Chapter 33 -> Part 33

If I hadn't been a Jinchuuriki, I would have died within a minute, even with medical attention. Had I not been a medic, the Kyuubi would have been forced to flood my body with potentially deadly amounts of chakra to keep me alive, instead, he only shoved enough chakra through me to keep me conscious through the pain, and I focused on healing as much as I could as fast as possible. I focused on fixing the severed aorta first, then repairing the severed primary bronchi that fed into my right lung, then created a patchwork repair to the damaged organs. I started to repair the torn tissue in my lung when my legs, I didn't even realize I was still standing, collapsed.

Someone caught me as I fell, and dashed off, hopefully to the hospital. The Kyuubi made sure I never stopped until I managed to heal myself to the point I wouldn't die. During that time, the only sensations I processed was movement and the presence of Bijū chakra. The intense pain never eased, even when I finally lost consciousness. Every breath was painful, if unobstructed, and I felt like the sword was still tearing at my insides. It was worse than pneumonia, it was infinitely worse than any other injury I ever received. Internal organs were not supposed to be able to feel that much pain!

After the first few cycles into somewhat-consciousness, I realized that full consciousness wouldn't come for a long time without the help of another medic, which caused me to temporarily freak out when my barely-audible croak for a medic was met with being laid down on burning hot sand and force-fed water.

Someone was talking to me urgently, but I only repeated 'medic' and 'help', hoping they got the idea that I needed a doctor at the very least. Later, I would find out that I had been speaking in English, which did me absolutely no good.

I healed most of the internal damage, but the shattered shoulder blade, clavicle, and the top part of my humerus were a lost cause, as well as all the damaged ligaments and muscles. They would need surgery to fix, chakra could only do so much. Somehow, it only made everything hurt more.

I wasn't sure how long it took, but eventually, the near-constant movement and regular force-feedings of water during my semi-conscious moments ceased, replaced with a hard bed and three pairs of hands seeming to almost constantly be touching me. The pain receded rapidly, so I couldn't complain. I was still force-fed bad-tasting liquids on a regular basis.

Finally, I woke up, healed enough to interact with my surroundings.

Michi leaned over me the second I opened my eyes. "Kichiro-kun? Are you awake this time? Do you remember me?"

I moaned and pulled away slightly. "Y-you almost killed me," I managed, throat sore from disuse, or screaming, I wasn't exactly sure which.

"Sorry about that. The good news is that you're going to be fine."

"Where am I?"

"That's part of the bad news."

"Iwa?"

"Tetsu no Kuni."

"We're both ninja. How the hell are we not dead?"

"Our hosts don't know that. They think we're civilians who met on the road on our way to find work in Kumo."

"I need to get back to Konoha." I struggled to sit up.

"No," Michi snapped coldly, pressing a specific point on my chest.

I slumped back with a whine of pain. "What happened?"

"Short version or the long one?"

"Short one first."

"I restarted the war between Konoha and Iwa. Iwa is suffering, considering everything I know about the village got sent to Konoha and every other village. We're staying in Tetsu no Kuni until it's over."

"You bastard!" I gasped and he pressed on my injured shoulder in retaliation, sending lines of fiery pain through my torso. I nearly blacked out before he let go.

"Let go of the poor child!" A woman's voice shrieked. "How many times do I have to tell you not to mess with him? I don't care who you are, you leave my patient alone! Get out!"

"Yes, samurai-sama." Michi quickly left, leaving me alone with the woman.

"Poor boy, I hope you're not bleeding again. Don't worry, I'll keep the nasty man away from you until you can properly sock him in the jaw. How are you feeling? What am I thinking, of course you feel awful! Do you think you can sit up for me?"

I didn't get much of a choice in the matter.

"Good, good, you'll be up and about in no time. Sit tight and I'll get you something to eat." She stood up and started to leave as I swung my legs over the edge of my bed. "No, no, no, you're not getting up just yet. You might feel a lot better than you did before, little Uzumaki, but you still should have died from that wound. You're lucky your friend here got you to a medic-nin then to me. Stay in that bed."

