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Mikoto was not in the habit of getting hit by shrapnel. She was quick enough that the very idea was rather offensive (and not a little embarrassing), and frankly, it was just impractical. After all, if you were in a situation where shrapnel was flying around, odds were you’d need to be on your feet until long after it stopped flying around. Mikoto grimaced and eyed the sliver of metal sticking out of her right side. And yet, here we were.
It was night, and the Sharingan was good, but it was a lot better for tracking the movements of enemy shinobi than it was for guessing where bomb shrapnel was traveling. Fortunately, Konoha seemed to be evenly matched for once (a rarity when it came to fighting against Iwa forces), and Mikoto had slipped back behind the lines to do what she could about… this.
Let’s see… Not a whole lot of blood; probably missed any major arteries. As for internal organs… Mikoto bit back a sigh, wishing she had an easier time remembering which organs were where. She knew her intestines were in the general vicinity of the sliver, but really, had it gone deep enough to reach them? As for pain… Mikoto edged towards a tree trunk she could lean against, her wound loudly protesting movement the whole time. Yes, it was quite painful.
The team’s medic, Maki, was in the thick of the fighting—a violation of their orders, but Mikoto didn’t really know anyone who could stop Maki from going in if she was determined to fight. So Mikoto’s options were thus: wait until Maki returned to the fallback zone, or she could try patching herself up. Given how many people Mikoto had seen bleed out over the years, neither options looked all that appealing to her.
“Hey, Mikoto! What’s happened?”
A red blur darted through the pine trees towards Mikoto, clearing up as it slowed down into Kushina. There was a trace of Kushina’s usual jaunty grin on her face, but dominant instead were her furrowed brow and the gleam of concern in her eyes. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, crossing her arms around her chest.
Mikoto smiled weakly, gesturing to her side. “What so often happens, I’m afraid.”
Kushina looked to where she gestured, and made a face. “Oh.” She rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. “Yeah, I don’t usually have to deal with stuff like that.” The concern in her eyes sharpened. She swiftly closed the distance between them, putting her hands on Mikoto’s shoulders. “How do you feel?”
“A bit… weak, actually.” Even if the wound wasn’t bleeding heavily (probably because Mikoto hadn’t tried pulling the bit of shrapnel out), it was bleeding. Mikoto shifted weight, only for a blinding shoot of pain to lance her side. She clenched her teeth and hissed, “And it hurts too, but doubtless you knew that already.”
“Yeah.” Kushina winced in sympathy. Then, something sparked in her eyes, and she said, almost eagerly. “I can try something, if you want me to.”
In Mikoto’s experience, ‘I can try something’ out of Kushina’s mouth rarely led to good things. The last time she’d said that, the apartment, the apartment building where Kushina lived had inexplicably wound up covered in chocolate crème. But Mikoto could hardly bear to turn her down without at least giving her a hearing. “And what is this ‘something,’ Kushina?” Mikoto asked, just a little dubiously.
“I think I know how to deal with your wound until Maki finally remembers what she’s supposed to be doing!” Her voice rising to a shout, Kushina turned and glared off in the direction of the battlefield. The only answer was the high, metallic clang of clashing kunai, and a single, strangled scream. “Anyways, I know something that should fix you up.”
“I don’t remember you being all that proficient in medical ninjutsu.”
“It’s not medical ninjutsu,” Kushina assured her, suddenly starting to talk very, very fast. “It’s a sealing jutsu. I was thinking—what if you could seal a wound? Keep it in stasis until a medic can treat it, so it doesn’t get any worse, you know? I’ve been testing it out on dead pigs like the Medical Corps does when they’ve got new jutsus in the work, and I think I’ve got it down, but I haven’t had any live subjects to test it on, and—“ She turned wide, appealing eyes on Mikoto “—oh, please, Mikoto?”
Mikoto couldn’t help but smile, an almost incredulous laugh building in her throat. “So you want me to be your guinea pig?” Kushina only nodded—too honest for her own good, sometimes (Mikoto wished Kushina was better at lying; it would have spared her some measure of heartache, if she were)—and Mikoto sighed. “Oh, well. What can it hurt?”
Kushina grinned nervously. “Uh, don’t think too hard about that. Just give me a minute; let me get a better look at that.”
The two of them slowly got Mikoto’s flak jacket off, trying as best they could not to jostle the sliver too much. Kushina cut a hole out of Mikoto’s shirt and wiped the blood away from around the wound, before pulling a brush out of one of her pockets and drawing a sealing circle around the shrapnel. The sealing brush made Mikoto’s skin tingle; she resisted the urge to squirm. Kushina formed a quick succession of hand signs, before laying both hands on the circle and muttering the jutsu name under her breath.
Mikoto looked down at where the sliver had been, and blinked. It was gone. So was the wound. All that remained was the sealing circle. She took an exploratory step away from the tree trunk—the pain was still there, and Mikoto would be lying if she said she felt as strong and alert as normal, but the pain was significantly blunted compared to before, but this was much better than before. She activated the Sharingan, just to make sure there weren’t any abnormalities in her chakra. Exhaustion made her chakra flow a bit sluggish, and Kushina’s chakra, poured into the sealing circle, blazed bright and warm over the area where Mikoto’s wound had been. Otherwise, everything seemed normal.
“You feel better, don’t you?” Kushina asked enthusiastically.
“Yes, I do,” Mikoto replied, nodding and smiling at her. “Thank you!”
“Oh, good!” Kushina exclaimed in something remarkably like relief. She let out a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m glad it didn’t mess you up or anything like that. Now, the shrapnel’s not gone, it’s just sealed, so take it easy out there. Sudden movement could destabilize the sealing circle. Hang back and cast a genjutsu or something.”
Mikoto laughed fondly. “Sure, Kushina.”
Kushina leaned forward and kissed Mikoto lightly on the lips, scant pressure that still managed to make Mikoto’s heart skip a beat. “Great!” She giggled. “Once Maki’s fixed you up, we can celebrate.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Kushina,” Mikoto teased her, pushing her hand against Kushina’s shoulder. “We still have a battle to win, after all.”
“Right!” With that, Kushina nodded and ran back towards the battlefield, whipping out a kunai and throwing it at one of the enemy shinobi. More slowly, Mikoto followed.
On reflection, it wasn’t that bad being a guinea pig. Not for Kushina.