Chapter Text
WINTER
INUI MEGUMI, AGE 5
Megumi was five when she first met a medic-nin.
A medic-nin, not a shinobi.
She met shinobi plenty of times by that age. Megumi watched them shop in Mother’s store and listened to them chat over browsing the durable clothes that would weather the nature of their jobs. Though they tended to veil their words when they saw her coloring at the register. That was all in Konoha though, a Hidden Village filled to the brim with shinobi of all kinds.
Strange then, that she met a medic-nin while she was in the capital instead.
When she was that age, her and Mother spent a season every year in the Inui manse in the capital near the Court of Fire. It was in that winter season in the capital, when she turned five, that she saw a medic-nin and medical ninjutsu for the first time.
Cousin Sana had needed an old scar healed over before her wedding day, and Megumi was brought along to watch. Simple entertainment for a child who was too bored and disliked all the activities noble children like her were supposed to partake in.
(Maybe that was a sign even then, that she wasn’t meant for the capital life. Just like Mother.)
With just ten minutes, a pale green glow, and a cream given for the aftercare, the medic-nin somehow painlessly sloughed off Cousin Sana’s old scar tissue into tender new skin. All with that pale green glow that meant healing with chakra.
Little Megumi was fascinated.
While she had never seen that sort of jutsu, even with her home in a Hidden Village, that was not the main reason why Megumi was so entranced.
It was the healing itself that got her attention.
Shinobi were fighters, drew blades and jutsu for the sake of Konoha, and killed for it. Megumi wasn’t sure if she was supposed to know about the killing part, but there were only so many times you could hear the mission-talk the shinobi customers did before you realized that those veiled words meant a life had been lost somewhere along the line.
Healing was for the doctors or the nice people at the apothecary that gave medicine. Those people weren’t supposed to fight. They weren’t supposed to kill.
That medic-nin was a shinobi though. Cousin Sana had mentioned that they were, and there was a Konoha hitai’ate wrapped around their forehead.
Little Megumi was too bored, stuck inside the Inui manse to entertain herself, and too curious. A little too curious about why there was a whole category of shinobi who healed when there were already doctors for that anyway.
That curiosity would lead her to where she was now, eleven years later.
A healer. A killer. A medic-nin.
SPRING
INUI MEGUMI, AGE 6
After that fateful winter, Megumi spent the next year determined to dig through as many medical texts and scrolls she could get her hands on. The Inui manse had all sorts of ancient scrolls that Megumi secreted away into her trunk before leaving for Konoha, and she read them in her room at night.
Yet for some reason, she felt that her family wouldn’t like this new interest of hers.
Uncle Eiji and Uncle Kiyoshi had ideas on what Megumi was supposed to do when she grew up. They wanted her to be a minister or an appointed official in the Court of Fire just like them. Maybe a clothes designer like her mother did with the store.
Doctors or medics weren’t a job that Megumi had seen any of her Inui relatives do. Even those distant cousins in the branch families. They were all farmers, merchants, or artisans. Some were shinobi that guarded caravans and were contracted to their family.
The Inui Family were mercantile to their core. Profit sang to them, not healing.
Every job was profitable; every job was a separate part of what amounted to trade. Even great-grandfather, as much as he doted on her, might not like this interest in healing, even if he indulged her in all her other curiosities.
Unfortunately, it turned out her hunch was correct.
The next season that Megumi and her mother went to the capital, Megumi revealed at the dinner table that she wanted to register to attend the Academy to become a medic-nin.
Dinner was a large affair with how many relatives resided in the Inui manse at a time, and there were little pockets of conversations that happened separately from each other. Megumi and her mother, as family members that were only seen yearly, were placed near the head of the table right next to her great-grandfather and her uncles. When she revealed her plan for the Academy instead of regular school, her uncles at once gained pinched looks.
“A shinobi career? Not just that, but as a medic-nin?” her Uncle Eiji rubbed his hands nervously. “Why, Megumi, that’s a little…”
“Medics are meant to be hired,” Uncle Kiyoshi frowned. “That sort of job is beneath you.”
Megumi wrinkled her nose. Even though she was the littlest out of her family in the main line, that didn’t mean that her uncles had to use that tone with her. The tone that meant that they thought she was being too young and shortsighted.
Six was young, she could admit, but Megumi knew a lot of words from all her reading she did recently. Also, she could switch her accent between the Konoha clip versus the Court of Fire lilt. Not a lot of six-year-olds could do that (at least not the ones in Konoha from what she knew).
Her cousins were all sneaking surreptitious glances at them in between their own conversations, and Megumi steeled herself. She decided this all by herself. Read all those long and difficult to read texts for this. She had to prove herself.
“Uncles,” Megumi started, taking care to use proper honorifics and the proper capital lilt even if she stumbled over the unfamiliar words. “As this is my future, I gave this a lot of thought. I haven’t even told Mother, and this is my decision.”
Which was true.
Megumi hadn’t even told Mother about her interest in medic-nin or even healing and had kept it a secret until now. Still, she couldn’t bear to look at her mother’s expression. Megumi didn’t want to know if she had the same pinched looks her uncles had. Let alone her great-grandfather, whose usual genial expression was blank. Megumi didn’t know if that was worse or better than her uncles.
“Megumi, that decision of yours is preposterous. There is nothing to be made by being a doctor, let alone a shinobi medic-nin.” Uncle Kiyoshi cajoled. “Really, you’re usually more sensible than this—”
“If you were ill and there was no medic to hire,” she cut in. “Would you pass from a burst stomach just like Grandfather Isamu did?”
Silence.
“Megumi,” Uncle Eiji hissed when Uncle Kiyoshi seemed at a loss for words.
“Uncle Eiji,” Megumi turned her gaze to him. “You always told me that our family were merchants before we in the main line became nobles. I checked, and there isn’t a single doctor in any of our ancestry, even in the branch lines. Wouldn’t it be nice if I did that for our family?”
The dinner table went dead silent at her query. Any other conversation between her relatives ceased in order to stare at her and her baffled uncles. Again, Mother was strangely quiet next to her, and again, Megumi didn’t want to look at her.
(She couldn’t bear it if Mother was against her.)
“Well, well,” great-grandfather Fumetsu remarked when nobody else said a word. “It seemed that our little Megumi has taken you both aback with that sharp tongue, hasn’t she?”
“Forgive her, brothers,” her mother finally chimed in. “She may have learned it from someone we’re both quite familiar with.”
Her uncles both peered at great-grandfather at that. Great-grandfather simply smiled serenely.
“Why, Chiyo, throwing the blame neatly at my feet?” he teased. “All the time away from the capital hasn’t made you any less lacking wit.”
“Perhaps, you may be correct, grandfather,” Mother smiled. “But let us continue to talk about Megumi’s future prospects once we finish our meal, shall we?”
With that, the rest of the dinner table, cousins, uncles, and great-grandfather alike quietly returned to their food.
Megumi finally peeked up at her mother. Her expression was as refined and pretty as usual with a quiet river-like smile. It wasn’t disapproval but it also wasn’t anything to indicate approval either.