I lay back obediently, one leg hanging over the edge of the bed. She bustled out, but an unfamiliar man stopped her in the doorway with a few words. She nodded once and slipped out. He closed the door behind him and pulled a thick slat of wood across it, locking it. He stepped forward and held out a single chopstick. I took it, confused, but the second I wrapped my fingers around it, he snatched it out of my hand and pointed a long blade at my neck.

"Ninja are not allowed in Tetsu no Kuni. What are you doing here?"

"How—"

"Civilians may still respect the Uzumaki name, but clan names mean nothing to me. What is your real name and rank?"

"Kichiro. I'm Uzumaki Kichiro, Chuunin medic of Konohagakure. I did not intend to come here and I will leave immediately."

He took a step forward and pressed the tip of his sword into my sternum. "You're still a ranked ninja in my house, most likely a highly skilled prodigy considering your age and the Konoha ANBU tattoo on your shoulder. From the seals on your forehead, palms, chest and the soles of your feet, you're at the very least connected to someone on the very short list of Konoha seal masters. Why shouldn't I kill you?"

"Look, you're overestimating me. Konoha sued for peace just over five months ago. The Hokage's son and I were supposed to be Iwa's prisoners in order to maintain the peace. As long as we were safe and unharmed, peace would last. The ANBU tattoo is to explain my absence in Konoha and stop Iwa from attempting anything funny on me. I don't have a mask, uniform, or skills to back it up. I'm a Chuunin, yes, but I'm a medic first and foremost, and the rank was mostly a reward for a few medical heroics while Konoha was fighting Suna and my sensei pushing me up the ranks to take foreign attention off my little sister. Konoha wants their Uzumaki allies back, but I don't have the talent or knowledge to resurrect the Uzumaki Fūinjutsu style. I won't hurt you, your family, or your friends unless they hurt me first, I swear it on everything I care about."

Without taking his eyes off me, the man took two steps backwards and opened a trunk at the foot of the bed, pulling out my bokken and tossing it on my lap. I made a point not to reach for it. "I found this sealed in a scroll disguised as a letter from a sister of yours that your friends didn't throw away when they presumably tossed the rest of your gear. You're the student of the White Fang and training in Kenjutsu."

"I'm not even good enough to be given a full blade."

"You're still the White Fang's student."

"Every word I said is true, I swear. I mean no one harm, I don't even know how I got here or how long I've been out of commission and I'll leave as soon as you'll let me."

"Why should I trust a ninja?"

"I don't know!" I snapped, losing my cool. "I don't care what you think or feel, I just want to go home! I'm sick of the fighting and the suspicion and the mind games—argh!" I bit off the rest of what could only be considered a temper tantrum.

"How old are you?"

"Nine—wait, I'm ten now, I turned ten shortly after I made it to Iwa."

"Give me your hand." He sheathed his sword and reached into his pocket.

"Why?" I shrank even further away from him, clamping my hands to my chest.

"If you want to stay here, just do it."

"I don't want to stay here! I want to go home!"

"Well, you can't, kid. The borders of Tetsu no Kuni closed three days ago, no one is allowed in or out."

"I have to try. That means I've been out of contact for three days and—"

"You've been here for almost two weeks, kid. The only people with any reason to believe you're alive are in this house."

"I have to tell—" I started to bring my hands together to summon Kanon, but the man grabbed my wrist and ruined the jutsu. I screamed in pain as he twisted my injured arm outwards and clamped a manacle around it, chaining me to the iron bedpost. "Let me go, please, I just want to go home!" I clutched my throbbing shoulder and tried to use medical Ninjutsu to ease the pain, but my chakra was inaccessible. "Let me go! Please!" I begged as he snatched the bokken off my lap and marched towards the door.

