The clone carried Aya through the shelter, moving carefully between the rows of beds until he found an empty one. He laid her down slowly, making sure her head rested properly on the thin pillow. The underground medic room was cramped, lit by oil lamps hanging from wooden support beams, and the air smelled like antiseptic and earth.
A medic was just finishing up with another patient a few beds over. She looked up when she noticed him, wiping her hands on a cloth before walking over. Middle-aged woman, probably early forties, with tired eyes and streaks of gray in her hair.
"I did some field treatment on her," the clone said, gesturing at Aya with a slight tilt of his head. "Stopped most of the bleeding, got her chakra flow stabilized, sealed up the major damage. But she's going to need proper healing. Can you take over from here?"
The medic was already examining her before the clone could say anything. "You did good," she said, hands glowing green. "I can handle it from here."
The clone turned to leave, figured his job here was done, but then Aya's eyes fluttered open just slightly. Her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. Her grip was barely there, fingers trembling, but she held on.
"Hey, you need to rest," he said quietly, his voice gentle. "You're safe now. The medic's going to take care of you."
But she didn't let go. Her grip actually tightened, or tried to, and her lips moved like she was trying to form words but couldn't quite get them out. The effort showed on her face.
The clone waited, didn't pull away, just let her hold on until she could speak.
"Take your time," the clone said quietly. "I'm not going anywhere."
Her lips moved again, and this time a sound came with it. Faint, barely audible, she was pushing each word out with visible effort.
"Relay Point Seven," she finally managed. "Under attack… Commander Minoru… he—"
Her eyes slipped closed again, and her hand went slack in his grip, falling away as she lost consciousness.
The clone stared at her for a moment, processing what she'd just said. Relay Point Seven. Commander Minoru. Under attack.
Was that where everyone had gone? Was that why the command building was empty?
He carefully took her hand and placed it back at her side, making sure she was comfortable before stepping back.
A quiet laugh from the medic drew his attention. When he glanced over, she had this mischievous little smile on her face. "I'll take good care of your girlfriend, don't worry. She'll be fine."
The clone blinked. Processed the words. Replayed them in his head to make sure he'd heard correctly. "My... what?"
"Your girlfriend," the medic repeated, still smiling as her hands continued working over Aya's injuries. "Don't worry, I'm not going to tell her husband. Your secret's safe with me."
He just stared at her. Speechless. Brain completely frozen, trying to figure out what logic had led her to that conclusion and coming up empty. How was he supposed to respond to that?
The medic laughed, clearly enjoying his reaction a little too much. "Oh, come on. You carried her in here like she was the most precious thing in the world." She glanced up at him briefly, eyes twinkling. "Trust me, I've been doing this long enough. I can tell."
"We're just friends," the clone said flatly, finally finding his voice again.
"Uh-huh. Sure." The medic's smile got a bit wider, more knowing. "That's what they all say at first. Don't worry, young man. I'm not judging. Really. Aya's a lovely girl. You have good taste."
"Seriously. We're friends. That's it. Nothing more. And she's also married. You literally just said that yourself a few seconds ago."
"Oh, I know. I know her husband too. Nice man. A bit boring, maybe, but nice." The medic winked. "Which is probably why she's got a handsome young shinobi like you on the side."
"There is no 'on the side.' We're just—"
"Friends, yes, I heard you the first time." The medic waved her hand dismissively, still grinning. "But the heart wants what it wants, doesn't it? Can't help who you fall for."
The clone pinched the bridge of his nose. There was no getting through to this woman. "Look, you can't go around saying things like that." He glanced at the other patient, who was still asleep, but he kept his voice low anyway. "She's married. If her husband hears rumors like that, it's going to cause her trouble she doesn't need."
The medic's expression softened slightly. "Alright, alright. I'm just having a bit of fun with you. I'm not going to go spreading gossip about her, I promise. Her reputation's safe."
"Just... make sure she's okay."
"Oh, I will," the medic called after him, and he could hear the smile back in her voice. "She'll be good as new. You take care of yourself too."
He didn't respond to that, just kept walking.
Once he was outside the sickroom, the clone looked around the main shelter, scanning for anyone he recognized. Nawaki, maybe, or Minato, anyone from their group. But he only saw civilians. Families huddled together, elderly people sitting quietly against the walls. There were a few genin scattered around, but none of them looked familiar.
He made his way to the exit, climbed the stairs back up to ground level, and launched himself onto the nearest rooftop. A few jumps took him to one of the taller buildings, where he stopped to look out over the outpost.
Relay Point Seven. Under attack.
