Stranded (2)

Mother Nonō cleared her throat. "Keiri-san, Kenpu-san."

"Ah, Nonō-chan—"

"Mother Superior—"

Their eyes met my gleaming sharingan and became glazed.

"Obasan, Ojīsan, I know that we're in a very scary situation right now, but you need to get your shit together. Get it all together, and put it in a backpack, all of your shit. And if you gotta take it somewhere, take it to the shit store and sell it, or put it in the shit museum. I don't care what you do, you just gotta get it together, for everyone's sake, get it?"

They nodded blankly.

I beamed. "Good."

They blinked.

Keiri glanced at her companion and gave him a sheepish smile. "Ne, Kenpu-san, please forgive me. I was a bit harsh earlier. You said some fair points. Tell you what, I'll go look for some fire woods to make a campfire."

Kenpu held his palms up. "No, no, you were right Keiri-san. We're still in the danger zone. We should probably move further and then set a camp somewhere."

The woman nodded. "Good idea. Actually, there's a farm not too far away from here. They might be willing to shelter us for the night."

"Very well. I shall round up the children then."

"And I shall gather some berries to eat along the road."

"Good thinking, Keiri-san."

"All thanks to your guidance, Kenpu-san."

Then off they went.

Nonō stared curiously at her friends' receding backs. "Well that was… scary, to say the least. What did you say to them again?"

I shrugged. English. "Just random words." When it came to sharingan, it's the intention that mattered. "I sort of willed them to stop fighting, and they did."

Nonō hoisted me higher. "Do you do that often? Using your sharingan, I mean?"

Yes, absolutely. "Ugh, no. It's tiring. I'd rather nap, Mama."

Nonō laughed and deposited me onto Sasuke's lap, who was brooding alone beneath a random tree. "That's relieving to know. Be good now, Hideyo-chan."

I stretched my limbs and rested my head on Sasuke's shoulder. "Hai~ Mama."

Munching on his berries, Sasuke nuzzled my frazzled hair. "Having fun, Baby Brother?"

I took off my glasses and massaged my throbbing forehead. "Having a headache is more like it."

"How so?"

I gazed into the blurry, ominous moon.

"The Nine-Tails' chakra is… really intense. Awfully malevolent. Ahead of us people keep on dying, their chakra signatures disappearing one by one, like broken light bulbs." And Shinju devoured them all, every single drop of blood and their crushed remains. "There's so much distress, desperation, helplessness and… and hatred in the ether. I'm suffocated, Sasuke. I might just meet my creator in your arms like this."

"Please don't say that."

"Why? You hated me, Brother. Despised me enough to dispose of me. If I didn't exist we would never be in this place, having this depressing conversation. You would be having a normal life with normal parents, with no annoying little brother to ruin your days. That kind of feeling doesn't just go away."

"Hide…"

"You know, I never did properly thank you for doing what you did back then. You, a mere child, took a decision that nobody else had the guts to do. Remember how miserable I was? I was in great pain and I had absolutely no will to live. Breathing hurts. Existing hurts. But you gave me mercy. Sure, Mother took that away and I ended up to be an even bigger nuisance. But still, however momentarily, when I was at my worst, you gave me peace, and for that I am grateful, Sasuke."

"Hideyo, let me talk—"

I sagged down in my brother's arms, boneless, and closed my tired eyes. "Thank you for treating me with kindness when no one else would."

Sasuke pressed his fingers into my wrist, searching for a pulse. A finger hovered over my nose, to make sure that I was still breathing. "Hideyo, open your eyes. You're scaring me. This is not the time for one of your awful jokes."

Ignoring the boy, I focused on what my mind's eye showed me instead. Dim chakra—civilians, children—huddled together in shelters. Shisui, a cool ember, moving rapidly between places. Itachi, a steady river, hovering somewhere in the middle. At the front line was the Hokage and something that felt like a monkey, giant balls of chakra—probably the Akimichi, bunch of other signatures that I did not recognize, and Fugaku and Mikoto, surrounded by giant, skeletal-like, chakra formation—oh my, the Susanoo.

By accident, my senses picked up fast movements from three chakra signatures that seemed to be headed towards the orphanage.

What the…

They lingered a bit. Not founding what they wanted, the group quickly moved again, this time heading towards—

My neck snapped forward. "Mama, we have a company. ETA in fifty seconds!"

I dragged Sasuke upward and shoved him onto the tree bark. Before the boy could react, I placed my hands on either side of his shoulders and pulled. Under the strain of my chakra, the outer and middle layers of the tree splintered and bent outward, hollowing its trunk just enough for Sasuke to fit in. I then infused my physical energy into its cambium, accelerating its phloem and xylem division and causing new branches to sprout out, which I then used to close the tree opening and obscure Sasuke's chakra signature beneath layers upon layers of natural energy.

"Hideyo, stop it please. You're bleeding!"

Panting from exertion, as was the case whenever I forcefully reversed my chakra polarity and ejected what little physical energy I possessed, I used my sharingan to cast subtle layers of illusions onto the environment to make it look as if nothing was amiss.

"Sasuke." I leaned against the tree bark and breathed heavily through my mouth. "For my peace of mind, please stay put and keep your mouth shut. If you are able, please suppress your chakra. It's like holding your poop in, but with chakra. You just have to hold it and squeeze it into a tiny ball. The illusions should only be able to be dispelled by sharingan users and theoretically should last for a few hours. But I honestly don't freaking know anymore, so fingers crossed, eh?"

Sasuke cried silently, one tomoe was peeking from both of his sharingan. "I will get stronger, Hideyo, I promise. I'll be the big brother that you can depend on and you won't have to protect me anymore, so please..."

I wiped my nose clean and smiled. "I'm sorry, Aniki. Take care."