Just as that thought passed through her, Mother met her eyes and gave a warm smile. “Don’t worry, Megumi. We’ll talk with your uncles and great-grandfather after dinner about this.”
Great-grandfather. He was the one Megumi really needed to impress. The Inui Family Head had a direct say in all of the family affairs, and his approval would be needed for any sort of progress.
At least, she thought so. Megumi had never done anything that was against her family’s wishes before, so this was going to be a first for her.
.
.
.
Great-grandfather really, really, really didn’t want Megumi to go to the Academy.
As soon as dinner ended, great-grandfather led her, her uncles, and her mother to his office, and immediately rounded on her with disapproval shining in his face. Megumi was scared at how intense his green eyes suddenly appeared. It made her want to freeze up, to stammer, to beg forgiveness. Anything to make that glacial jade expression turn back to normal.
She couldn’t allow herself to do that though. So, she bore with the cool disapproval from her great-grandfather as gracefully as she could.
“While cutting, your words to your uncles were correct,” great-grandfather stated once he sat himself behind his desk. “Yet Kiyoshi had a point. While doctors have their place in the world, we are Inui first. The path of healing is not one that we take.”
Megumi felt like she was walking into a trap with her next question, but she asked anyway. “Why is that, great-grandfather? We are all people, and people need to be healed at some point.”
“Tis about the profit,” he replied. “Healing is something that takes and takes and takes, sometimes with an end that is inevitable. Life is finite, Megumi, and to heal, let alone the path a shinobi would take is something I would not wish upon you.”
Megumi hated to admit it, but he had a point.
“I took a text about medical ethics from your library, great-grandfather,” she veered the conversation. “It mentioned that to heal required four tenets. Do good. Do no harm. Be fair. Give choice.”
“See, there lies the issue, doesn’t it?” Uncle Kiyoshi cut in. “Those tenets are useless to a shinobi path. The contrary nature of a shinobi medic will drive you to madness. Even if the current tenets of that Senju Tsunade created are meant to help with that, to be a shinobi is to go against those medical ethics you so naively preach.”
“Did I say that I agreed with them, uncle? I didn’t think I did,” she bit back. Honestly, so rude.
Uncle Kiyoshi sighed and pressed two fingers to his temple.
“Go on then,” her great-grandfather waved on with an imperious hand. “You went through all the trouble of pilfering from my library. Let us hear your thoughts.”
“I want to learn chakra healing,” she continued stubbornly. “But only medic-nin can learn that. And to be a medic-nin means also being a shinobi, even while being a healer. I want to be a medic-nin because it’s so contrary.”
Do good. Do no harm. Be fair. Give choice. Four ancient tenets of healing from an ancient scroll. All tenets that were useless to anything that a shinobi would do.
Shinobi killed. Shinobi fought. Shinobi lent their blades and jutsu for the village. Somehow, their definition of healing had amalgamated the meaning of doctor into medic-nin.
Megumi found that interesting.
Being a minister or an appointed official sounded boring. Even taking over her mother’s shop sounded stale. Megumi wanted her life to follow the path of what was most interesting to her. Chakra healing was that. Medic-nin was that.
Meanwhile, her uncles looked horrified. Great-grandfather didn’t look convinced at all.
Yet, Mother.
Mother looked at her with fondness, something faraway in her face. Maybe the only family in this room, let alone the rest of her relatives, that would support her. Megumi wasn’t sure why, but she took that approval and kept it close.
She would need it for any chance to convince her uncles, and especially for the near-immortal that was her great-grandfather.
AUTUMN TO SUMMER
INUI MEGUMI, AGE 6-10
THE ACADEMY
Somehow, some way or another, Megumi did it. She managed to prod and poke and wheedle her great-grandfather for actual approval of her want to be a medic-nin.
“That one is stubborn,” he finally laughed. “Let her have her way, why don’t we? Tis a decision that won’t affect our Inui name except for her own life.”
And then great-grandfather indulged her, just like he always did.
Regaling her tales of his time meeting the founders of Konoha, the lessons he learned from every meeting with a shinobi during his long life, and what he did to protect the Inui name from being targeted by the Hidden Villages despite their influence.
A warning for her, essentially. To hide her noble roots as much as she could while being a shinobi. To hide her great-grandfather’s title as Fumetsu-daijin from the Inui Family Head that had connected the Court of Fire to Konoha. For all the rest of Konoha knew, the Inui Family Head that had parlayed with the Senju and Uchiha was long passed, not still alive like Fumetsu was to this day.
Strange, how that deception was shinobi-like even as civilian as they were.
(Megumi kept these parts away from her tale to Itachi and Shisui. Just mentioned her uncles and her great-grandfather simply within her “relatives” instead of naming any names. It wouldn’t do for anyone to know how well-connected she was to the Court of Fire.
What mattered to them was why she wanted to be a medic-nin and her life philosophy over the years. Not her Inui Family.
Even if her first lessons in life were all from her life as a noble daughter before she became a shinobi. Or a medic-nin.)
Mother had sent Megumi off to the Academy that autumn with a sad smile and new earrings in her ears. Freshly pierced, but the hoops hugged tight enough to her lobes that there was little risk of anything being caught.
“These were from an old friend of mine. He was a shinobi, and these were his final memento to me,” Mother said while looping the piercings through her ears. “I hope that these can serve as a little protection charm for you.”
Cool silver hoops winked at her from her reflection in the mirror. Hoops neatly curved around the lobes of her ears, adjusted to fit her. While it was a sad gift, it was from Mother, who had approved of Megumi’s desires to be a medic-nin, even with the risk involved in the shinobi lifestyle.
(Those same hoops had accompanied her over the years. Adjusted countless times, but the metal was of such high quality that even with the modifications she made to it, from the size to the extra dangling part she added later, barely affected the durability of it.
Megumi had a terrible feeling that those hoops were from her now dead Nara father, but those earrings felt like a part of her at this point. She would ignore the implications as long as she could.)
With her mother’s blessings, Megumi entered the Academy at six years old and signed up for the supplementary classes at the hospital meant for medic-nin prospectives. Overall, she felt rather proud of herself. Hopeful, even.
.
.
.
The Academy was normal.
Well, as normal as the Academy could be while teaching them all about jutsu and live steel that could be used on their enemies in the future.
Megumi wasn’t dumb. That rabbit that she killed in the hunting trip a couple weeks ago? Obviously, that was supposed to mimic the same feeling as what slitting a human’s artery would be like.
Great-grandfather would tolerate her shinobi career, even answer as many questions as she liked, but he would not tolerate Megumi losing any of the political acumen that was painstakingly taught to her.
Politics and hidden meanings were the cornerstones of any noble, especially for the Inui family that had their ears all over the Elemental Nations. Even in a Hidden Village like Konoha, where knowledge and true motives were obscured, picking out the real meaning of anything was easy for someone raised like her.
The Academy was a study in desensitizing them all to violence.
All of her other classmates were so dumb in not realizing that.
Did they really think that shinobi were really meant to save princesses, just like in the stories? The Second Shinobi World War hadn’t been that long ago, even if it had ended when Megumi was born, but there still had been skirmishes since. It wasn’t peace, but at least it wasn’t war.
