Chapter Text
Tamara looked down at the unconscious, bleeding, eyeless figure she’d just fished out of the river and resuscitated. She put a hand over her face and let out a long breath.
When the flood had first washed Tamara into the river, she held out hope that making her way ashore and hiking back upstream would get her back into the game, or at least found and disqualified by the TV crew. But the strange ecology that met her when she crawled aground as well as the change in climate had given Tamara doubts; the increasing amount of discarded weaponry in the woods as she climbed had only strengthened them. Finding this warrior, this young soldier, was now the nail in the coffin. In her world organized violence was outlawed outside of vicarious wars in the form of vicious televised competitions. So obviously this was not, could not be her world. It was evident that no rescue was forthcoming.
Tamara huffed, and began to pull the nearly drowned soldier further onto dry land as she contemplated how all this could have come about. It seemed ‘The River Between Worlds” was more literal a name than anyone could have guessed. The treacherous rapids chosen as the main challenge for this season of Naked Survivalist was known for its deadly undercurrents. Thus it was given the tongue-in-cheek title as a nod to the many who had been sent to ‘the other world’ i.e. their deaths. Or assumed deaths Tamara supposed, as none of the bodies of those who drowned in The River Between Worlds were ever found. And now Tamara could count herself among those statistics. What else did she expect, volunteering for the deadliest reality show of all time?
Tamara gave a grim smile. She’d signing up for danger and she’d gotten it. Just not the type of danger she’d expected. After all, this young, mutilated warrior, along with the various knives, wires and bloody fabric scraps she’d found littered among the trees painted a rather grim picture of the situation she found herself in. But Tamara was a fighter, in the living sense if not one of violence. Fate had handed her a potential ally in this strange new world. She would nurse him back to health. They would both survive.
Shisui awoke to darkness. The darkness was not a surprise given that his last memory contained the action of ripping his remaining eye out. No, the real surprise was waking up at all considering that his last memory also featured flinging himself off a cliff. But Shisui felt distinctly horrible in a way that indicated, against all intentions, that he was definitely alive.
Rather unnerved by this and disoriented from lack of sight, Shisui deemed it prudent to immediately try to glean his surroundings. And, completely forgetting his sense of hearing, Shisui decided the best way to do this was through touch. So with shinobi speeds he flung his hand out to grasp the closest thing to him, palm coming in contact with something soft and warm. It almost felt like skin but shisui had never felt human flesh with so much give. Even an Akimichi had hard muscle layered among the fat. So it had to be some sort of mushroom or fungus then.
Shisui calculated the position and height and deduced it must be growing on the side of a tree. He trailed his hand down experimentally but instead of rough bark Shisui felt the smooth expanse continue on. The surface hardened out to shallow ridges almost like ribs then smoothness again. He felt a small indent or divot in the middle and then at last a break from the oddly warm texture to something prickly and grass-like. Or perhaps grass wasn’t the right term. Maybe it was some type of lichen? He rubbed some of the stuff between his fingers and noticed the thinness of the strands, almost like hair but curly like pubic...
Shisui became very still as the pieces suddenly slotted together and he finally realized the mysterious construct he’d been fondling was breathing. It was upon this realization that Shisui promptly stopped breathing as images came unbidden to his mind, a mental picture forming of the naked woman he’d just touched. Was still touching.
Tamara on the other hand was still for a completely different reason. A deadly, if blind and injured, warrior who moved with terrifying speed was groping her with a (adorably confused) frown on his face as if he had never felt a breast before. Come to think of it, he was rather young, maybe a few years younger than her, late teens she would guess, so that was entirely possible. Musings on the dangerous stranger’s sex life aside, he was just that: dangerous. Tamara had no illusions to the peril she was probably in. Blind or not she held no doubt that this man could kill her before she even realized what was happening.
So Tamara stayed still and allowed the soldier to feel her down and gather his bearings. Judging by the look on his face when his hand trailed from breast to sternum to belly to pubes, the teen had no idea what he was doing anyway: no possible sexual intent behind his actions. Tamara was not modest, couldn’t be to have voluntarily signed up for a naked survival show, and thus not terribly discomfited with practical touch. She’d reserve judgment to see what he did once he realized what he was touching. And judging by the expression he just made, the odd combination of pale shock and blushing embarrassment; that moment had come.
Shisui yanked his hand back as if burned. Amidst his mortification, confusion and panic, the small part of his brain decisively labeled ‘dumbass’ decided to comment: So that’s what boobs feels like. I had no idea they were so soft. Shisui let out a strangled giggle and firmly stamped the dumbass back in its box. “S-sorry! Um. Who are you? Where are we? How am I alive and er, why are you naked?”
Tamara realized with dismay that she had no idea what he was saying. Great. On top of being stranded naked in the wilderness of a probably militaristic and/or warring world, she and her only potential ally also had a language barrier. And he was blind so gesturing or using body language was out. Tamara groaned and tried to think fast.
You don’t leave a disoriented warrior hanging if you want to live, that she knew from the history books of when humanity was barbaric enough to use violence to solve everything. But Tamara wasn’t sure revealing her own language was the smartest move either. For all she knew she spoke the language of his enemies. Sure, Tamara had thoroughly disarmed him before beginning her slapdash treatment (her world’s outlaw on wars did nothing to smother humanity’s morbid fascination with it) but she had no idea what the people of this world were capable of.
Well, his tone suggested he’d asked a question or few and Tamara could guess what he had asked based on the circumstances: probably something to do with her identity and state of dress, his clothing indicating that his people probably weren’t ones for casual nudity. He probably also asked about his whereabouts or the situation in general. That’s what Tamara would do, and it only made sense. Now she just had to communicate an answer that would satisfy him without using verbal or visual language and wouldn’t get her killed. Easy. Not.
