Chapter 23: Aftermath

The two boys managed to make it to the shelter without much hassle and once they finally managed to enter, they quickly found a corner to hunker down into. 

For the rest of the night Keitaro and Kentaro had kept to themselves, ignoring the surrounding noise as more and more people trickled into the shelter. From time to time someone with a particular nasty injury would hobble in and cause a commotion, but it would be quickly delt with by the shinobi and the few Iryō-nin on hand.

A dark part of Keitaro's mind wondered if his father would have been able to avoid being conscripted to fight against the tailed beast if his usage of medical ninjutsu was known, but he also knew full well that it wouldn't have made that much of a difference. His father was more useful as a combatant than he ever would be was as a Iryō-nin anyway.

From time to time the crowd would murmur loudly and tensions would rise as the occasional tremor made its way through the shelter, most likely as a result of the ensuing battle occurring outside, and while the shinobi on hand did their best to keep the crowd under control, the situation was slowly spiraling into madness.

For most of the night Keitaro had been simply sitting in his corner, a feeling of numbness over whelming him as he was covered in the dust that fell from the ceiling with every shake and tremor. 

He was partly still in shock at what he perceived to have been his fathers final smile before he had flickered towards battlefield, and the worry that he and his brother were going to end up alone was making him sick to his stomach. Thoughts of what he and his brother would need to do now that they might have become orphans kept bouncing around in his head without end, and it was taking all of his will power to not break out into tears as his emotions threatened to overwhelm him again and again. 

That was why when he managed to survey the shelter in a moment of clarity and noticed the amount of people who had managed to fill the shelter in such a short period of time, it didn't bother him all that much anymore. He barely even flinched when his eyes panned over a small child who had walked into the shelter accompanied by another young girl while holding a baby in his hands. It didn't take much for Keitaro to realize it was a young Itachi who had made an appearance with a baby Sasuke but he was too preoccupied by his own troublesome thoughts to even care.

His mind simply kept circling around to the same though over and over again. Could he have prevented this? Could he have warned the village before hand in some way?

His rational mind was telling him it was impossible, in a village full of shinobi, the chances of him being able to quietly and silently alert anyone of the incoming danger was practically zero. Not to mention how no one in their right mind would blindly follow the words of a child, especially when he was telling them about the destruction of one of the great shinobi villages that had stood the test of time for generations.

Instead, they would have most likely asked him how he even knew any information concerning Kushina's pregnancy and birth in the first place. How was he supposed to explain that his mind was from another world, where he had read about all of these things happening before? He would have been lucky if they didn't lock him up in a mental asylum or worse yet, if they did believe him and decided that it was better for everyone in the village if he was sacrificed so that his memories could be extracted so that the village would be able to prepare for the coming calamities that he could recall.

No, it was impossible and impractical for him to have warned the village about a threat that no one could have possible perceived besides him. Not to mention alerting them to the fact that the perpetrator behind the plot to destroy the village, was a supposedly dead 'hero' of the village who was heart broken over the death of his childhood friend.

Even after coming to that conclusion, he still couldn't shake the feeling that he could have done something, anything to lessen the fallout that was bound to occur.

He had more than enough time to contemplate on his action or inactions though, as there wasn't going to an all clear given until a full day later.

Even after the Tailed beast had been dealt with the village had been on a tight lockdown, with shinobi running around checking to make sure that no enemy forces had managed to sneak into the village during the confusion and others focusing on transporting injured shinobi and civilians to the hospital, or what was left of it anyway.

A few hours after the all clear was given Kentaro and Keitaro were making their way though the village not sure what they were supposed to do now that they were released. They had already been back home and they hadn't heard or seen any sign of their father as of yet. 

By now he should have at least checked in o them to make sure that they were alright, but there wasn't any sign of him.

In a effort to hopefully find him, they had started walking around the village asking any of the active shinobi that they came across if anyone had seen him. What neither of them had been prepared for though was the devastation and destruction that greeted them as they walked around.

All around them were shattered houses and destroyed property. It would take quite some time before the village was able to recuperate from the material losses that they'd taken on, and yet even that wasn't the worst of it. 

No, the sickly sweet scent of iron that seemed to permeate the air, served as an ever constant reminder that under a lot of the rubble that they passed by, were the mangled remains and shattered bodies of the unfortunate people who were unable to escape from the destruction and carnage in time. 

The occasional crimson splotches and spatters of blood that were also a quite prevalent in certain areas of the village, were most likely from the injured individuals who had been trying to make their way to safety.

Yet these morbid sights and scents didn't deter either of the two boys. In the back of his head Keitaro wondered whether his indifference towards everything was normal or if he was simply abnormal in some way, but he pushed away the thoughs in favour of focusing on his current task.