That meant that they would end up fighting or even killing at some point after graduating. It was simple fact. Cause and effect, even. Cause: tensions after war. Effect: skirmishes that lead to fighting. Fighting that would involve them since you know, they were studying to be shinobi.
Ugh. Megumi couldn’t stand her classmates.
Kouki was alright though.
Sensible, even if he liked to fade into the background and got jumpy when he was in the center of attention.
Nara Kouki was her seatmate-almost-friend who had the same thoughts as her, even if he hid it behind a bland personality. Somehow, as seatmates, she managed to find out he had a penchant for gossiping and finding out the worst sort of rumors, which was great.
Even greater, he indulged her many rants about the medic-nin courses she was taking after the Academy let out for the day.
“I mean, if you don’t like Tsunade-sama’s four medic-nin rules, then why are you even being a medic-nin anyway?” Kouki said in the middle of her complaining in the middle of lunch.
“It’s interesting,” Megumi countered mulishly. “Chakra healing is interesting. Medic-nin are interesting.”
“Again, I don’t really know what you mean by that, but can’t you at least fake it for whatever exams you have to take for those courses?”
“I guess.”
Which is what she did anyway. She parroted all those rules, wrote them down for her exam answers, and let the rules flow over her like water.
Rule 1: No medic ninja shall ever stop medical treatment until the lives of their party members have come to an end.
Rule 2: No medic ninja shall ever stand on the front lines.
Rule 3: No medic ninja shall ever die until they are the last of their platoon.
Rule 4: Only those medic ninja who have mastered the Strength of a Hundred Technique of the ninja art Creation Rebirth are permitted to discard the above-mentioned laws.
See, she agreed with some of it, but she thought a lot of it was a bit silly. What was the term her relatives liked to use?
Idealistic.
A word that always accompanied a scoff or a snide comment about whatever business endeavor that was bound to fail. Tsunade-sama was an experienced medic, a hero of the Second War, for all that she seemed withdrawn from the public eye.
But did Tsunade-sama know every circumstance? Every possibility?
What if there was a need for a medic ninja to stand on the front lines?
What if a squad was so outnumbered that they needed every last member, even the medic ninja, to make a last stand?
What was a medic ninja supposed to do once their party members’ lives came to an end? Die with them? Flee?
And what was with this Creation Rebirth technique when she didn’t even teach it to the medic-nin of the hospital?
Again, when Megumi asked any of these questions to the instructors at her classes at the hospital, she mostly got aggrieved looks and a distinct sense that she was acting like a know-it-all-upstart. So, she stopped that and stewed over her thoughts by herself.
The rules were just rules anyway.
Megumi found the Mystical Palm Technique, that green glow she had been entranced by ever since she first saw it, more relevant for her focus.
Mystical Palm Technique was a difficult technique, with tiers of ability and rank based on how much it could heal. Any success with it required patience and a fine hand in chakra control.
For her reserves, her chakra control was in a high percentile.
Key word being: for her reserves.
For a girl her age, Megumi had unusually large chakra reserves. A pool of chakra that could be used for flashier, higher-ranked jutsu, but it came with the consequence of a lack of fine control over it. Much like trying to find a drop of water in a lake instead of a puddle. While having a large amount of energy would be good for consistent use of medical ninjutsu, that point would be moot if she couldn’t even have the control to wield said jutsu in the first place.
She wasn’t a lost cause though, and all the fish she tested the Mystical Palm Technique on were starting to gain life instead of being scorched. A gasp in its gills before fading, but that was progress all the same.
(If it had taken her hours and hours and hours of increasingly advanced chakra control exercises to do that, that was between her and the leaves that she stuck on every single part of her body before making them skip and spin instead of just sticking.)
Kouki was right though, like he usually was. Megumi chirped out all the rules like a good little bird before immediately tossing it in the back of her mind to learn more useful things.
Field medicine: Sterilizing and applying first-aid in the middle of battle. Identifying native herbs and their look-a-likes that could be poison. Even when to use that poison in a crisis against the enemy.
Anatomy: Each and every tenketsu point, range of mobility per limb, the essential arteries. The different organ systems and the specific cell repair needed for each type of injury.
Triage: Identifying a priority situation under pressure. Always an emphasis on stay back, heal, don’t engage.
Diagnostics: Symptoms of poison. Using a high-efficiency, low chakra-usage diagnostic jutsu in order to identify wounds without further exacerbation.
And so on and so forth went the knowledge. Much more difficult than if she had gone to regular school and became whatever her family wanted her to do, but Megumi felt much more fulfilled for it. An interesting life, one not filled with any boredom.
Even with the rumblings of skirmishes breaking out across the Iwa border.
AUTUMN
INUI MEGUMI, AGE 10 TO 11
ACADEMY GRADUATION TO GENIN
Some would argue that the Third War started only when the official declaration was sent out, but Megumi knew better. Everyone in her class knew better, from the Academy and hospital instructors, to even the densest of all the students. Even Mother seemed to worry more and more as her graduation drew closer.
The Third War started when the Academy started to focus more on tactics, on the vital points of breaking enemy formations.
The Third War started when her medical classes focused more on field medicine and emergency treatment instead of intricate medical ninjutsu.
The Third War started when her graduating class didn’t get the same happy-go-lucky speech all the upperclassmen had told them about. Instead the teachers had given the their hitai’ate with grim eyes and strained smiles.
War was coming, and they had already started making their preparations. It was just a matter of time when the official declaration would be announced.
Mother did her best not to needle Megumi about it, but if she packed her daughter up with even more protective clothing and supplies than usual, then that was for her and her daughter to notice and not mention. Just keeping it as light as they could in the drumming tension before the incoming storm.
It seemed like unfortunate timing on Megumi’s part, because her class was the first graduating class to be qualified to enter the increasing skirmishes and battles between each Elemental Nation throwing potshots at each other.
And her genin team was unsuited for that.
Megumi peered at her team suspiciously, her brand-new hitai’ate wrapped around her neck (good for protecting all the sensitive veins and bones there).
Jonin-sensei Yamanaka Hasu. Nara Kouki. Inui Megumi. Ren.
Team Hasu.
While she didn’t know much about the smiling blonde man with purple pupil-less eyes, Megumi wasn’t much impressed by his slender frame, a bird-boned sort of thing that made his height appear more stretched out like taffy instead of imposing. This Yamanaka Hasu was to be their jonin-sensei? When they were supposed to fight in impeding war?
That wasn’t to even mention her and her teammates. Kouki liked to fade in the background. Megumi was fast but not really all that strong. Ren…
Oh gods, Ren.
Pretty, viper-sharp, and fine-boned Ren.
Son of an oiran, unusually proud of his heritage, and excellent at traditionally kunoichi arts. Megumi was pretty sure he could out-test even her own floral arrangements and she’d been raised in the capital. His acting skills were much better than hers too. Had the entire graduating class wrapped around his little finger with his pretty words.
This team was meant to be for stealth. For spying. Fading in the back to slip information to front-liners. And ill-fated for the combat needed for any near-wartime battle.
Ten-year-old Megumi looked at Team Hasu gathered in the training ground. She felt like she was going to die.
