Journey of the Three Failures

Chapter 8: Where Loyalties Lie

Journey of the Three Failures

Eight: Where Loyalties Lie

Lee リー

"Kid, you need sleep."

"I will not. I must remain awake ... in case anything happens..."

"Ya' look like a mess! Have you been up all night?"

"Hai, I have... but I am just fine..."

The toad raised an eyebrow (or where eyebrows would be if toads them, anyways) as I yawned for a full five seconds. "I would wake you up if anything changed," he pointed out, "Honest..."

I checked Hinata's pulse again; it was faint but steady. No change. "If something were to happen to either of them due to my carelessness ... I would never forgive myself..."

Her heart had stopped earlier. I had continued CPR for five despair-filled minutes after I had believed her gone, full of denial and desperation. Then, incredibly, the girl had given a gasp and a shudder, eyes snapping wide open a moment before drooping shut. Her heart had restarted, and at the same time she had started breathing on her own again. I had a hunch that the full moon was in some way responsible.

The girl now slept peacefully, her skin in the moonlight nearly as white as the bandages on much of her body. After her condition had stabilized, I had gotten my first chance to check her over for injuries from battling the Akatsuki. I could not imagine how it had happened, but several patches of wood splinters had littered her body (even without counting those that she had clearly begun removing before I woke up); the worst of which had stretched almost the length of her arm and contained some splinters several millimeters thick and half an inch long. Glad to be doing so while she was unconscious, I had spent an hour meticulously picking even the tiniest of them from her arms, legs, hands, and back, applying anti-infection ointment as I worked. After that I had carefully cleaned a number of scratches and cuts, and then medicated and bandaged light chakra burns.

Naruto... he had had a few extremely light chakra burns, but by the time I had finished tending to Hinata's more serious injuries, the boy was virtually unscathed.

What on earth happened...? I wondered for not the first time. "Please ... could you keep talking to me, Gamakichi-kun? It would help me to stay awake..."

The toad sighed. "I guess what I'm wondering here is just who you three are – what you are. What's even going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"None of us toads have been summoned in a while; we were wondering what's up. I mean – who's that kid who summoned me, anyway? Why do y'all wear headbands, if you're apparently missing-nin? Not to mention, I saw some pretty freaky stuff happen earlier... Man, I just really wish I knew what happened to old man Jiraiya..."

"...Jiraiya? You mean Lord Jiraiya ... the legendary sannin?"

"Yep, that's the one. Do you know how confusing this summoning business gets? I mean, two months ago the guy summons me and doesn't say nothing but follow him without getting seen, cuz 'something's up.' So a little later he's going for a walk with the Third out in the forest, and outta' nowhere the old guy attacks him!"

I was very much awake now. "Wh – what happened next?"

"Long story short, the hermit ends up getting ko'd and drugged with something, and then he's handed off to a bunch of Sound ninja who pop up! And then – oh boy, was it hard keeping up with them! I was sore for–!"

"Gamakichi-kun!" I gasped, shocked, "Please...!"

"Right, right, so then the Sound guys take him real far away to the middle a'nowhere, and they head down a hidden passage in the ground. Pops thinks it's probably some kind'a prison..."