First order of business: Show she meant no harm. Tamara slowly, gently took his hand, watched his every tense and twitch, treating him like a cornered animal. She then placed his palm on her face; let him feel what she looked like. That was a sign of good will right? It bought her time at least to figure out what else to do. Tamara had a whole speech prepared of course, as to why they should help each other that she came up with while he was unconscious. That plan went out the window as soon as it became apparent he spoke a different language. She should have thought of that. It was an obvious possibility! Stupid.
Okay. Okay. What conclusion did she want him to draw? What could explain all this besides accidental inter-dimensional travel? What could he extrapolate on his own with as little prompting from Tamara as possible? Well, what would she think if she found a naked nonverbal woman in the woods? Maybe that someone had lost their severely autistic adult-child. Tamara discarded that idea since she had no idea what this world’s stance on mental health was and didn’t feel like she was capable of acting convincingly autistic anyway.
What explanation was the closest to the truth? Tamara went over the facts. She chose to be naked in the woods. Why? Not patriotism, unlike most she actually liked nature and the challenge of surviving. Why? She had always wanted to escape the vapid complexities of civil society. Why? She was inspired by stories of wild people, her favorite story as a child being Tarzan. Tarzan! That was it! Tamara had to convince him that she was a feral child raised by the wilderness without any human interaction. She smirked. Given the neglectful shits she called parents, that wouldn’t even be too far off the truth.
Shisui meanwhile continued trying to take stock of this very odd situation. His hand was on a naked woman’s face. She put it there instead of answering his questions. That was weird. It could mean a multitude of different things. First being that she didn’t seem to mind him touching her and nor did she hold his accidental groping against him. But why did she do it? Was she just unusually touchy? Was it some sort of never-before seen attack? She didn’t seem to be about to bite him. If the forced face fondling was just to avoid answering then it was the strangest aversion tactic Shisui had ever seen… or, well… felt. He flinched when something unexpectedly touched his cheek. Her hand he realized was mirroring his. She would coax his fingers over the bridge of her nose, and she would follow in touching the bridge of his nose. Her lips, his lips. Her jaw, his jaw.
“What are you doing?” He asked once their hands had finished exploring each other’s mouths and moved on to ears. She mumbled something that vaguely resembled what he just said. Shisui furrowed his brow in confusion. “What?” This time her speech was a bit clearer though no more helpful than the last time. She just repeated “what” back to him. Giving it up as a lost cause, Shisui decided to ignore the woman’s odd behavior for now and get back to the important questions. “Who are you?” He demanded. He needed to know if she was friend or foe, captor or savior, shinobi or civilian. But to Shisui’s utter frustration the woman only turned the question back around. Or he thought she did, her pronunciation was terrible.
Shisui sighed and considered his options. He could hear running water further off so he was still somewhat close to the river. He felt dirt and roots underneath him, which further pointed to being outside rather than in some interrogation cell, and he was unrestrained. He smelled his own body odor and residual fever sweat but beneath that there was a sharp herbal aroma and now that he thought about it there was a distinctly medicinal taste in his mouth as well. Based on those observations the stranger seemed benign enough and probably his rescuer.
It seemed he wasn’t in any immediate danger. But should he answer her question? Despite her lack of clothes, the woman held the advantage as presumably being in better health and able to see and it’s never a good idea to antagonize those with power over you. Besides, if she didn’t already know who he was, Shisui doubted telling her his given name could make anything worse; names humanized people after all, made them harder to kill. (His family name on the other hand was another matter. If she didn’t know or guess it already Shisui wouldn’t tell her, wouldn’t risk losing whatever good will the stranger seemed to hold for him.) So decided, he spoke. “My name is Shisui.” He said. “What’s yours?”
“What’s yours?” The stranger said back in that weird garbled speech of hers and it was then that the realization finally began to dawn on Shisui.
“Do you… even understand what I’m saying?” He asked, more as a formality than anything as Shisui mentally went over the conversation so far and became more and more convinced of his hypothesis. She dutifully responded by copying the last few syllables of his sentence. Shisui cursed then immediately regretted it when he heard that copied too. What the heck was going on? Shisui had never heard of an adult (he was pretty damn sure she was an adult considering how, er, developed she felt) who couldn’t understand language. And it didn’t seem like she spoke one of those rare off-the-continent languages either, otherwise she would have just said something instead of repeating everything that came out of his mouth.
Shisui was brought out of his musings when he felt another palm against his, fingers aligned as if she was comparing the size of their hands. Then the slightest of turns and she intertwined her fingers with his. Shisui’s breath caught. It was such an intimate gesture, holding a shinobi’s hand. It was their greatest weapon after all. And this stranger had done it with such innocence… like a child. Like it was nothing.
She squeezed his hand and Shisui slowly curled his fingers over hers, reciprocating the motion. Who was the last person who’d held his hand? Was it his mother when she was still alive? Was it little Sasuke back when Shisui actually had the time to spend with the young boy? Was it Itachi? Poor, peaceful Itachi, his best friend, just thirteen yet already so world weary; so wise beyond his years. Itachi, burdened by his genius. Itachi who watched Shisui die.
Shisui suddenly, viscerally recalled that this hand of his was the one he’d used to rip out his own eye; that had forced the bloody thing and all the responsibility it stood for into his friend’s protesting hand. There was blood on this hand, his own and that of others. A squeeze again and Shisui was brought back to the present. He was holding a stranger’s hand and not his own eye he realized. He realized he had begun to cry. The discovery did nothing to help him stop. The pent up pain, the anxiety, the pressure that had built behind those cursed eyes; it flooded out with all the unstoppable force of the river to which he’d flung himself. The stranger lay down beside him, never letting go of his hand as Shisui cried himself to sleep.