“C’mon, Gumi-chan,” Ren smiled at her—there he went with his nicknames without consulting anybody if they wanted it. “Why the sour face? We’re genin now! And you even got Kouki with ya. You two are as thick as thieves, aren’t ya?”
Megumi wasn’t immune to his charm. All laid-back twang and a sparkling smile that could soften up even the hardest of shinobi. Yet she wasn’t sure if that smile could get them saved if they were caught by enemy forces.
“She’s worried about the war,” Kouki filled in for her. “Megumi’s all worried that we’re going to be—what did you say we were going to be?”
“Sacrificial lambs,” she replied solemnly. “Not even our Academy instructors looked happy to see us graduate.”
Ren’s smile dimmed a bit at that.
Meanwhile, Hasu-sensei seemed at a loss at what to do with his far too serious little genin.
“Well,” Hasu-sensei started. “There have been stirrings from the higher-ups on when or if to declare war instead of the situation now, but it’s a little too soon for you to write off this team quite yet.”
“I’m the medic,” Megumi groused. “Of course, I’m worried about this team when we all look like we’re meant for stealth instead of any sort of fighting.”
A team made for stealth would have at least one person suited for combat among the rest, and Megumi with her middling taijutsu and low strength was not it. She was meant to be the healer that patched up the inevitable wounds her sneaky team were going to get and move them along.
At least that’s what she inferred based on her medical classes about team roles.
“My, my,” Hasu-sensei sighed. “We got someone too smart for their own good here.”
“Kouki’s the same way,” she immediately threw him under fire. “He just shuts up about it.”
“I’m a Nara, we don’t like to stand out.”
Ren sighed. “There is something called tact, Gumi-chan. What is our sensei going to think with you bringing down the mood like this?”
Megumi sulked.
“Well, don’t worry about that,” Hasu-sensei said. “I’m not about to let my set of genin die that easily, so don’t you worry.”
Megumi looked at him up, then down, and then gave him a doubtful stare.
Yamanaka Hasu wasn’t sure if he should be offended or not by the lack of faith this one had in him. Even the other two were eyeing him up with the same sort of doubt.
Well. Appearances were deceiving, especially in his case.
.
.
.
Maybe this team wasn’t doomed after all.
Even with Hasu-sensei being as bird-boned and stretched-out as he appeared, he was the combat specialist among the four of them. A massive arsenal of jutsu hidden beneath a pleasant demeanor and that willowy frame. When he wasn’t putting them through their paces in trying to increase their stamina as itty bitty genin, he was throwing them through obstacle courses like he was the enemy-nin out to get them.
Megumi aspired to be like that.
“You kind of already are that deceptive looking,” Ren pointed out. “Nobody in our class probably knew about how knife-sharp that tongue of yours is beneath that little sweet face. All heart-shaped and everything.”
“I talked to Kouki.”
“Exactly. Nobody.”
Megumi was known to be the spacey one in class, usually finishing up whatever assignment the hospital had given her instead of paying as much attention to the Academy classes as she should, and her sticking with Kouki instead of the other friend groups made her a bit of a loner.
She wasn’t bullied though. Apparently, Mother had dressed her up pretty enough so even the worst of the children wouldn’t make fun of her having her head in the clouds.
“Kouki is right here,” said Nara Kouki drew himself into the conversation with his arrival. “And he likes being nobody, thank you very much.”
The three of them tended to arrive early to whatever training session Hasu-sensei pulled up from the depths of hell before chucking them straight into whatever mission planned for the day. Just to mentally prepare if anything. It was wonderfully conducive to bonding, as well.
Ren straightened up. “Well, you two were always kind of in the outskirts of class. Just the two of you usually talking shit about something. Nobody would believe me if I told them about all the gossip you two pass around.”
“It was just mostly this one complaining about her medic-nin classes,” Kouki rolled his eyes. “That’s not shit-talking at all.”
“What about when you were talking about Juri-sensei?”
“Okay, but that was just fact, not shit-talking. We saw her kissing that visiting instructor, and she’s married.”
Megumi was fascinated by the absolute casual way the two of them were throwing out curses like that. Her great-grandfather and Mother would have her head if she came home talking like that. She wondered if that sort of swearing was part of being a shinobi.
“Well, well, well, look at my three little students,” Hasu-sensei’s voice echoed around them.
No Hasu-sensei in sight though. All three of them immediately stiffened and were on guard.
“Shame that the three of you lack awareness of your surroundings, hm?”
His voice continued to echo and spiral around them, the sound fading in and out before ringing in their ears. Time seemed to go syrup slow, inviting her to close her eyes, to continue chatting with Kouki and Ren…. wait a minute.
“Kai!” Megumi flexed her chakra in the basic dispersal seal before poking Kouki and Ren to disrupt their chakra system. A pinpoint prick of chakra at the base of their head for maximum efficiency.
“Oh? That was fast?”
Hasu-sensei appeared before them like he was standing there the entire time and gave the three of them a pleasant smile. “Megumi-chan, you must have a talent in yin release to catch on my genjutsu that quickly.”
Megumi blinked away the remnants of whatever ringing was left in her ears. “I guess? My taijutsu isn’t that good, so I had to get points to pass the exam somehow.”
“No, that was fast, even for a genjutsu-type, which you aren’t,” Kouki eyed her contemplatively through his bleary eyes. “The Nara Clan has a natural affinity to yin and that sort of auditory genjutsu caught even me off guard. Maybe it’s in your blood?”
“Maybe,” she replied slowly. “I don’t know who my dad is. He skipped out on Mother before I was even born.”
“Huh, just like me,” Ren chimed in.
Because she wasn’t a terrible person, Megumi kept the unkind though that her mother and Ren’s mother probably didn’t have the same experiences with men. A noble daughter of the Inui and a oiran were worlds apart.
“Hm,” Hasu-sensei eyed her with the same contemplation. “I guess that means more genjutsu training for the three of you today before our D-Rank!”
A choir of groans echoed through the training field.
With the light breeze and the chatter of children through the field, it was almost like there wasn’t an impeding war coming at all.
.
.
.
Within the year, war had been declared between Iwa and Konoha.
Team Hasu, with their stealth speciality, were sent on high-risk, high-secrecy courier missions to sneak scrolls and missives in between the outposts forming at various borders and strongholds. Countless C-Rank missions of that exact nature were given as soon as war broke out for real, like the declaration had opened up a dam.
Megumi turned eleven.
The year that she registered her Yin Smoke Release as a hi-den personal technique.
“It really does look like kiseru smoke,” Ren mused as he watched her painstakingly go through another variation of hand-seals to plume the smoke further than the palms of her hands.
It was a rare moment between missions that the four of them managed to snag a training field to practice whatever jutsu Hasu-sensei fed them to extend their survival out on the field.
Kouki was mastering his Nara shadow release off in the shade, with sensei supervising as a Yamanaka aware of their allied clan’s jutsu. Ren practiced with a C-Rank genjutsu that fit the attention to detail that he had, a perfect notice-me-not sort of thing that would slide attention away from their team. However, Ren could only practice the genjutsu so many times before his reserves started to flag, and in the meantime he poked at her countless efforts to improve her personal technique.
