asks.

"Numb me up and hope for the best," I say, still gasping for breath as my body tries to recover from the attempted use of anesthesia.

"There's damage to your chakra network. Repairing it is incredibly painful and there's no way to numb that kind of pain," the medic explains, preparing me for what's next.

Focusing on taking deep breaths, I finally catch my breath and give a sharp smile, "Oh, I know. And I'd recommend you use a paralysis poison and restraints to keep me still."

To be continued...