The sound came again, a shuffle of weight on damp leaves, closer this time. I pressed my back harder against the stone, kunai held tight, breath shallow.
Branches shifted, and a figure emerged between the trees. For a moment, my heart jumped into my throat. Dark flak jacket, hitai-ate tied at the arm, blood soaking through her side. She wasn't Iwa. The Konoha leaf symbol glinted faintly in the light.
Relief crashed into me so hard I almost sagged against the stone.
She moved stiffly, every step deliberate, like it hurt her to put weight on her leg. A woman, maybe nineteen, twenty at most. Not much older than me, but the look in her eyes was sharper, heavier, the look of someone who'd lived through too many missions. Her gaze swept the clearing once before landing directly on me.
"You can drop the kunai," she said, voice rough but steady. "I heard you breathing."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Identify." The tone was flat, professional
"Chunin Basara, infantry corps. Registration number 012204," I said, the number spilling out of my mouth before I even thought about it. Basara's memories carried it, the way you'd rattle off your own birthday.
Her eyes flicked over me, taking in the jacket, the blood, the way I couldn't quite keep my left leg steady. "Special Jōnin, Konoha," she said back, almost automatically. That single word jōnin settled it. Whatever strength I thought I had, whatever decisions I thought I'd make on my own, she outranked me without question. Orders were hers, not mine.
I gave a short nod. "Understood."
She didn't relax when she reached me. Not yet. Her face was pale, sweat mixing with dirt, blood streaked through her hair. She sank carefully onto the ground, legs stretched awkwardly, and pressed one hand against her side.
I blinked, trying to process, she looked worse than I did, limping slightly, breathing unevenly. I opened my mouth, something to say, but she cut me off before I could.
"Medical Supplies," she said. Voice flat, commanding, but not harsh. A quiet authority that made my stomach tighten.
I hesitated, thinking she might be asking for the little I had left. My pouch wasn't full, just a roll of bandages, half a jar of ointment that I took, and two cloth wraps, already bloodied. I pulled it open slowly.
"Bandages, some ointment," I said.
Her eyes didn't leave me. "Good. Now help me. Undress my jacket and undershirt, I need to keep the pressure."
The words caught in my throat. My first instinct was to step back, hesitate, but she didn't give me a choice. The authority in her voice, subtle but absolute, forced me to move. I couldn't afford hesitation. My hand trembled slightly as I reached for her jacket, fumbling a bit with the fasteners.
Step by step, I removed the jacket, then the undershirt beneath. I kept my eyes mostly averted; her shoulders and torso were lean, toned, shaped by years of training. Her chest rose and fell with each controlled breath.
Then my stomach twisted. Her injuries were worse than I had imagined. A long, deep gash ran from just below her left breast down to her right hip. The flesh was torn, some rib structure visible, and faint glimpses of internal tissue showed through. She was using her left hand to hold back the flesh. My mind flinched, my hands tightening instinctively.
"Focus," she rasped, her voice low but steady. "I'll handle the worst of it."
Her right hand lifted, glowing faintly green as chakra pooled at her palm. The air around us shifted, almost humming; it was sharp, controlled, like she was holding a layer of water above her skin and smoothing it into something precise.
The Mystical Palm Jutsu. I'd known about it from the manga. But seeing it was something else entirely.
Her palm hovered just above the torn flesh, and slowly, impossibly, the bleeding slowed. The shredded edges of muscle knitted faintly beneath the green light, tissue drawing together with deliberate care. She didn't flinch once, though her forehead glistened with sweat and her breathing grew harsher with each second.
I couldn't look away. For all the blood and torn flesh, it was… incredible. Not some miracle healing, not instant regeneration, but control. Precision. She was forcing her chakra into the wound like a thread into a needle, stitching herself together piece by piece.
After a long minute, the glow flickered, then dimmed. She let her hand fall, shaky now, and glanced at me. "Bandages. Now."
I nodded quickly, fumbling with the roll, smearing ointment onto the cloth before passing it to her. But she shook her head. "You do it. Wrap it tight."
"R-right." My hands weren't steady, but I forced them to be. I helped her up, starting from her hip. I pulled the bandage across the wound, circling her torso carefully. Each time I tightened it, she gave the smallest grunt of discomfort, but she never once told me to stop. By the time I tied it off, her breathing had evened a little.
"That'll hold," she muttered, though I could see her face had gone pale. She met my eyes, serious. "It's just a patch. I'll need real treatment back at base."
Somewhere distant, an owl hooted once, low and steady. The wind moved in the canopy, carrying with it the scent of damp leaves and earth, faintly metallic with blood. In that half-dark quiet, every small sound seemed sharper, more deliberate.
Neither of us spoke at first. She sat propped against the stone, jacket loose around her shoulders now, her chest wrapped clumsily but securely beneath. I leaned nearby, trying not to think about how lightheaded I felt or how heavy my arms had become. For a moment, we were just… there. Two people who'd almost died, sharing silence.
Her eyes opened after a long pause, glinting in the shadow. "What about you?"
The question cut through the stillness.