If she went through all the trouble registering this unimpressive looking Yin Smoke Release as a personal technique, she might as well find something useful out of it.
Katon: Homura was where her smoke had first come from. A simple, C-Ranked jutsu with four hand-seals, perfect for her large reserves and high chakra control from her medical training.
Dragon. Snake. Bird. Tiger.
Megumi had since tried to add on more hand-seals in addition to whatever yin visualization she had going on in imagining the fire chakra burning through her earth nature, but the effects were minimal. Maybe some numbing in her hands? But nothing too spectacular.
Maybe if she subtracted it to just the final hand-seal?
Ignoring Ren, she concentrated the entire mass of chakra needed for the jutsu into a single tiger seal. Fire burning through earth. A clear want and need for smoke.
Yin Smoke Release.
Just like that, the single hand-seal promptly bloomed the entire training field from green grass into a light gray smoke that encompassed Kouki, Ren, and even Hasu-sensei who was supervising Kouki’s shadows.
Still wispy, as it dissipated within the next breeze, but covered more range. Much further than the palms of her hands. Kouki and Hasu-sensei gave her approving nods before going back to figuring out whatever Nara shadow thing that Kouki had to master.
Probably would end up making him fade even more into the background. Kouki wanted exactly one thing from shinobi life: a lack of attention. The sheer amount of effort he was putting into this was most likely linked to that.
“Neat,” Ren hopped on over. “Gumi-chan, you could be a right and proper Uchiha with that natural ability with fire.”
For some reason, ever since she had somehow managed to make that yin smoke of hers and registered it as a personal technique, Ren had latched onto the fanciful idea that her unknown father was an Uchiha. Somehow, an affinity for genjutsu and whatever strange thing her yin affinity did to an otherwise normal fire ninjutsu was enough for him to theorize that Megumi came from a clan of all things.
“Ren, I don’t think you’ve noticed, but I’m blonde and look nothing like an Uchiha,” she decided to humor him instead of brushing him off. She was in a good mood from the new success. “And I don’t have the Sharingan.”
“I mean, you could just have weak blood, that’s what happened to me.”
What.
“Excuse me?” she blinked at him before lowering her voice to a whisper. “Are you telling me you’re an unclaimed clan child, Ren? What the fuck?”
“Aha, you finally swore! It took my tragic backstory for you to finally drop airs around me!”
“You and Kouki have clearly corrupted me, and my Mother will have your heads,” she waved off Ren’s triumphant crowing. “That’s not important though.”
“I mean, it’s not that big of a deal?” Ren cocked his head. “Ma came to Konoha because an uppity clan back where we came from in River Country wouldn’t claim me. So she came to Konoha, sold all the information she got as an oiran back there, and settled in with me. Sent me off to the Academy in exchange for asylum.”
Megumi just stared.
Did Ren just admit that he was a hostage to his and his mother’s continued safety in Konoha? And that his mother sold state secrets to Konoha?
Good gods, Megumi underestimated Ren. Maybe the crackpot theories and fanciful ideas he had all the time came from a life filled with political drama like that. It sounded like the worst sort of scandal in the Court of Fire that great-grandfather had told her about in his letters.
“I mean, that was in River Country,” she whispered back. “Clans around here take that sort of thing much more seriously. I don’t think any clan would take it lying down if my father really was part of a clan. I think I was the product of her fiancé before he went off to Suna. He was just a civilian.”
“Well, we never know, do we?” he grinned back at her. “Maybe later, I’ll be able to tell you that I told you so when you hear your long-lost heritage or something.”
“Please, as if my life would amount to a dramatic play like that. You’re going to eat your words, Ren.”
.
.
.
(Little did she know, about four years later, Inui Megumi would get the shock of her life when her mother revealed her Nara heritage to her.)
Ren never did survive to hear about it.
LATE AUTUMN
INUI MEGUMI, AGE 12
GENIN
Megumi’s first kill wasn’t just one body, one life taken.
It was six.
Everything went to shit on that fated C-Rank, just another route courier mission bound for the border patrol between Grass and Fire. Perfect for Team Hasu, who at this point, was known as the genin team to be the fastest and most discreet in ferrying missives.
Shame, that on their way back, Team Hasu had the unfortunate luck to encounter an entire Iwa platoon that ambushed them and chased after them straight across the border for whatever information they could have.
Twenty-three Iwa-nin versus their genin team of four.
“Fuck, we don’t even have anything on us for them to be this persistent,” Ren hissed through his stomach wound. A shuriken thrown at his back that had carved into his abdomen with an explosive that dug in.
The four of them had split off into two groups, Ren and Megumi to divert the Iwa platoon chasing after them with misdirection genjutsu and neat applications of whatever else they had on hand. Kouki and Hasu-sensei were to act as bait and lead the rest on a merry chase.
A plan cooked up by Hasu-sensei who looked a little too grim for how easygoing his voice had sounded, but it was something instead of the dead sprint the four of them had been doing.
Prey being chased by predators. Or more like three little rabbits clinging onto their jonin-sensei as dead weight.
What plan that Ren and Megumi were starting to make to waylay the Iwa platoon promptly went to shit about two minutes into their combined misdirection genjutsu as there was a fucking sensor-nin in the platoon that they were targeting.
Hence, Ren with his stomach wound and the two of them secluded within a canopy of trees in the forest they were in.
The worst sort of wound to have out in the open here. Stomach acid didn’t play nice with the rest of the organs in the body, and that wasn’t including the fact that the shuriken was embedded deep within his abdominal cavity.
The most Megumi could do now was isolate the shuriken with a fine weave of chakra netting it within the same location so it could stabilize. She didn’t have the means or the location to extract it with a chakra scalpel, and—fuck she could sense the Iwa-nin were about a hundred meters away fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Those fuckers were even flaring their chakra out just so they could sense them. A sadistic taunt for two outnumbered genin.
Medic-nin protocol would tell her to continue treatment under concealment. Medic-nin protocol would tell her to stay behind and heal Ren before carefully approaching the other injured members of her team to heal them and call for back-up.
Well, medic-nin protocol was going to do shit when her and Ren were grouped up like this and her large chakra reserves were a fucking flare for the fucking shitty sensor-nin in the enemies after them.
That didn’t even include what sort of unknown state Kouki and Hasu-sensei were in. They were only two against the seventeen that had split off to take the bait that they were.
Meanwhile Megumi and Ren had six Iwa-nin against them, Ren was incapacitated. And her reserves were blaring their location that the enemy was homing in on like sharks scenting blood in the water.
Megumi needed to get it together. Fuck medic-nin protocol. What would Megumi do in this situation?
“Ren,” she barked out, braver than what she felt inside. “What percentage of chakra do you have left?”
He squinted his eyes shut in pain before wheezing. “Maybe about seventy? We didn’t get to do much before we were found out.”
“I need you to put that concealment genjutsu on you, as thin as you possibly can. Now.”
Ren followed, letting his chakra spool out after a weak hand-seal and a flex of his chakra. Perfectly obscuring himself in the foliage. Good.