He slammed it so hard the door swung back open a crack. "A traveler you found who had been attacked by ninjas, you said." The man snarled at the two Iwa Jinchuuriki. "A Konoha patrol and their medic healed the worst of the damage, you said. Are the two of you blithering idiots to make up a story to bring a ninja into the house of two samurai? Are you trying to get yourselves killed? The scars on his hands and arms aren't from working in some blacksmith shop, they're from training with live blades, and I suspect some of them are from torture! The black symbols are Fūinjutsu, not tattoos. He doesn't have calluses on his hands because he's trained with senbon!" Handing me a single chopstick to see how I took it made more sense now. He was looking at my grip to see whether I automatically grasped it like a potential weapon or just an object. "The two of you are a pair of blithering idiots!"

I heard Michi stammering incoherently alongside a second, vaguely familiar voice I couldn't place.

"The boy inside that room could kill all of us with a single chopstick if pushed to it. You probably buried his gear somewhere, but did you keep his hitai-ate? Good, at least you have a few brain cells between you. Give it to me. Now."

There was some rustling and I tried to see through the crack in the door, but the woman stood in front of it.

"Thank you. You're lucky he's a loyal nin or I would kill all three of you. Outside, my fields need to be tilled. Both of you, get on it." There was a quick shuffle of feet and they left in a hurry.

"Ryouta, you of all people know how dangerous Konoha nin can be!"

"I don't kill children."

"He's a shinobi!"

"I know."

"Then why? If we nurse him back to health he'll only turn on us!"

"He won't, that I know for certain."

"You spoke with him for two minutes. How can you know?"

"I just do. Leave it, we're close enough to Hi no Kuni that the boy can get away free as soon as he's healed. Just take care of him. His name sounds familiar; I'm going to find out why. Put the other two to work however you can. It will hopefully keep the two idiots out of trouble."

"Are you sure they're not shinobi as well?"

"I'm almost certain they are, but they're not from Konoha or they would have hopped across the border and rejoined their comrades."

"Then why are you letting them stay?"

"They're running from something big enough that they would give up their weapons, throw away their pride, dull their reflexes, and suppress their chakra to dangerously low levels in order to pass as civilians here of all places, the only place shinobi can't reach. I don't know how the boy plays into this, but I'm going to go figure it out. I'll be back before dark. You can give my plate to the boy if he's still awake. Did I miss anything?"

"Please don't get hurt, Ryouta-kun."

"I won't."

I heard a door close and the sounds of cooking followed. I laid back down on the bed and turned my face into my pillow, quickly falling back asleep to escape the building pain from the injuries.

(-_-)

Waking back up was incredibly painful. My entire body ached and the slight fever common in major injuries had risen.

"Wake up, boy," someone snapped above me. I turned my had away from the voice and tried to settle back, ignoring the pain, but it was no use.

I blinked open my eyes to see the samurai standing over me. I automatically sat up and scrambled backwards, pressing my back against the wall.

"Are you awake or just doing that ninja sleep-fighting." When I didn't respond, he continued. "I went into town yesterday to figure out why your name sounded so familiar."

"Just let me go and you never have to see me again."

"You're quite the international character."

"I don't care."

"A perfect Jinchuuriki, enough Fūinjutsu skill to seal a Bijū, the skill to negotiate a temporary peace between Iwa and Konoha, and the willingness to give yourself up for it."

"Good, you know what I can do. Let me go."

"You won't make it a kilometer out that door."

"I'll be fine."

"Does your power to raise the dead includes yourself?"

"I don't raise the dead."

"Does that imply you can?"

"What do you want?"

"I want to know why you're a medic when you could be ten times as powerful as you are now."

"And then you'll let me go?"

"It'll be a start."

"No deal."

He returned to the trunk and picked a plate off it then held it out to me. I didn't take it. "Eat."

"And you'll let me go?"

"No, but if you don't, I'll force-feed you."

I turned my head away from him as he held the food under my nose. It smelled good, considering how hungry I was. He wasn't going to kill me unless I attacked him first, which I wasn't going to do unless he proved himself an enemy. From what I could tell, he wanted to help. All I had to do was make it no longer worth the effort.

