It had been a long time. Once Izumi had recovered from their little encounter, one that could hardly be considered a fight, she had whisked Chigetsu away under the cover of the surging flames. Where she had taken him, he did not know. He was hardly in any position to resist her, physically or mentally. Their short skirmish had ended quickly with her electrified hand piercing down through the bottom of his right lung, leaving a seared hole through his chest. Even with her attempts to heal and seal the wound, he was still left with that hole. The skin around it swelled with nasty scar tissue, and through it, there was a passage all the way through his body easily wide enough to fit two fingers. He couldn’t understand how a wound like that was survivable, especially as it temporally collapsed his lung. All that he knew was that it hurt like hell. Even now, hours later, breathing was difficult. He wheezed with each breath, and streams of aggravated coughing weren’t uncommon to come from the captive Hozuki. It wasn’t the hole through his lung that worried him now though, even as painful as it was. It was what would come next. She had, even when she could so easily have killed him, deliberately kept him alive. He didn’t want to think about what she had said and what she had done in those moments. It was too much for him to think about. The sudden breakdown of the monster in front of him wasn’t something he could understand.  

Why she had kept him alive made more sense once he was able to give it some thought. Torture. Information Extraction. There wasn’t much that he knew, being at his lowly rank, but there wasn’t any way they could know that. Once Izumi brought him to the man who had fought against the Mizukage that would surely start. There are ways they can make you tell them what you saw. Izumi had said that herself. They would extract anything of use from him and then put a seal on him to do who knew what. It was only a matter of time now. If that man who stood against Ayakashi truly was involved there was no way he could resist. Those two were in the realm of Gods, and he was an insect compared to them.

His hair would be brushed back, rewetted with a bit of his body’s hydration. Despite being taken captive his hands hadn’t been bound. There was no need. As a Hozuki he would simply have been able to slip through them. It wasn’t the inability to move his arms that kept him restrained, but the fear that he had of his captor. Even when Izumi wasn’t directly present he knew that fleeing would be a poor decision. She would be able to track and hunt him down without difficulty, outspeed him, and simply ram another hole through his chest. Even if he wasn’t injured as he was, there wasn’t any chance he could free himself. His allies remained unaware of his state as well, and so there wouldn’t be anyone coming to rescue him. He would probably never see them again. Not Verdandi or Haka, or anyone else.

“Alone again. You’ve come so far, only to return back to your moment of birth. You will forget them soon, and they will forget you. That is the destiny of a broken weapon.” Swallowing, he would stare down at his chest. Attached to a length of twine wrapped around his neck, the wooden kunai he kept as a keepsake spoke in a smoking whisper.  “You’re only a burden now to your village. You’ll end up allowing your friends to die because of your weakness.” The wooden training weapon would be grasped now in his hand, and he would stare down into its polished and stained surface. He hadn‘t been disarmed when he was taken here. Presumably, Izumi knew just how helpless he was. “This is what you deserve.” He shifted uncomfortably, trying to gain his mental bearing. His weaponry were his only companions now, as unfortunate as that was. The kunai would be left back down to his chest, and he would take a deep breath. “ They haven’t interrogated you yet. There's away out.”

“I don’t want to die.” He cringed, looking away from the weapon. It was a struggle to not break out coughing again. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to...” Gasping, Chigetsu reached up his chest to feel at the scar tissue again. It was all too hard.

---

[788]

Rysano had seen what Izumi was capable a few times in the past. He had seen her single-handedly rout the opposing force on more than a few occasions, but this time she had gone a little overboard. As Nova and he returned to their camp, dragging the smoldering body of Sasori behind them, they were greeted by a manic Izumi. She seemed to be very distressed by the severely injured young boy resting in their tent. Rysano did not recognize the person, it was clear they had never met, but he had a headband with him that marked him as a shinobi of the Mist Village, the very village Rysano, Nova, and Izumi had just defected from. Why would she have brought him back here? And why would she be so upset about injuring an enemy? Rysano had never seen Izumi act like this before. He was sure she’d explain herself once she was able to relax a little.

They couldn’t relax quite yet, however. Izumi had done her best to repair the wound on her own, but she was not as well versed in healing techniques as Rysano or Nova, so the shinobi was still in bad shape. He still lay in there with an inch wide hole through his torso. If that was post-healing, Rysano would not have wanted to see it while it was fresh. Regardless of how many injuries he had seen, it never made it any easier to see a terrible wound on a real person, friend or foe.

As Rysano sat on the ground, thinking about what had transpired since he had deserted from Kiri with his friends, Nova finished what she was doing with laundry and turned to face him. “I knew she was capable... but I'd never seen her anger directed at any other than …. just... soldiers you know?” She would say to him, “Chi... I knew Chigetsu.” So that was his name then. He had heard the name before, back in the village, but Rysano had never actually met him. He simply nodded in understanding as Nova rested her head on his shoulder. Her hair still smelled nice, despite the desert heat or the battle they had just taken part in. They sat like that for just a moment before Nova made her way over to the tent flap and stood before it. After listening for a moment, she would turn to flash a worried glance at Rysano before opening the tent and going inside. Rysano would follow closely behind, in order to find out why she had made that face.

