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He couldn’t breathe.
Kisame felt like his world had curled in onto one singular point; the pale pink hair blocking her face from view.
His hands shook as he leaned over to touch the once soft looking strands, now gnarled and tangled and dirty. The rain drummed down on them even harder, and his breathing was hard pressed against the roof of his mouth, his heart slamming in time against his rib cage, and he let out a low keening noise.
Something harsh and brittle and weak, and he hated it.
The mud that painted her bent arm, snapped back at an unnatural angle above her head in a dancer’s sprawl, mirrored the twisted pattern splattered on her torso and legs.
Or maybe that was blood?
Was it hers?
He breathed in the smell with a sudden sharp inhale, almost painfully quick, and caught only the smell of wet earth and the sharp stink of his own fear, and her, - sweet smelling like her namesake, - and he let out another low whine.
“Damn it, Kunoichi, are you still alive?” He snarled at her, but his hands still trembled to turn her over. “You better still be fucking alive, damn you.”
She was voiceless and still.
He bit back another growl, something animalistic and fierce, and then, gently, ever so carefully, moved her onto her back. Mindfully, with her arm, he moved it, noting the almost grinding way it adjusted, and the stiffness in which it wasn’t supposed to move. He bit his tongue, trying to quell another rising sense of panic, a rising sense of red at the edges of his vision, when even that did not faze her.
“Fucking hell, don’t do this to me. You can’t.”
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
It was a simple tag and bag mission they had picked up. Something easy, - to earn some cash to have on hand, - and to keep moving on. It was something they both knew how to do, but the target had been more tedious then expected, had taken them by surprise at the bar with Sakura at the brunt of his sudden attack. If he had faced them both properly, Kisame was certain he would have gone down a lot faster, but damn the asshole who just couldn’t fight upfront. The fucker had to have the 'upper hand' on his chase out of town, dropping a smoke bomb on them and everyone else in the building.
How were they supposed to know he would have an escape route out of a no name town?
Kisame had gotten a late start on the chase, already drenched with the outside downpour, as they legged it out of village after the man. Sakura shouted ahead of them for him to stop, that they wouldn't harm him if he just stopped, and Kisame watched as something caught light, keen eyes spotting the burning explosive tags, and barely got air in his burning, wet lungs.
One foot on a branch, and they had gone off.
Now Sakura was left unconscious in front him and he didn’t know what to fucking do.
She was the medic.
She knew how to heal.
He didn’t.
Kisame bared his teeth in a sudden fit of rage at the bastard who had done this to her. Trying to remember, mind going miles a minute, what he did know of doing something about this, he vaguely remembered another time, another medic, and lessons only half listened to.
He could only hope he could do this right and not fuck it up entirely.
Taking in one look at her face, at the scratches that cut along her pale skin, at her eyes, shut against the falling rain, he shifted his stance, and took a careful, but firm grasp of her arm. With that, his mind pulled up a ghost of a voice he hadn’t heard in years, one he couldn’t connect to a face anymore, and set himself to work.
Pulling it outward, toward him, he tried to ignore the harsh grinding noise he could hear reverberating in the caverns of his ears, his head, and ground his teeth instead to bury the sound. Adjusting the arm in a pale mockery of how he knew arms were meant to look, he pulled back, fingers still shaking, to try and calm his racing heart. Right, he had to do this quick and easy, keeping in mind that the water pooling around his knees was slowly turning the ground to mud. Settling one hand on her shoulder, he looked her over one more time.
With a swift inhale, Kisame wasn’t the type to dawdle, he grasped her arm again, - with the other hand, - and gave it a solid pull.
It took just a moment before he heard the soft pop of a bone being slid back into place.
In that one moment, it seemed to be the proverbial magical kiss to reawaken the princess, because the next thing he knew, a fist was flying toward his jaw, brute force and speed, cleanly knocking a tooth out of his jaw. He tries to bite back the snarl of pain that comes rolling up on instinct, but fails any way. He’s thrown a bit, but turns at the squeal of pain, like a wounded animal, that comes from the woman beside him. It's a harsh, reedy sound, something that sets his ears ringing and his teeth further on edge, blood mixing with saliva and rain water.
Curled around her newly resettled arm, Sakura lays whining and keening to herself through the downpour. Emerald pools pull open to stare at him, unfocused and in pain, but clearer then being shut, and he can’t help but feel his heart soar.
She was alive.
With a care no one would dare say could come from the dangerous nin, Kisame picks her, careful of her still tender arm, and begins to head back to town. Her fingers grasp the end of his cloak as best they can, and he's grateful.
They can worry about the target later.
______________________________
(Afterward, she’ll tease him as she heals her scrapes and bruises, her skin red raw from her shower with a galaxy of black and purple and green around her shoulder, and calling him an honorary medic-nin at his spectacular handiwork, about his panic and worry for her; something about him going soft and 'oh, so you really do care for me!'
He just kisses her when he knows she won’t flinch in pain from her burns and finally lets his muscles relax.)