The clone thought about that, turning the information over in his mind. Relay points, they'd covered that in the Academy. Part of the curriculum on wartime protocols and village defense structures. Every student learned the basics of how shinobi conflicts worked, how villages organized their networks during active hostilities.
Relay points were small outposts, usually set up between major locations or along key routes. They'd have one to three shinobi stationed there on rotating shifts. The smart ones got built on high ground somewhere with decent visibility, and their job was pretty straightforward, keep an eye on enemy troop movements in their sector, report anything unusual, track which routes were seeing the most activity. Basic reconnaissance and early warning, that kind of thing.
The fact that Commander Minoru had left this outpost while it was actively being infiltrated meant something. It meant whatever location that relay point was protecting mattered at least as much as this place. And Kawazumi Outpost was a forward base that served as both an intelligence hub and a supply depot. Not exactly expendable.
So what would be important enough to pull forces from here?
The clone ran through the possibilities. The relay points were protecting something important, something vital enough to pull forces from here. Supply lines, maybe, or the sources themselves. Resource villages would make the most sense. Fishing villages, farming villages, places that produced food. Because shinobi still needed to eat, and armies ran on food just as much as they ran on weapons and tactics. Lose your food supply and you lose the war, simple as that.
Another clone landed on the rooftop beside him. "So I got some information."
The first clone turned to face him. "About?"
"Nawaki and the others. Ran into Akio near the supply storage. He said they left a few hours ago, escorting a supply convoy from some village to another outpost."
The first clone paused, the name taking a second to register. "Akio... wait, the chunin guy? Wife works in the mess hall?"
"That's the one."
He went quiet for a moment, processing it, then started explaining what he'd been thinking. "Alright, so... Relay Point Seven's under attack. Aya said Commander Minoru left here to go defend it, took most of his forces with him. Which means whatever that relay point's protecting has to be pretty damn important, right? Most likely it's a resource village or something like that. And if Nawaki's group is out escorting supplies from a village to another outpost..."
The second clone's lips twitched. "Okay, there's no way," he said, his voice somewhere between disbelief and denial. "There's no way it's the same place. I mean, there are plenty of villages in the Land of Fire. There's like, dozens of them. The chances that it's the exact one the enemy's hitting, that would be..."
"Absurd," the first clone finished. He nodded slowly. "Yeah, completely absurd. I mean, what are the odds?"
"Pretty damn low, I'd say."
They looked at each other for a long moment, neither one speaking, both of them clearly thinking the exact same thing.
Then they both started laughing.
Not because it was actually funny or because there was anything genuinely amusing about the situation. More because the idea was so ridiculous, so perfectly and horrifically improbable, that laughing was the only reasonable response their brains could come up with. What were the odds, really? One in six? One in nine?
The odds were low enough that it really shouldn't happen. Unlikely enough to ignore.
But they weren't zero.
...
Tsunade was giving orders. Gather the injured. Get the medics working. Split the forces in half. Half stays to protect the wounded, half comes with her to support whatever other Konoha forces might still be dealing with Suna out there.
I stood a little ways off, watching her work. She didn't pause, didn't second-guess herself. Just moved from one decision to the next like she'd already seen how this would play out.
That's when it hit me.
Not literally. More like a rush of information slamming into my brain from the side. One of my clones at Kawazumi Outpost had just dispelled, and now everything it had seen and learned was flooding back into my head like a memory that wasn't quite mine but also completely was.
Kawazumi Outpost was under attack. River forces had moved in, using the whole mess with Suna as cover while everyone was distracted. And Nawaki, Tsunade's little brother, the kid who had way too much energy and not nearly enough caution, was out on an escort mission that had probably just gone from routine to potentially dangerous.
I froze.
Not visibly, I hope. On the outside, I probably looked the same as always, maybe a little distracted, like I was thinking about what to have for dinner or wondering if I'd left the stove on back at my apartment. But inside? Inside, my brain was already three steps ahead, running through scenarios and outcomes faster than I could consciously track them.
Do I tell her?
That was the question, wasn't it? Simple on the surface, but with about seventeen layers of complexity hiding underneath like a badly disguised trap in a chunin exam.
If I told Tsunade her brother was in danger, what would happen? Best case she stayed focused, trusted that someone else would handle it, continued with the mission. Worst case she lost her composure, abandoned everything to go after him, got people killed because she wasn't thinking straight.
The thing about Tsunade and I'd spent enough time around her now to know this, was that she was strong. But strength came with blind spots, and family was the biggest one for her. I knew what had happened to Nawaki in the show, how losing him broke something in her that never quite healed.
So yeah. Telling her was a risk.