As he entered the tent, the smell of the wound permeated the air. He saw Nova kneeling next to the boy, clutching his chest and wheezily saying “I don’t want to die,” over and over again. Nova would look back toward the entrance of the tent at Rysano to ask “Do you think there is anything you can do?” In response to this, Rysano would silently cross the space between them to also kneel at Chigetsu’s side and begin to inspect the would. While Izumi’s healing was able to staunch the blood flow and stabilize the boy, it still left a large hole in his chest that would still be prone to infection and most likely would not hold forever.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Rysano would say as he flashed a reassuring smile to Nova. He looked back at the boy, who looked no older than Rysano himself, and he began to form his medical chakra into his palms, a calming amber glow forming around his hands. “Chigetsu, I know you don’t know me, but I’m here to help you.” He said to the boy as he placed his hands on the wound, one in the front and one on the back. “My name is Rysano, and this may hurt a bit.” With this he connected the chakra between his hands through the wound. He did this in order to work from the inside out and not just leave a hollow space in the ninja’s chest. He worked slowly, methodically, as he had when he had to piece Nova’s arm back together. Closing a simple cut is one thing, but he was needing to piece muscle and nerve tissue back together through Chi’s entire torso, so it was arduous work. His brow began to glisten as his golden chakra carefully knitted the wound back together, the muscles visible as they re-attached themselves and wove together to close the hole. Working around the wounded lung was precise work, but Rysano had the experience he needed to be able to resolve the damage that had been done to it, and hopefully, it would ease Chi’s breathing a little.

After about forty-five minutes of what couldn’t have felt pleasant for Chigetsu, Rysano withdrew his hands from his chest, the chakra fading away into nothing as he slumped back onto his haunches. He would look at Nova, “I think I’ve repaired a majority of the damage. It’ll never be perfect, just like your arm, but he should have full functionality and with some more rest and time, it should even stop hurting.” Rysano’s gaze would shift from her face to his own hands as he held them before his face. “I’m still not a perfect healer, and I could always get better, but I’m glad I’m able to help in any way I can.” He would smile one more time at his friend and mentor and return to monitoring Chigetsu’s vitals for the foreseeable future.

[WC 924]

His vision was spinning. Lack of oxygen to the brain. Floating shapes of light and color danced around at the edges of his vision, disappearing and leaving only faded streaks if he tried to look at them. Each inhale he took was loud and strained, lasting for far too long as he attempted to fill his lungs as much as possible. The pain had dulled, swapping into a constant ache that throbbed in his mind. He was panicking. Struggling as hard as he was likely only made his condition worse, but that was something Chigetsu could hardly be blamed for. Even after being Izumi had healed him he was still sure that this would be where he would die.

With the appearance of others he would become silent. He had been dreading ever since he was placed here that Izumi might return. Without breathing he would turn in his fevered state to stare. Of course, it wouldn’t be her. Instead he would be greeted by another familiar face. Somebody he hadn’t expected to see. Nova Makoto. A girl he had met in Kirigakure a long time ago, who he had experienced an awkward time at a restaurant with a fork and another girl. Nova Makoto, the girl who would later win the Chunin Exams. Nova Makoto, a refugee from the ravaged Sunagakure. It had been a long time since he had seen her. He wasn’t aware of her relation to Izumi, but seeing her here, after what had all happened, lead him to make some easy assumptions. Allies, friends, or comrades. It didn’t make a difference their exact relationship. Nova wasn’t coming here to save him. He didn’t have much hope for the man beside her either.

Still silent, Chigetsu would attempt to keep still as they approached. He didn’t want to even breathe, even as light headed as holding his breath made him. He stared at her as she came in. Maybe had he been in a clearer state of mind he would have been able to realize how pathetic he was being. Nova had never given him any reason to be afraid. Even in these circumstances he was in he should have been doing better to control his fear. He was taught in the academy that death was nothing to fear. It was something drilled into his head over and over. As he was now Chigetsu was nothing more than a coward fearing what would inevitably come to him in this situation. How foolish he was become more evident as she approached him. She would only place a hand to his forehead, and immediately the tension that he was feeling would evaporate. She wasn’t here to kill him. His lungs would seize again. Holding his breath hadn’t been a good idea. Wheezing for air again, he would clutch up at the wound in his chest. It would all happen in a blur after that. The man who had entered with her introduced himself as Rysano, a name that he hadn’t ever heard before but wasn’t likely to forget now. The comment that what he was going to do might ‘hurt a bit’ almost made him laugh. If it could hurt any worse Chigetsu would be impressed.

He stayed silent as Rysano worked at his chest. Only the sound of his breathing filled the room. It continued, with moments of wheezing and coughing interrupting the silence. Only as Rysano finished with his work and pulled away would Chigetsu relax. Despite his suspicions of their intentions and his general place now as a prisoner it seemed that they did truly make a good attempt of healing the wounds that Izumi created. Still, why they were preserving his life he couldn’t understand. None of this made any sense.

“Nova? Why?” He would speak with a still shaking voice, attempting to keep his breathing steady. “Why are you doing this? Please let me leave. I’ll never set foot in this country again, I swear.” His eyes would flicker from Nova to Rysano, and then up to the ceiling. “I never should have come here. Why did I ever leave Kiri...”

---

[701/1489]
[EXIT]

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