The Way Through Stone Village (Naruto)

99: The Tunnel Navigation

[OP: "Dear Wormwood"--The Oh Hellos]

Ami seemed to turn over what Sakura had said in her mind.

"I'm not a very strong fighter," she said finally. "I can't break you out of here. So what do you want me to do?"

Sakura had no idea; she was not a strategist.

Well...what would Naruto do?

No, bad idea.

She tried to imagine what Shine would have said to do at this time... Assuming they were really still out there and all still looking...they could find her. That wasn't the hard part--it was just the bandits having leverage or tricks...and the poison.

She looked up. 

"Is there a way to nullify that toxin?" she asked.

Ami shook her head. "Not that I know of. If you're one of us bandits, some of us are immune. The boss told us to rub salt over our skin."

"Salt?"

"Salt," Ami repeated, "with water, and it seems to keep it from building up, though some people still had tingling and swelling, but it didn't stop them up. But salt is kind of scarce. No new shipments of it coming in, either."

"Could salt cure it?" Sakura asked. "Why would salt work?"

"It wouldn't cure it. Wouldn't work fast enough to. They tried it. It's preventative more than it heals anything. I'm not sure how people get infected, but some thought it was the water."

Sakura had no context other than Suigetsu for how that was happening, but she thought.

Salt dissolves in water, but it also can purify things in the water, sometimes... It can stop bacteria... It can clean things too.

So was there something in salt that would dissolve whatever was in the water that was chunking together to paralyze people...as she could feel it doing in her own chakra network...? Being a bit more knowledgeable of that kind of thing as a medic, she'd figured it out eventually.

The other medics in Stone might have noticed too, if they could channel it as long as Sakura could without stopping.

She flexed her nerves, and they were stiff.

"Maybe not normal salt," she said. "But what if we infused it with chakra, to do a specific thing...? Do you think that would work?"

"It's not a thing I could do," Ami said. "But if you could...it's worth trying."

"I need someone who is infected," Sakura said. "And salt...to try. Would they let me?"

"Maybe, but how will that help us?"

Sakura looked up. "I'm not very good at strategy, but I am good at medicine, and that's all I got. If I can use that to leverage some kind of way to get me out of here, the others can rescue me...and you...but no, they wouldn't let you go with me, huh?"

Ami knit her brows. "Unless you had some reason for me specifically to escort you. I can't stay in here much longer anyway. And if anyone asks, I came in here to torture you also." She made a wry chuckle. "Most of the bandits would never believe that of me, but this batch don't know me that well yet. Maybe they'll buy it."

Sakura wrinkled her nose in disgust. "You said you're good with Earth style... What if I said that your jutsu would be the kind that could help me cure it? Would they believe that?"

"If you made it sound high brow enough for them," Ami said. "They're mostly stupid and ignorant. Why else are they bandits?"

Then she realized her own irony. "I mean the ones who were already."