In the meantime, Megumi shuffled around the leaf litter they were sitting on to encase Ren as part of the hidden enclosure they were in. Lucky that they were chased across Grass straight into Fire in the Iwa-nin’s haste to gain an easy source of information. Fire Country, where the forests were lush and dense, hiding all footsteps and bodies. Hiding an injured Ren.
Alright then.
Ren had his eyes squeezed shut from the pain, even with the numbing herbs and the bandages she had secured over the chakra-infused net she had isolated the lodged shuriken in, but like this, hidden under the leaf litter and in the shadow of the trees they were under, he couldn’t be seen. Thank the gods for his dark hair that blended with the soil.
Taking one hand, she placed it over his eyes and took a deep breath. Megumi wasn’t the best actor. She was good at changing her voice from the Konoha clip to the capital lilt, and that was about it. But she couldn’t let Ren see her lose her nerve here.
Not when she was about to go out to the frontlines to as backup.
“Ren,” she soothed, letting her voice rock into something calming, something like her mother(oh god Megumi hoped Mother wouldn’t have to see her body lifeless and dead). “I need you to continue to put up that genjutsu for me, okay? I need to regroup with Kouki and sensei for a moment just to see how they’re doing. It’ll take the six Iwa-nin off our tail right now, and I’m going to lead them back to the others so the three of us can do something else about it.”
“Wait, Gumi, you can’t be thinking—”
“I need you to stay quiet and not move. Can you do that for me?” she interrupted. “We don’t have much time.”
Under the shadows, Ren hesitated, his tongue darting out to wet his mouth nervously. “Don’t die on me, okay?”
Megumi lifted her hand so she could meet his eyes the best she could. “Don’t worry about me. Focus on breathing even, okay?”
Without hearing what he replied with, she darted out from their hiding spot and wove handseals into a clone technique. Another copy of her appeared, a mirror image of how exhausted she felt. For herself, she settled for a simple transformation technique, miming the stomach wound on Ren, making her blonde long hair turn short and dark, her body appear more masculine instead of whatever budding curves she had. Academy-level jutsu, but this faraway, the illusion of two people mattered more.
Six Iwa-nin approaching. Fifty meters now.
Within eyesight, they could see her clone and her disguise in the distance. From their perspective, hopefully it looked like her and Ren got desperate and carelessly exposed their location once they sensed the six of them incoming.
Immediately, she and her clone went on a dead sprint with a sharp right, away from Ren, and threw a kunai tagged with an explosive at the shinobi chasing her.
Of course, it did nothing. A detonation flicked away by the Iwa-nin leading the chase.
“A measly explosive tag against Iwa? You must be joking! Do they teach you nothing at the Academy of yours, little leaves?”
Ah. Shinobi trash talk.
Even if Hasu-sensei hadn’t told them to never engage in that sort of thing until they had the skills to back it up, Megumi was too busy running and dodging the sudden wave of weapons being pitched at her with actual Iwa-grade explosives attached to them.
Suddenly, in the distance, she heard the cry of Hasu-sensei before an absolutely massive wave of water crashed over the forest. Ah, Hasu-sensei must be trying to make the terrain as inconvenient as possible for the Iwa-nin used to mountainous ranges.
But Hasu-sensei didn’t know that her and Ren were unsuccessful with their part of the plan, even as shoddy as it had been.
Maybe Hasu-sensei knew that and was doing one last stand before giving up?
Fuck.
Megumi needed something here.
Stock of her weapons. A pouch of kunai strapped onto her thigh. Chakra capacity after performing first aid on Ren and the subsequent jutsus she did. Sixty percent. Stamina. Flagging. Her lungs were starting to burn from the sprint she was on.
Think, Megumi, think. You can’t die out here. On a C-Rank of all things.
What did Megumi have that these Iwa-nin wouldn’t expect from her?
Ah.
There was that.
Yin Smoke Release.
If Hasu-sensei and Kouki could see it, then it would be a clear indication that Megumi was approaching, meaning that her and Ren hadn’t succeeded.
But could she do it? Could she expand her smoke far enough so that her other teammates could see it in this dense forest?
Her thoughts were interrupted by a kunai whizzing past her, nicking the side of her head.
She barely was able to fling herself away before the kunai exploded with a boom in the tree that had been next to her.
“C’mon, stop running already,” the voices sang behind her. “Just give up whatever scroll you got from Grass and we’ll let you go.”
They didn’t even have a scroll. What were these people on? Just chasing them out of nowhere with no confirmation?
Megumi felt something warm trickle down into her right eye, blinding it. Blood.
The laughter of the shinobi behind her faded to a dull ring as Megumi felt ice trickle into her veins.
She couldn’t, wouldn’t turn around, but they must be close if they had managed to graze her like this. The detonation of the tag attached to the kunai had been in the tree next to her before she managed to leap away into a different spot.
They weren’t even taking this seriously. Why would they? Two genin running against six? When their other seventeen had gone after the actual jonin-sensei?
These fuckers were playing with her.
Megumi hated them.
A singular moment of apoplectic rage overtook her, and Megumi felt her frozen fingers flicker through exactly two hand-seals.
Dragon.
Tiger.
Fire burning through earth. Yin nature molding the desperation and rage.
Creating form from nothingness. The power of spiritual energy to control imagination.
And more than anything right now, Megumi wanted these shinobi d e a d.
Just like that, as if the gods above were laughing at this slip of a girl trying to fasten down the will of the world to her own command, the forest exploded in smoke.
Dark. Black.
Smoke covered the forest in sooty night under the light of day, choking out the sunlight that shone through the tree canopy.
Megumi felt like her body was out of her control as she slowly molded her chakra. Like this, her yin smoke was dense, cloying, and she could feel everything within it. From the startled nature of the Iwa-nin following her, to each breath they took.
Breaths that inhaled plumes of smoke into their lungs. A smoke derived solely from her.
This jutsu was just for her, wasn’t it? Yin nature was imagination, was the basis of genjutsu, the basis of spirit, a flexible and fleeting chakra nature. It was whatever she wanted it to be in the moment. Smoke was simply the medium that it took for her.
The dim that the forest took sent the Iwa-nin flashing through their explosives and whatever jutsu they had to clear whatever had obscured their vision, and Megumi took that moment to scale an old tree to gaze down upon them.
Six bodies.
It felt like instinct to run through the hand-seals again, to feel the pitch-black smoke inside each and every one of their lungs. Her chakra running through their system, as layered as it was in the smog that they inhaled.
Dragon.
Tiger.
Snake.
Fire burning through earth. Yin shaping intent. A focus on the lungs filled with her smoke.
A burst of her chakra, and a solidification of the earth natured particles in the lungs, and six bodies dropped from asphyxiation.
Megumi could have watched them struggle to breathe, maybe toy with their lives as they did with her. Suffocation was a long sort of death. The instinctual grasp at the throat that failed to give the body breath. The bulging eyes. The pounding that they did on their chest. Even hand-seals to try and expel the smoke with water or wind or something.
A pity, wasn’t it? That forest air itself had her smoke in it. Had her chakra seeped in no matter what they tried. You couldn’t draw elemental jutsu from it without breathing smoke in all over again and choking and choking and choking.