I took a deep breath and steeled myself before slamming my head back towards the metal bedpost as hard as I could in an attempt to knock myself out. His reflexes were much faster than I anticipated and caught my head before it could connect. He raised his eyebrow at me as I glared back.

"I was the prison master for the samurai army before I retired, kid, you'll need a few more decades of experience to pull one over on me."

I kept my jaw tightly closed as I jerked away from his touch.

"Tell me, why aren't you cooperating?"

"I'm not going to hurt you or anyone else here, I just want to leave, yet you've chained me up simply because I wield chakra instead of a blade. You threatened me without provocation so I see no reason to cooperate and give myself false hope that you'll be reasonable." He blinked in shock. I scowled and stared at the bedcovers in annoyance.

"I apologize for giving you the wrong impression."

"If you know who I am and what I've done, you'll know that it's important for me to get back to Konoha. I am a Jinchuuriki, so when Konoha figures out I'm still alive and being held here, a team, most likely consisting of my sensei and several ANBU, will arrive and by then the situation will be beyond anyone's control. Let me go and no one will ever know I was here."

"That sounds like a threat to me."

"It's not a threat, it's a fact, but if it takes a threat to make you let me go, I'm perfectly willing to oblige."

"And what might that threat be?"

"I'm a Jinchuuriki and the little chakra suppressor you've stuck on me can't contain several tails of Bijū chakra at once. You'll have three shinobi nations bearing down on this house the instant the Kyuubi's chakra is sensed and I'll be free to run home. Iwa recently lost one of their Jinchuuriki so they'll be especially aggressive trying to locate a replacement."

For the briefest of moments, alarm flashed across his face, then he leaned forward both hands on the mattress, his face a foot away from mine. "That's an impressive claim. Tell me, are you willing to follow through on it?"

My breathing quickened and I unconsciously tried to pull back and escape his intensity. "I wouldn't make the threat if I wasn't willing to follow through." I stated as evenly as I could, but he was right. It would take a lot to make me follow through with that.

"I've met toddlers who can lie better than you."

"Let me go."

"And if I agree, what will you do first? Don't lie to me, I'm already low on patience."

"Contact my village and tell them I'm alive but injured."

"And after that?"

"Do whatever the Hokage wants me to do, most likely set off for home."

"And how will you deal with your injuries, lack of gear, and the incomplete information you have?"

"I don't know; I'll figure it out."

"Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?" He stood up straight.

"I don't care."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Eat that plate of food and I'll write a message to be delivered to your Hokage that confirms you are alive, your location, and condition. What is your ninja registration number and verification code?"

I glared.

"That's the best deal you will get. Any connection you want with anyone or anything outside this room will go through me or my wife."

"I don't have any codes, but I can seal it so only a blood relative can open it, that is verification enough."

He nodded, moved the plate within reach of my good arm, then left.

(-_-)

The next person I saw was the woman from before. It was pitch black except for a lamp on a small table beside me. I started to push her away with my good arm, but she pinned it to my chest.

"Easy, little one, I'm just changing the dressings. There's the beginnings of an infection and I don't want it to get any worse.

"My shoulder, how did you fix it?" I asked, forcing myself to relax.

"It's most certainly not fixed, young man. Luckily, the blade missed your ribs and only took a chunk out of the edge of your scapula."

"Oh, I thought it was worse."

She flicked my forehead.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"Every major organ in your body except for your brain, heart and spinal cord was damaged."

"Just a flesh wound!" I chirped.

"I've had comrades die from less."

"I can fix the worst of it," I murmured as she pulled off the dressings.

"In order to do that, I would have to release the chain to give you access to your chakra. I know better than to think you'll let me replace it without a struggle. You'll be fine, if laid up for a lot longer than you would like."

