Chapter 9 Treatment

Sand Stronghold.

In the camp,

Seeing the person who entered the camp suddenly was there old friend Orochimaru, all of them were surprised but before they could ask anything; there gaze fell on the kid in Orochimaru's arms.

Orochimaru held a kid who looked around twelve, the right side of his face red and slightly purple, his lips dry and seeming somewhat charred as well, his attire completely burnt as well, burn marks everywhere on his body and dried up blood littering the remaining attire.

BOOM!!!

Tsunade's face fell upon gazing at the kid, chakra bursting out of her soles cracking the ground underneath as like blending into space she appeared next to Orochimaru and stretched her hands towards him.

Nawaki was taken away from Orochimaru who didn't resist, Tsunade without uttering a word placing him on the ground and placing two fingers around his neck, green chakra appearing on them moving through Nawaki.

Dan and Jiraiya flashed next to Tsunade and Orochimaru as well, not uttering a word as well and just looking at Tsunade examining the condition of Nawaki.

"Call all the surgeons!! His inner organs need to be operated on immediately! Some kind of shock from outside damaged his insides; hurry up we don't have much time!!"

Removing her fingers from his neck, Tsunade without moving her gaze from the face of Nawaki gave instructions in a dead serious tone.

"Leave that to us!"

Swoosh!

Dan and Jiraiya both got to work and rushed out of the camp, leaving Orochimaru standing alone next to Tsunade and Nawaki, the snake like eyes with a guilty look stuck on Tsunade.

Perhaps sensing Orochimaru's gaze, Tsunade who was refusing to move her face to look away from Nawaki finally did so and gazed back at him, her lips separating.

"I left him in your care rather than Jiraiya's for a reason, now tell me how can you let this happen!!!?"

Yelled Tsunade at Orochimaru with anger visible on her face, unlike the unreliable Jiraiya she felt safe handing Nawaki to Orochimaru but now her younger brother was in a life and death situation.

"This is war!"

Orochimaru didn't say anything in response for a while before finally in a dejected manner just saying three words, the anger on Tsunade's face fading at his response replaced by a complicated face.

Thup! Thup!

"Prepare for the surgery immediately!"

Soon with the sound of footsteps couple of medical shinobi entered the camp, Tsunade giving instructions and quickly Nawaki was placed on a table with Tsunade as the lead surgeon working on him.

Jiraiya, Dan and Orochimaru stood outside the camp waiting for the surgery to finish, none of them uttering a word.

"Just what led to this Orochimaru?"

Finally, Jiraiya couldn't hold himself from asking what happened, Dan also turning to look at Orochimaru who stood statue.

"To avoid being possibly ambushed by Rain Shinobi near Tanzaku bridge we decided to send a squad to scout ahead. I lead that squad and took Nawaki with me and that strategy worked in a way as no one truly expected them to blow the bridge"

"We only lost couple of chunin and genin and later in a head on fight Nawaki ran straight into an explosive trap; perhaps I should have taught him more about being vigilant all the time"

Said Orochimaru in a regretful tone, Nawaki is his first student but perhaps he wasn't a capable teacher not even able to teach the basic sense of being vigilant all the time in war to him.

"Knowing you I can say with certainty at least this much that you mustn't have left any room behind in teaching him, so don't blame yourself"

"You did what you could, now let's leave it to fate!"

Said Jiraiya in a rare serious tone, he knows no one after Tsunade is sadder than Orochimaru at what happened with Nawaki, his friend hardly shows emotion so seeing him so down he tried to cheer him up.

"If I had done everything I could then I wouldn't stress so much about it, I'm not that weak willed"

"But the truth is, that even the hope of saving Nawaki was brought out by someone else; I had given up at that moment already"

Said Orochimaru with emotion as he pulled out the green crystal necklace from his pocket, the scene of how from those flames of despair that blue light of hope flashed playing again and again in his eyes.

He didn't t want to imagine what could have happened if that kid hadn't saved Nawaki, he saved him before being fully exposed to the explosion otherwise the full brunt would have blown Nawaki to bits.

Swish!

Hearing his words, a surprise look appeared on the face of Jiraiya and Dan but before they could say anything, all three sensed something from within the camp, rushing inside.

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