Saints and Suffering: A Naruto Fanfiction

Chapter 43- Reaction

Takaniwa was walking his kids to the morning after festival with his wife when the first explosion hit. He was several hundred yards from the hospital, and it still threw his wife and kids off their feet; he remained standing only thanks to an acquired reflex to stick to the surface he was walking on when an explosive tag went off. Losing your footing was a death sentence for a shinobi.

He was still in the process of helping his family back to their feet when the second explosion rocked through them. They were much closer to the town square than the hospital, and even Takaniwa was knocked to the ground.

The pressure wave that slammed into him threw him backwards a good ten feet. he was helping his son up when it came, and he instinctively clutched his child protectively, shielding him from harm.

It worked, and young, little Tsuka got by without hardly a scratch. Takaniwa was unlucky enough to get tossed into the corner of a nearby building, his head making first contact and concussing him,

As Takaniwa opened his eyes, his vision was extremely blurry, but the second thing he noticed was the blazing inferno starting a mere 100 meters in front of him.

It was already towering 10 meters into the air, and Takaniwa knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he had to do something. The vast majority of Yugakure was built in timberframed buildings, and a fire was one of the most dangerous things that could happen to the village.

The fact that there had been two explosions had quite literally been knocked from his consciousness by his concussion, and he was wholly absorbed in fighting the fire.

As he struggled back to his feet, he found his wife with their other son in her arms, and he handed Tsuka over to her with a quick word.

  "Horiko, take them away."

He paused for a second and looked at the smoke plume that had already begun to form, and he continued.

  "The wind is southerly, take the south entrance away from here, go to your parents house, I'll meet you there within 3 days. Do you understand?"

His wife was frantic, covered in dust, and hair and clothing were in disarray.

  "What's going on, Takaniwa? The explosions, the fire?"

Takaniwa grabbed his wife and gave her a hug and a quick kiss.

  "Trust me, You need to go now, the fire is worsening."

Horiko swallowed all her questions back down and sterned her face, quickly pivoting on the spot and walking as fast as she could south, noticeably limping.

Takaniwa took a single moment to watch her go, thinking to himself that he was a lucky man to marry such a beautiful woman of action and grit.

He then recomposed himself and turned back to the inferno that was blazing ahead of him. With a quick shunshin, he found himself at the edge of the fire, and tried to peer through, seeing naught but flames.

To his right was an onsen, and he jumped straight onto its roof, where he looked down within its walls and saw what he was looking for. A water source.

The hot spring itself would provide water to fight the fire, and Takaniwa started casting his most powerful water jutsus, pumping as much water as he could onto the blazing fire. He would not live long enough to come to regret that decision. The spring water was still poisoned from last night's operation by the Cult of Jashin, and what he was doing was simply aerosolizing it and spreading it about the village. But Takaniwa didn't know that, he was simply a man fighting a fire through the haze of a severe head injury.

Within a few minutes, two more shinobi joined him, and in wordless cooperation they continued to fight the fire. They slowly progressed forward and eventually hit the town square itself.