After walking around aimlessly they stumbled across a crowd of people who were standing in front of a large display board and shouting over each other. As they got closer they over heard the people standing around and found out that the board held the updated list of all those who had been accounted for in the multiple shelters around the village and for those who had been rushed to the hospital and were accounted for. 

Both boys squeezed there way to the front of the crowd before reading over the extensive list. Of course most of those listed where actually civilians but a good few of them where indeed shinobi. Kentaro was the one who managed to find their fathers name in the ever growing list and neither boy wasted any time running off towards the hospital area. 

What once was a three story building with well groomed gardens and open spaces, was now a jumbled mess of tents that were crowded with injured patients and worried families alike. 

From time to time persons wearing medical attire could be seen running around the place taking note of peoples injures before handing them cards of various colours. After observing for a short while Keitaro had an idea as to what the different colours represented.

Those who received green cards were the ones with the least pressing injures; cuts, bruises, sprain's and minor fractures seemed to take up the bulk of injures this group had, and deemed to be not of major concern. They simply didn't need to seek immediate medical attention.

Those who where given orange cards were more seriously injured. they were sporting broken limbs, bloodied bandages, puncture wounds with objects still jutting out of them, and some where even missing a finger or two. One thing of note was that even though most of these people looked to be in quite a bit of pain, none of them where unconscious and were actively conversing with the Iryō-nin to accelerate the process of getting treatment.

The final coloured card were given not to the patients themselves, .but to those who had brough them in to the tents in the first place. Those that were to be given red cards where immediately rolled away from the tents on the outside and into what was left of the hospital building. They were usually covered in blood and unconscious as they were carried over by shinobi on stretchers or over the shoulders of others in the more serious cases.

Once more the two boys watched all these things passively all the while trying to see if they could catch a glimpse of their father in all the madness. It didn't escape either of the boys notice that there were tents in which the only sound that could be heard were the wailings and grieving of the loved ones that the shinobi and civilians, who had been covered in white linens, had left behind. 

Finally, they noticed one of the Iryō-nin sitting off to the side, most likely taking a short break to catch themselves. The two boys approached them much to the annoyance of the medical-nin who directed them towards the hospital entrance. 

"There's a list of persons who have been admitted to the hospital there. If your father was admitted then he's going to be listed there if he hasn't been admitted then the best thing you can do would be to go home and wait for him to show up."

With that the Iryō-nin brushed past the two boys and got back to work. 

Without saying anything Keitaro made a beeline for the hospital building and his brother only hesitated for a moment before following him. The two boys once more found themselves standing in front a bulletin board combing through it as they looked for their fathers name. Yet this time no matter how much they looked they couldn't find his name.

Keitaro's breath hitched as his mind whirled trying to make sense of what was happening. His fathers name had been on the board for shinobi sent to the hospital for injuries which meant that he should have been admitted, but his name wasn't here. Logically then that could only mean that he hadn't been admitted, but that would mean he had already been released. The both knew that that couldn't be the case since if he had been released he would have found them by now, which could only mean…

Keitaro closed his eyes and clenched his fist as the wave of agony over came him. It took him a few seconds to centre himself again before he started looking through the board again but the result was the same, he couldn't find his fathers name at all.

Keitaro turned away from the board and stumbled over to the wall which he used to prop himself up. He could feel the tears coming and was barely able to clench his mouth shut before he screamed.

In the end he had been right His father was gone and there was nothing he could do about it. He and his brother were going to be on their own and God only knows how things would unfold for them moving forward.

A hand was gently placed unto his head and Keitaro looked up to see his brother. Tears where streaming down his face as well, but unlike his tears of grief, Kentaro's were tears of joy. He pointed towards the board drawing attention to a small name scribbled towards the end that was barely legible

"He's in room 205."

Kentaro's voice was broken and husky as he spoke, but his hand didn't shake at all.

Keitaro didn't hear anything his brother said after noticing his fathers name and room number. He got to knees, shaky as they were and simply started to walk towards the wards. Slowly at first before breaking out into a run, his brother trailing behind him.

The two of them ran until they were outside o their fathers door, at which point both boys paused. They looked at each other noticing for the first time just how dusty they had become, walking around a village that had been reduced partially to rumble, wasn't exactly conducive to remaining clean but neither boy hesitated for long before bursting through the door.

There laying in bed with his back propped up so that he was in a seated position was their father. His large frame was covered in bandages that even covered half of his face. His right hand was in a sling and his left leg was in a cast that reached to his mid thigh. 

When they had burst through the door he turned his face towards them and for a moment it was as if the world paused for a couple seconds. The spell was broken though when Kuma smiled at his two sons and waved his bandaged but unbroken arm towards them.