But not telling her? That was its own kind of risk. If something happened to Nawaki and she found out later that I knew and didn't say anything, I'd probably end up as a stain on the ground somewhere.
Besides.
I looked at her again. She stood there with her shoulders straight and her eyes sharp, completely in control of everything and everyone around her. A jonin. A combat medic who'd seen the worst and kept working anyway. Treating her like she couldn't handle bad news felt... wrong. Disrespectful, even.
So I made my decision.
I pushed off from whatever I'd been leaning against and landed smoothly next to her.
"Sensei," I said, keeping my voice quiet. "I've got some information you should probably hear."
She glanced at me, one eyebrow going up slightly. I recognized that look, she was trying to figure out if I was about to waste her time or if I actually had something useful to say.
I told her. Kept it straightforward, partly because we didn't have time to be indirect, partly because she wouldn't appreciate me dancing around it anyway. One of my clones had just dispelled back at Kawazumi Outpost. The place was under attack, River forces moving in and using all the chaos with Suna as cover. And Nawaki's escort mission was headed right toward that area, which meant there was a good chance her brother was already in the middle of it while we were standing here.
Something flickered across her face for just a moment. Most people would've missed it, she buried it that fast, smoothing it over with her professional mask. But I'd spent enough time watching people when they didn't know I was watching to catch these things. Worry, maybe. Anxiety. The look of someone imagining a person they care about dying horribly, with nothing they can do to stop it.
She was probably already seeing it play out in her head. Nawaki bleeding out in some forest clearing, too far away for her to reach him. Or worse, reaching him and finding that she was too late, that all her medical training couldn't fix someone who'd already stopped breathing.
"It's fine," she said, her voice staying level. "Even if Nawaki's unlucky enough to run into them, Uncle Minoru will be there. He'll keep him safe."
She said it like she believed it. Maybe she did. Maybe she was just good at lying to herself when she needed to be.
But I could see it. The traces of worry she couldn't quite hide, not from me. The way her jaw tightened just slightly. The way her fingers flexed at her sides, like she wanted to be holding something, doing something, moving instead of standing here giving orders to other people.
And that expression did something to me.
It made me want to reach out, take her hand and tell her it would be okay.
But we had an audience, shinobi still moving around us, still watching her, still waiting for the next order.
She'd probably break my wrist anyway.
So instead, I said, "Don't worry about it, Sensei. Leave Nawaki to me."
She turned to look at me fully then, and I could see the question in her eyes before she even asked it.
"Do you know where Relay Point Seven is?" I asked, because that's where the clone's memories said things were going down, and knowing the location was kind of crucial if I was going to actually do anything useful.
She told me. Rattled off directions like she had the entire map of the Land of Fire memorized, which she probably did. And as she spoke, I realized something that made this whole thing a lot simpler than I'd thought it would be.
Relay Point Seven was closer to our current position than it was from Kawazumi Outpost.
Huh. Lucky, that. Really lucky, actually. Meant I could get there faster, have more time to work with, potentially arrive before things got completely unsalvageable.
"Alright," I said, feeling that familiar sensation of a plan clicking into place in my head. "I'll head there now. But I'm leaving my third-gen clones with you. Twenty, thirty of them? Something like that."
She blinked. "All of them?"
"All of them," I confirmed, and then I let a grin slide onto my face that I knew would annoy her. "Can't have my lovely sensei getting hurt while I'm not around, can I?"
I saw it coming. Of course I saw it coming. The way her eye twitched. The way her left hand moved. I could've dodged, had plenty of time to step back or duck under it. But somewhere in the back of my mind, a different set of priorities kicked in. Something about the fact that getting caught in Tsunade's headlock meant being pressed up against certain parts of her anatomy that I was extremely interested in being pressed up against. By the time my brain finished that very compelling argument, her arm was already around my neck, pulling me exactly where I wanted to be.
"Sensei, come on," I said, letting out this long-suffering sigh like she was being completely unreasonable. I even rolled my eyes a bit for anyone who might be watching, playing it off like this was just her usual way of dealing with me.
The reality? My face was currently pressed directly into her chest. Her very soft, very generous chest that I'd been thinking about in increasingly inappropriate ways for days now. This wasn't punishment, this was every adolescent fantasy I'd ever had about my attractive teacher made manifest, except I had to pretend I wasn't enjoying every single second of it.
I caught a few of the male shinobi nearby staring at me, at her, at the way her chest was jiggling against my face as she adjusted her grip. Their expressions ranged from barely concealed envy to outright jealousy, like they were trying to figure out what I'd done in a past life to deserve having my face smooshed into the Legendary Sucker's breasts while they had to stand there and watch.