She stood above them, perched in her tree like a bird of prey observing which one to hunt first, and there was something heady being in control of life like that. No regret, like she thought she would have from her impeding first kill. Kills, since there were six.
Maybe it was because it was the fact that she had succeeded despite being outnumbered. Maybe it was the fact that she didn’t even need to touch them in order to end their lives. Nothing but a sick sort of satisfaction of winning.
This was the sort of life she was signing up for, being a shinobi, even as medic-nin as she was.
For now, Megumi didn’t have the luxury of time watching them struggle uselessly. A body that wanted to breathe but couldn’t must be terrifying for them.
Shame that they didn’t think of that when going after her. Taunting her. Toying with her.
It felt like an out-of-body experience flitting down and darting among them for the kill. A precise slice at the throat, burbling blood into their esophagus, before angling into the soft bit of the eye straight into the brain to confirm the death.
Twelve blows, two for each one, and Megumi was left with six bodies.
Her first kills. Just like that.
Mindlessly, she dispelled her transformation and clone jutsu, staring down at her handiwork with her own face.
Now, time to find Kouki and Hasu-sensei.
.
.
.
“We need to seal the bodies,” Kouki said tonelessly. His eyes were like glass for how reflective they looked, a dull sort with absolutely no life behind them.
Megumi wondered if she looked the same. Arterial blood and cerebrospinal fluid coated her hands and cheek, dried out from the six bodies she had put down before meeting up with Kouki, who had been fending off five Iwa-nin on his own. Apparently, he and Hasu-sensei had been separated immediately, and Kouki had been cornered. The unholy smoke that Megumi had let out had given Kouki enough time to sneak in a kill before Megumi came to help him.
Hasu-sensei had his knee brutally mangled by an earth jutsu he had been caught in before ripping himself away, but he managed to kill off the Iwa-nin that had went after him with that massive water jutsu she had saw in the distance. Kouki and her then used the remaining time the smoke covered the forest to pick off the remaining Iwa-nin while sensei curled up in pain from his fucked knee.
All under the same dark smoke that only let her allies see through it. Her mind felt syrup slow, but somehow, that pitch darkness only laid itself for anybody that she considered an ‘enemy’.
Twenty out of the twenty-three Iwa-nin in the platoon picked off in a terrible game of cat-and-mouse before the remaining three turned tail back to the Grass border.
Now, Hasu-sensei was somewhere, limping towards Ren at the coordinates that Megumi had given him. Megumi had splinted his knee the best she could, but she couldn’t even muster up enough chakra for even the most basic of Mystical Palm to mend her sensei. Her Yin Smoke Release had wiped through her chakra reserves with how much she had used it, and she needed to keep the rest for the remaining journey home.
It was a small blessing her Yin Smoke Release had been so convenient, only obscuring the enemies’ vision, and somehow managing to squeeze all four of them alive.
For now.
Not when Megumi knew that she didn’t have enough chakra to continue to operate on the lodged shuriken in Ren’s stomach. Or do more than splint Hasu-sensei’s knee before carving out a makeshift crutch for him.
Meanwhile, her and Kouki stood at the remains of the six bodies that Megumi killed by herself.
“Megumi?” Kouki repeated. “Did you hear me?”
“Ah, sorry,” she responded absently, still staring at her own handiwork. They had sealed up the others that her, Kouki, and Hasu-sensei had killed. Now were just the kills that Megumi did.
Six bodies, cool as the soil underneath them, all with a lifeless gaze that betrayed how eagerly they had chased her before. All by her own hand. Not even her own hand, just her own intent.
“Let’s just seal them up and get home, okay? Don’t worry about Ren and Hasu-sensei. You did what you could.”
That wasn’t what she had been thinking about, but she nodded before taking out the scroll rimmed in black. A body scroll, for the deceased.
Megumi hadn’t acted much like a medic-nin today. The disregard for standard protocol that she did was proof enough. But had she ever followed those rules in the first place?
Isn’t this what she signed up for when she wanted to be a shinobi and heal? That contrary nature of it didn’t seem so interesting now that there were bodies cooling due to her own hand. When the killing had been easy.
Somehow, she didn’t regret the loss of life. Not when she had saved her team. Even if she had sacrificed her chakra to fight instead of saving it to heal.
Gods.
What did it mean to heal when she had to kill in order to save lives?
.
.
.
Arriving back at Konoha, Kouki and her somehow hobbled with Hasu-sensei on his crutches and Ren carefully placed in a makeshift stretcher. The gate guards took one look at the them and rushed them to the hospital where both sensei and Ren were wheeled into surgery.
Kouki was slowly withdrawing into his mind as the kills and the chase settled into him, and that left Megumi as the one to report to the surgeons on duty about the situation and treatment she gave.
Which also left her to endure the ire of the Hospital Director, Sarutobi Biwako, in her office.
“You should have healed your teammate Ren then left enough chakra to heal the injury on your jonin-sensei, no matter if you foolishly rushed out to distract the pursuers after you.”
Rule 1: No medic ninja shall ever stop medical treatment until the lives of their party members have come to an end.
“Director, there was a sensor-nin in the enemies chasing us. With my reserves as a flare to that sensor, continuing medical treatment would have been at a detriment to both myself and my team.”
“A concealment genjutsu would have sufficed then until your sensei and your other teammate could regroup with you.”
Rule 2: No medic ninja shall ever stand on the front lines.
“My sensei and teammate’s situation was also unclear, and they too were outnumbered. When my teammate and I were exposed so quickly, I made the decision to support them and draw away attention from his injured state.”
“And what if you died then? What if that smoke release of yours hadn’t succeeded?”
Rule 3. No medic ninja shall ever die until they are the last of their platoon.
“I weighed the decision before doing such, Director.”
Megumi trained her eyes respectfully down at the fine wood of the Director’s desk as she was left to stew in silence. Kouki had already been whisked away to do his report to whatever superior oversaw the twenty bodies they brought in scrolls. Twenty Iwa-nin dead on what should have been a routine C-Rank courier mission probably meant Kouki was suffering in T&I in a metal chair.
Meanwhile, she was made to stand here and sweat out her unorthodox medical decisions that left her with little to no chakra to heal her sensei’s knee beyond a splint, and unable to perform field surgery on the shuriken lodged in Ren.
Who were both in the operation room now.
Megumi was still filthy with blood and brain fluid on her, and she hadn’t even been given time to change out of her dirty clothes after her report before being shoved into Biwako’s office. Even if she had felt guilty over her lack of sticking to protocol, the sheer irritation that she felt now surpassed that.
Compassion was a lacking thing in this shinobi world. Leaving a twelve-year-old unable to clean off the remains of their first kills before forcing them to relive it was something only a shinobi would do. The sheer lack of manners alone had her itching inside. (Along with the blood.)
Sarutobi Biwako eyed at her over her steepled hands, letting her wallow in whatever guilt that she didn’t feel. How could Megumi feel guilty when she was justifying herself? Any regret she had felt before with Kouki sealing up those bodies dissipated.
(Like smoke.)
