Eight

Team

Shino threw up.

Twelve hours after... after, he was clutching the toilet bowl heaving hot pot and bile and everything else in his stomach as hot tears streamed down his face. Sakura's right arm wound around his middle to keep him steady and her left hand smoothed his hair back as she let him cry.

The bathroom door was open, its yellow light pouring into the inn room where Kiba paced back and forth in front of the door as he muttered to himself. Akamaru pressed himself into one of the corners, trying to shrink his hulking form as much as possible as he whined as quietly as he could with his paws over his head and his eyes screwed shut.

Kurenai sat in a worn chair pushed up against the single bed. Tenzo laid pale and bandaged without a single stir of consciousness, but he was breathing breathing breathing and that was all that mattered. That was all Shino cared about until he was ripped from the body before his chakra levels could baseline and make him pass out in his own sick.

And when Tenzo was finally out of the deepest pits of his injuries—the deep gashes in his stomach, the holes from the caltrops embedded in his back, the kunai-inflicted cuts, the fire jutsu-induced burns, the senbon-causing puncture wounds, the strained muscles, the shattered rib cage, the snapped bones, the swollen eye, the bruised neck, the chakra exhaustion, the internal bleeding, the pierced organs—miraculously, and he was able to start that slow healing process. Shino made sure a small colony had made a temporary home in his system to monitor his progress and alert him if any complications rose.

Well. Any further complications.

"We need to take him to an actual hospital," Shino gasped after a particularly long retch. "He needs fluids and constant observation. I may be able to make my own saline drip for him, but it needs to be under sterile conditions. While it's possible, I would pre... pre—" He hurled into the bowl, and Sakura passed him a damp cloth to wipe his mouth. "Th-Thank you. I would prefer professional-level sterility."

"Can we not take him ta' some clinic here?" Kiba asked.

Kurenai shook her head. "Meadow Country is allied with Fire and we're only an hour or so from Kusagakure," she said, and Kiba groaned. "Depending on the severity of what they'll be accusing us of, there could be sweeps for us, or at the very least our photos or information will be distributed to places they may believe we'll end up." Sakura rubbed circles into Shino's back when he shivered, pressing his forehead against his arm. "We won't know until we can get our hands on an updated Bingo Book, but..." Kurenai sighed and reached out to grasp one of Tenzo's hands. Her thumb caressed his calloused palms. "I don't know what we can do."

Kiba stopped in the middle of the room and glanced at the floor. All around them were the things he and Sakura rushed to pack before high-tailing it out of the village—clothes and scrolls filled with his seals texts, his favorite jacket, and rolls of Kumo-red bandages to last him a year. His hand brushed against the tattoo on his shoulder where he kept all those forbidden things, rings and tomes and the notes that could get him incarcerated for life.

Sakura packed her trivia books, the small keychain from Naruto, all her weapons, all the scrolls that used to stay tacked above her bed that she'd stare at when she thought no one was looking, the rope belt Killer Bee wouldn't let her leave without. Then she'd snuck to Naruto's apartment to hand off that bag of new White Letters they'd only finished writing days ago.

They made sure to get all of Shino's things, too. Everything he couldn't live without; the poison kit Tenzo gifted him, his favorite books, his entire personal medical inventory, the white flak vest C gave him.

A weak laugh fell from his lips. "They really went and fuckin' framed us, didn't they?" He ran both his fingers through his hair. "No, it was smart. Fuckin' brilliant. Everyone was still dealin' with the news that an Akatsuki member got ganked and right in the middle of all the bullshit, the motherfucker rips the goddamn rug from under our feet!"