One of them actually looked away and muttered something under his breath that I didn't catch but could probably guess.
When she finally let me go, probably satisfied that she'd made her point about not calling her "lovely sensei" in front of the troops, I made a show of rubbing my neck and shooting her a wounded look. She just smirked at me with that smug look she wore when she thought she'd put me in my place.
If only she knew.
"Alright," I said, already mentally mapping the route to Relay Point Seven. "I'll be going now."
"Be careful," she said. "And don't do anything stupid."
"Yeah, I know," I said, waving it off. "I'll bring your brother back. He'll be fine."
I turned and gestured to four of my second-gen clones. They fell in beside me without needing an explanation.
And then I was moving, boots hitting dirt as I took off with the clones behind me. We passed bodies on the way out, some ours, some Suna's, all of them looking the same now that they weren't moving anymore. The forest swallowed us up after that, trees and underbrush and mud still wet from earlier rain.
By the time I reached Relay Point Seven, there wasn't much left of it. The small checkpoint had been torn apart, wooden structure collapsed, blood soaking into the dirt. But no bodies. Which meant the fighting had moved somewhere else, or someone had cleaned up after themselves, and I was betting on the first option.
I kept moving, following the trail. It wasn't hard to find, broken branches, disturbed earth, the occasional splash of blood on tree bark. Signs of people running, people fighting, people dying in the woods.
Then I saw the bodies.
I stopped beside them, taking a quick count. Two wore Konoha headbands. The rest had nothing, no markings, no identification, nothing that would tell you which village sent them to die out here.
The sounds of combat started reaching me maybe five minutes later, metal hitting metal, the crackle of jutsu, someone yelling something I couldn't make out from this distance. I picked up speed again, pushing through brush and low-hanging branches until I cleared the tree line.
The fight was right there in front of me, spread out across a clearing. Commander Minoru and his squad, twelve of them, I counted quick, were locked in with about fifteen enemy shinobi. It wasn't going well for either side. Just a lot of desperate attempts to not die while trying to make sure the other guy did.
I scanned the battlefield, looking for Nawaki's distinctive brown hair, for Minato's blonde head. Nothing. Neither of them were here, which meant they were still in the village or had already left for another outpost. Either way, probably safe. Probably. I'd check anyway, just to be sure.
I made a quick gesture and nine of my third-gen clones broke off, heading toward the village at a sprint, clones that my second-gen clones had been making during the trip here. That left me with six second-gen clones.
We came at them from the side. seven of us, hands moving through the same familiar seals, five separate Gōkakyū no Jutsu converging on the same cluster of enemy shinobi.
Three of them reacted fast. Their hands flew through seals and three earth walls erupted from the ground, layering up like someone stacking shields. Doryūheki. A proven counter when you saw fire coming and needed something solid between you and incineration.
The fireballs struck together.
The first wall shattered almost immediately, the combined heat turning solid earth into something molten and unstable before it broke apart. The second wall caught what remained, its surface blackening and cracking, minerals melting into crude glass as steam poured off in thick clouds. It held, barely. The third wall took the residual heat, its surface hot enough to make the air behind it ripple and distort. Anyone standing back there would be choking on superheated air, their lungs burning with every breath.
Minoru didn't waste the opening. I saw him and his squad press forward the moment those earth walls went up, moving in on the enemy while they were still trying to figure out if we were the bigger threat or just an annoying distraction.
Three of the enemy shinobi decided we were the more immediate problem. They peeled off from the main engagement and came at us, weapons already in hand, covering ground fast.
I didn't need to say anything. One of the clones held his ground while the rest of us scattered, using Shunshin to put some trees and distance between us and the one we'd left behind.
The three enemy shinobi went for it. Of course they did. Lone target, separated from the group, easy kill. Except it wasn't.
The explosion came maybe two seconds after we cleared the blast radius. The sound hit hard enough that I felt it through my ribs, the shockwave tearing through the trees and sending branches snapping down around us. The noise echoed, bouncing off every trunk and rock face until the whole forest seemed to be groaning from the impact.
I doubled back, the other clones following. We moved through the trees until we got to what had been flat ground a minute ago and was now just... a crater. Dirt and rocks thrown out in every direction.
No bodies. Well. No intact bodies.
There were pieces. An arm here, still wearing part of a sleeve. Something that might have been a leg over there, boot still attached. Chunks of meat that used to be people before they got too close to an exploding shadow clone packed with enough juice to turn itself into a bomb. Blood everywhere, soaking into the churned earth, splattered on nearby tree trunks, dripping from leaves.
