better left unsaid

Chapter 30: Winning Time

Damn it!" Shikamaru said as Ino held her hands to her mouth once Naruto emerged from the wood section of the battlefield and fell out on his face with blood trailing from his mouth. Both of them suddenly ran for the steps to make their way down to the field, "Naruto doesn't get taken away on stretchers! That's not how he does things!"

"He's unconscious Shika." Ino said, trying to defend why he would be doing so, "But he's never that hurt though... ever." They had seen him take some blows. When that big muscle-mass increasing missing-nin smashed him back during their last C-rank he got up, "What happened in that forest after he used the seal? Did Fuu hurt him in that fight?" They didn't really get a good look deep past the trees so it wasn't clear to them what happened.

Shikamaru then suddenly stopped on the steps as he had a thought on something, "Fuu had powers... Gaara had powers... Naruto didn't have any obvious stuff like theirs though. He said his ability was his healing. He used that seal and then the fight ended so he turned off Fuu's natural ability to win somehow... which meant he turned off his own healing!" His own injuries either weren't finished healing and got worse after the sudden loss of Kyuubi's influence, or he was hurt worse after turning the healing off and couldn't recover until he walked out of the effect range of his own seal.

"Did he know that would happen when he used it?" Ino asked in alarm. Naruto's healing along his massive amounts of chakra were the bread and butter of his fighting ability. Shrugging off hits that would cause a normal genin to give up were part of what made Naruto special. He wasn't supposed to actually get hurt. He was always supposed to just get up and walk it off, at least that was how he had molded his image to be seen by them.

Shikamaru shook his head before he and Ino started running down the stairs again, "No... I don't think he did. He just knew that it negated all chakra use. He was never beaten up while it was on. How would he know?"

As they reached the bottom of the stairs they saw the medics carting Naruto back to the medic bay. His eyes were still closed due to his state of unconsciousness when his teammates got to him, "How is he?" Shikamaru asked Sekka as the Suna proctor/medic-nin had his hands glowing with chakra as a diagnosis, "He's not going to die is he?"

"I think you'd have to decapitate this boy to kill him." Sekka said earnestly as he turned off his diagnosis jutsu, "He's stable for some weird reason. His ribs are already knitting themselves back together. No damage to his lungs thank Kami. I don't think he'll be fighting next round though. Samurai medicine is notoriously slower to take hold even though for the long term he'll be as right as rain. As a proctor it would be a conflict of interest for me to try and heal him as long as your team is in the competition. The predetermined doctors have to do it, and either way he'll get fixed up just fine." His gaze turned rather serious, "I'd worry about yourselves right now if I were you."

Shikamaru and Ino stopped following as they went into the medical area, shutting a large pair of doors to leave them behind in the entrance tunnel. Both genin looked at each other at the same time, "At least he'll be alright." Ino said with a sigh of relief, "I'll kill him for being so stupid and getting messed up like that."

Shikamaru was thinking about something else though, "Didn't the Gaara guy say that if Naruto didn't fight he was going to just kill him anyway... and us?"

That thought sobered Ino up and brought her right back to the point of desperation, "He did... he said it more than once." She looked at Shikamaru in worry, "Do you think he can heal in three hours? Enough to at least defend himself or run?" Three hours would be when the last match happened, "I don't think we can just cut out and leave the exams can we?" Ino asked.

In theory they could... but not only would everyone see them quit in the arena, anyone watching anywhere else in the world would see Konoha quit without even trying to fight. All of the fights it took to build up the village's profile throughout the exam could be cut down if they did so. Even to save face for the village running wasn't an option.