I blinked, startled. "…What?"
"Your injuries," she clarified, her tone flat, practical.
I shifted, wincing. My body felt like a checklist of pain points. "Head's ringing, shoulder's torn up… and the leg." I exhaled slowly. "The leg's the worst. Feels like it'll give out if I try to push."
She regarded me for a moment, then gave the faintest nod. "Shoulder and head, I can't fix now. But the leg…" Her lips pressed thin as she thought aloud. "If I close the worst of the damage, you'll move. Slowly. You'll have to support me too, but it's better than crawling."
Her tone was blunt, unvarnished, but it wasn't cruel—it was the language of survival.
My chest tightened. She was right. If something found us here, we'd be useless as we were. I hesitated, weighing the risks, then gave a small nod. "…Do it. The leg."
That earned me a short, quiet hum of acknowledgment. She shifted stiffly, drawing closer until she sat beside me. Each movement made her catch her breath, though she covered it well. Her hands hovered over my thigh, above the torn flesh, and for a second I felt a flicker of tension vulnerable in a way that had nothing to do with injury.
"Stay still," she murmured and pressed her palms against me.
The world seemed to shift. Heat blossomed under her hands, not the warmth of touch, but something deeper, more elemental. Chakra, controlled and sharp, sank past skin and sinew, coiling into the channels of my body.
My breath hitched. It wasn't pain so much as pressure, a deep internal pull that set my nerves alight. The torn muscle seemed to hum, fibers knitting together under invisible threads. Blood vessels sealed. The ache dulled, reshaped into something solid instead of splintered.
Her face stayed impassive as she worked, though I could see the strain in the crease of her brow, the sheen of sweat on her temple. She was good better than I'd expected for someone carrying a wound like hers.
The minutes stretched. I clenched my fists against the ground, grounding myself against the flood of sensation. Slowly, the glow faded. She drew her hands back, shoulders sagging with fatigue.
"That's as much as I can risk," she muttered, voice quieter now.
I flexed my leg cautiously. The stabbing pain was gone, replaced by a steady ache. It felt like… mine again. More than that I could sense the chakra threads there, sluggish but responsive, like wires that had been reconnected.
I closed my eyes, exhaling hard, and tried pushing chakra through the coils. At first it sputtered, faltering, but then it caught like fanning embers into flame. The flow spread down my thigh into the calf, sluggish but alive.
Better than before. Not whole, not clean, but usable.
A thought pressed in, heavy and unwelcome. Now what?
The forest was still thick with danger. Iwa patrols. Traps. Stragglers from both sides. Moving alone had been suicide. But with her, ranking above me, my options weren't mine to decide anymore. Rank mattered. Whatever came next wasn't for me to choose.
I turned to her. She was watching me, eyes sharper despite the pallor on her face. She must have read the hesitation in mine.
"Well?" she asked quietly. "What was your mission?"
The words landed like a weight in my chest. That wasn't something you said easily, not in the field. Missions were supposed to stay sealed, even from allies, unless necessity demanded otherwise. But necessity was right here, bleeding next to me, carrying a rank above mine.
My throat tightened. I thought of the others my team. We'd left the village together, full of quiet determination, even jokes. The memory soured, bitter at the edges, because I already knew how that mission ended.
I let out a slow breath. "…Intercept Iwa shinobi harassing supply lines. South sector." My voice sounded distant even to me. "We were ambushed instead. Hit hard before we even made the rendezvous. I don't know who…" I trailed off, jaw tight.
Silence stretched between us, filled only by the drone of insects. She looked at me for a long moment, like she was weighing the truth in my words, and then she nodded once. No judgment. No wasted sympathy.
"There's a forward post," she said at last, her tone matter-of-fact. "East from here. Medics, rations, shelter. If it's still standing, it's our best chance. Staying out here isn't."
She shifted against the rock, sucking in a sharp breath as the movement pulled at her wound. "Think you're steady enough to move?"
I wanted to tell her no. That I was barely holding it together, that my body wanted to collapse back into the dirt and stay there. But that wasn't an option. Not here. Not now.
"I'll manage," I said instead, forcing strength into the words.
She didn't question it. Didn't thank me, either. She simply braced as I crouched beside her, offering my shoulder. I felt her weight press against me as she draped one arm over mine. She was lighter than I expected, though every step made her body tighten with contained pain.
I drew in a breath, grounding myself, then pushed chakra into my leg coils again. Slow, steady, deliberate feeding power into the muscles, reinforcing each fiber, knitting the pathways together with stubborn will.
When it felt stable, I bent my knees and sprang upward.
The world blurred in a rush of green and shadow as we rose into the foliage. My feet found the broad curve of a branch, knees bending to absorb the landing. The ache flared, but the leg held. She gripped tighter against me, steadying herself.
I didn't wait. I pushed off again, from branch to branch, each movement measured. My chakra burned low in my gut, but I rationed it, feeding only enough to keep balance and strength.
The night closed around us, the forest swallowing our sound, our scent, our presence. We were two broken shinobi moving as one, trying to stitch survival out of the tatters left behind.