Unfortunately, the remaining enemy shinobi weren't idiots. They'd seen what happened to their friends, and now they were treating me and every single one of my clones like we might detonate at any second. They kept their distance, worked in pairs to pin clones down from range instead of engaging directly, threw kunai and jutsu from safe positions. Smart tactics. Frustrating tactics. It meant my clones weren't nearly as effective as they could've been, nobody was getting close enough for me to pull that trick again, and fighting at range wasn't exactly our strong suit.
The fight turned into a grind after that. Just people trying to kill each other until one group ran out of people.
My clones and I ended up working alongside Minoru's squad, though not quite the way I'd been planning. The enemy had gotten cautious after that first explosion, they'd back off whenever a clone got too close, keeping their distance. So we switched tactics. Stayed at range, threw shuriken and used the Shadow Clone Jutsu to multiply them mid-flight, launched fireballs whenever we had a clear opening. The clones coordinated their attacks, creating opportunities that Minoru's squad could take advantage of.
We whittled them down that way. One of Minoru's chunin managed to close in while they were busy dodging a wave of multiplied shuriken, hundreds of them filling the air at once. Got one of them. Then my clones timed their fire jutsu together, forced the enemy formation to break apart, and two of Minoru's men caught another couple in the confusion.
The enemy numbers kept dropping. Eight became six, then six became four. By that point they were clearly trying to get out, backing toward the tree line and throwing whatever jutsu they had left to try and create some space. But it wasn't working. Minoru's squad kept pushing them back, cutting off angles, slowly boxing them in without making it obvious that's what they were doing, not until it was too late for the enemy to do anything about it.
Four became two. Then one. Then none.
The last one went down when two of Minoru's men closed in on him from different angles, one drove a tanto through his side while the other buried a kunai in his throat. He hit the ground face-first and didn't get up.
The clearing looked worse than when we'd started. More bodies scattered around, some ours, some theirs. I counted maybe eight of Minoru's squad still standing, which meant four of his people weren't getting back up. The darkness made it harder to see who was who, just shapes and the occasional glint of a headband in the moonlight. The copper smell mixed with sweat and smoke and that specific stink of people who'd emptied their bowels when they died. The ones still alive were injured, some worse than others, but all of them looked like they needed medical attention soon.
Minoru walked over to where I was standing, wiping the blood off his blade with a piece of cloth.
"Shinji," he said, reaching out to clasp my shoulder. "Thank you. You kept a lot of my people alive tonight."
"No problem, commander" I said, already scanning the area and counting bodies. Twelve dead enemies. "Is this all of them, or...?"
He shook his head. "Some of them split off earlier, headed toward the village. I'm guessing they went to finish whatever they came here to do while the rest stayed back to keep us busy."
My nine third-gen clones had gone that way earlier, but nine clones against however many enemies depended entirely on who got there first and what they found when they arrived. And if Nawaki was still there—
"We need to get to the village," Minoru said, already turning in that direction. "Stop whatever they're planning. Stay with us, Shinji. We're not done yet."
"Yes commander."
"Wait," Minoru said, looking at his wounded men. "Can you do anything for them? Get them stabilized?"
"I can do that."
Four clones split off, smoke dissipating as they spread out among the wounded.
"Just give them a few minutes," I told Minoru. "They'll be stable enough to move after that."
Minoru nodded, watching his men get worked on. The clones moved between the wounded, stopping bleeding, closing wounds enough that they wouldn't die from them.
A few minutes passed. The injured shinobi started looking less gray, less like they were about to keel over. One of them tested his weight on a leg that had been gushing blood earlier and managed to stand without falling over.
"Alright," Minoru said. "Let's move."
We started running. Minoru and his people, me and an increasing number of clones fanning out as we moved. I'd been making more along the way, and so had they, clones creating more clones, building up the group whenever there was a spare moment. The darkness made it hard to tell exactly how many there were now, but it was more than when we'd started.
The forest blurred past again. More trees, more underbrush, more ground that looked exactly like every other piece of ground in Fire Country.
The village wasn't far now, but I had no idea if we were getting there in time. Whether the people there still had a few minutes left, or if we were already too late.
We kept running.
It took about an hour of running through the darkness, following paths that were barely there, roots reaching up to catch our feet every few meters. The air had gotten cold. I could see my breath coming out in little clouds. Behind me somewhere, one of the injured men was coughing.
Then I smelled it. Smoke. The thick, choking smoke that came from buildings burning.
The trees thinned out ahead of us, and I could see the glow before I could see the village itself. Orange light flickering against the night sky, painting everything the color of fresh wounds.
We broke through the tree line and stopped.
The village was burning.
...
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