I grinned crookedly up at her and when she turned to place the soiled bandage beside the lamp, I swung my foot at her throat, letting out a whimper of pain as the attack placed all my weight on my injured shoulder. I figured a muscle or four had detached from the bone, it was the only explanation I could think of for the amount of pain it caused. The rest of the wound didn't hurt nearly as much since the only damage left was in the connecting tissue and the muscles in my abdomen. She caught the attack for her throat, but missed my other foot and my toes connected with her solar plexus, knocking her back several steps. The leather armor she wore muted the blow. I grabbed the oil lamp and threw it at her feet, forcing her to take several steps toward the door and collided with the man as he rushed in. Luckily, the oil didn't catch fire.

I grabbed the hand trapped in the manacle and dislocated my thumb. My wrist was far too small for the manacle, so another chain had been tangled around it inside of the manacle. It took me every second the man stopped to make sure his wife was alright to free my arm. The second my hand was free and I could draw on my chakra, I ducked under the man's first attack, feinted towards the window I would just barely have fit through, and then dashed towards the door.

I was two steps away when the woman stepped in my path. I bent backwards to avoid her blade and planted my good arm on the ground in a backbend, cursing in pain as it pulled at the healed portion of the wound. I kicked upwards and struck the nerves of her wrist with my knee, forcing her to drop her blade. With a pained whine, I twisted onto my bad arm to catch the blade with the sole of my foot and generous amounts of chakra, and hitting the ground hard on my stomach to avoid a kick. I rolled onto my back and made eye contact with the man towering over me. If I let the blade follow its current trajectory, I could have driven it through the joint where his femur attached to his pelvis, probably shattering the head of the femur to the point where he would never walk again. I didn't want to hurt him, he was trying to help, even though it only did more harm than good.

I redirected the blade down with a scream of pain, swinging it in a circle a few inches off the ground, forcing the couple to jump in the air to avoid losing their feet, like a morbid game of jump-rope.

The sword skittered deeper into the room as I let go of it and I gouged a divot the size of my foot into the cobblestone floor as I took off, shooting past the woman and out of the room like an arrow from a bowstring.

I barely managed to open the window before I crashed through it and tumbled out into the snow, dressed only in a pair of civilian shorts, cursing the early winter. I glimpsed the man behind me in the windowsill as I took off, my gait crooked as I clamped both hands over the hole in my abdomen to slow the blood leaving a very obvious trail. A civilian could follow it without much problem. When I glanced over my shoulder with blurry eyes, he was much faster than I anticipated. I couldn't shunshin, not when I hadn't practiced in months and couldn't do it properly to begin with. I let him race after me, I had nothing to throw to slow him down, and waited until he was barely within arms' reach and about to grab me before I dropped into the snow, grabbed his foot, and tried to launch him into the air.

He twisted his foot to avoid my hands and sprawled on top of me. I beat at his side with my elbow, but the leather armor absorbed the entirety of the blow. I could channel chakra into my punches, but it enhanced the already existing bones and muscles, which made me stronger and tougher, it couldn't level mountains unless I bulked up to giant size.

I didn't know what prompted them to wear the non-traditional armor, but it was causing me some serious problems. The strike to the woman should have had her doubling over for at least a minute and I should have broken the man's ribs before he pinned me down.

"Kai!" I heard someone shout, their voice distant, and foreign chakra jolted through me. Lights appeared, shining down brightly. I wasn't outside, or in the samurai's house. My arms were pinned down to a stone floor by Michi, who had a knee on my chest and a hand underneath my head, while someone else pinned my hips and legs. I felt infinitely worse than before as they let go so I could roll over and dry-heave. "How the hell did he get put under a Genjutsu? We've been watching him this entire time! He still has the Kyuubi's chakra running through him, it shouldn't be possible!"

"I don't know, but if someone can get past us, it means we need help," I heard Michi murmur.

"Konoha will kill us and he can't walk himself out in front of a border patrol!"

"We have to try."

"What about one of the smaller countries?" The second voice sounded familiar, but I still couldn't place it, even though it was the same voice from the Genjutsu.

"Konoha and Iwa would destroy them if they found out."

"Fine, let's go die in Konoha."

"If Kichiro backs us up, we'll be fine. I'm pretty sure. Konoha is too nice to kill anyone asking for shelter. I hope."