“Inui Megumi, while your rash decisions may have spared your team’s lives, there is no telling on how your Ren’s injuries will progress with the amount of time that foreign object was inside his system. Let alone the splint for your jonin-sensei’s knee instead of any initial medical ninjutsu.”
Fuck. Her. The rage of her thoughts surprised her.
Of course, the Director couldn’t stop there. “You fail at the very doctrine we medical-nin stand for.”
For fuck’s sake. Words flew out of her mouth before she could rein in her temper.
“If by doctrine, you mean by Tsunade-hime’s,” her voice cracked over the sheer vitriol rolling in her voice. “Then you will find that had I followed the very rules that she set, then all four of us would be tortured and killed before compromising the village.”
“That isn’t something you can predict with your rank, genin.”
“Twenty-three Iwa-nin immediately giving chase to a four-man team doesn’t give room for much else, Director.”
Megumi didn’t remember much after that. She remembered the chilly way the Director dismissed her with a glare that promised retribution. Yet Megumi’s temper had clouded her thoughts, leaving her afloat. Like her body was moving without her permission.
Ah.
Maybe she was going into shock? Is this her reaction to what happened? She had read about it, but it was strange, feeling it.
Cold. Empty. Gone.
Somehow, she trodded home alone, covered in blood and fluids, straight to her mother. Who instead of being terrified of her daughter appearing like a wraith, simply looked relieved that she was home.
There was a warm bath somewhere in there. Somehow gaining extra money in that mission paycheck as bounties for the heads of the Iwa platoon after them. Apparently, their team had been unlucky to be mistaken for a different courier team with more sensitive information.
Unlucky.
Is that what fated them to be hounded across the Grass-Fire border? Is that what fated her to have her first kills turn into six bodies?
Is that what fated Ren and Hasu-sensei in surgery? For Kouki to withdraw far into his mind?
Mother had hugged Megumi extra tight that following week, whispering sweet words that she couldn’t hear. A week off had been given. Apparently, it was a generous allowance for them, who diverted the Iwa-nin platoon after a more valuable target.
Megumi couldn’t muster rage for that indelicate statement. Not when Hasu-sensei smiled weakly at her, even with his knee being forever ruined. No more combat specialty from him. Just a lifetime of paperwork with the rest of his Yamanaka clansmen in the mental health sector or Intel. Whichever fit more.
Then.
Then.
That chakra netting that Megumi had so meticulously woven in Ren to initially stabilize him was fucked over by a fucking stupid intern. The stomach acid isolated from the punctured wound spilled over into the rest of his body, and his already weakened system couldn’t take it. Infection turned into sepsis over just days.
Nobody fucking told her.
She had to find out herself from the fucking stupid intern who had the audacity to appear apologetic. Like they hadn’t ruined her work. Ruined Ren, now burning his body from the inside out and couldn’t tell left from right in his dazed confusion.
Megumi just couldn’t anymore.
Her temper—
—snapped.
WINTER
INUI MEGUMI, AGE THIRTEEN
CHUNIN
Ren died.
Of course he did.
That fucking stupid intern.
Megumi had raged. The hell she rained on the intern and each and every medic and surgeon in charge of Ren’s case was terrible enough to have Hasu-sensei hobble over with Kouki flying to soothe the fury she wrecked upon the Trauma Ward.
She was pretty sure she was going to be sent out on the worst assignment possible for the absolute shitshow she just unleashed, let alone the disrespect she showed in the Director’s office.
Yet somehow, her and Kouki were promoted to chunin.
It felt like a slap to the face.
Ren’s mother had died shortly after her son had shadowed the grave, maybe out of grief for the one thing she had left of her world, or maybe it was encouraged with her leverage for asylum gone. Who knew with how Hidden Villages worked.
The funeral had been a cremation. Burning Ren and his mother into urns to be enshrined in her family shrine since Ren and his mother had no one else.
And that funeral had just ended when her and Kouki were called to the Assignment Office.
“Congratulations,” the poor nin told them with no small amount of wincing. He was the unfortunate soul in charge of handing off too-large chunin vests to two children still in funeral blacks. “Nara Kouki and Inui Megumi are to be hence promoted for their feats in battle and assigned to the following units enclosed in your paperwork.”
Megumi grasped the chunin vest, feeling how the vest weighed in her hands.
This felt like a poor transaction.
A life (Ren’s) and a disability (Hasu-sensei’s) in exchange for this promotion.
Inui mercantilism told her it was her getting ripped off.
Megumi’s soul felt like it was ripping into shreds.
Numbly, her and Kouki walked over to where Hasu-sensei waited for them. Just the three of them, all in funeral black. A jonin-sensei who couldn’t watch over them anymore as he was bound to the village with his knee and crutches. Two barely-teens just promoted to chunin in the middle of a raging war.
Megumi hated this.
The two of them ripped into their paperwork.
“I’m being sent out to the Iwa border within the month,” Kouki trailed off.
“Medical encampment: Squad 0497. Also the Iwa border,” she responded blankly.
4. Death. 9. Suffering. 7. Luck.
Both doomed assignments.
Why, oh, why did Kouki get caught up in her disrespect? Was this Sarutobi Biwako’s retribution against her? Sending two members trained in stealth out to the front to die?
If this is what disagreeing with the stupid medic-nin protocol got her, Megumi was going to live. Live in spite of everything.
(Live for Ren, at least. His life was worth more than a chunin vest and a deployment meant to send them off to die.)
“You’re going to learn exactly what I did to kill those Iwa-nin,” Megumi bit out to Kouki before any of them could speak. “We have a month, and you’re learning the Yin Smoke Release whether you like it or not.”
Rule 1: No medic ninja shall ever stop medical treatment until the lives of their party members have come to an end.
Rule 2: No medic ninja shall ever stand on the front lines.
Rule 3: No medic ninja shall ever die until they are the last of their platoon.
You can’t heal if you fight, but to stop healing means to be the last to die? The final member to be picked off? Is that what Tsunade-hime was saying with those idealistic rules of hers?
Megumi didn’t understand, didn’t want to understand, and didn’t ever plan to understand.
If the Director wanted her out on the frontlines to prove to Megumi that her disobedience to the norm was going to end up in her end, in a squad named after death, then she was going to prove her wrong. Both her and Tsunade-hime.
Rule 4: Only those medic ninja who have mastered the Strength of a Hundred Technique of the ninja art Creation Rebirth are permitted to discard the above-mentioned laws.
Creation Rebirth? Who cared.
Megumi was a healer before being medic-nin. All those years ago she read ancient medical texts before being indoctrinated to medic-nin philosophy.
Do good. Do no harm. Be fair. Give choice. Four ancient tenets of healing from an ancient scroll.
She hadn’t agreed with them when she was six. Yet now, seven years later, at thirteen, she found a cold comfort in them.
Perhaps she was doomed to live a contrary life, picking and choosing the sole healing path that required her to break three of the four ancient healing tenets so easily as a shinobi. But she could still give choice. At least to herself before all.
Preservation before healing.
After all, if there was no reason for an injury in the first place, then wasn’t she being a good healer? Stem it at the root before having to weed it out?
Even if she had to kill for it.
She was still shinobi, after all.
A healer. A killer. A medic-nin.