A Lotus in Winter: A Rock Lee Love Story

Chapter 44: War Cont...

Sayuri's POV:

Being a healer during the war was proving to be difficult work. We healers never got a break, we had to constantly work to keep the shinobi in fighting shape and the exhaustion wasn't the only toll. The shinobi came in all sorts of conditions, some with unimaginable injuries that distorted them beyond recognition. It didn't matter if they were from different lands, as Lord Kazekage said they were all our comrades. Never in my life had I seen such suffering, it was hard to keep a calm demeanor and keep a smile on my face to comfort the wounded.

We faced many issues, including zetsu infiltration. They disguised themselves as our comrades and this threatened to tear us apart at the seams. However under our leaders' command we prevailed and snuffed the infiltrators.

This however was but one of many disgraceful actions the enemy took. For they also reanimated our fallen comrades of the past, forcing them to fight a war against their own people. I feared more than anything that my true father the white fang would be among them. I hated the very thought that brother may have had to fight him. Thankfully however it seemed his soul was spared of this injustice. This for me was bittersweet. I didn't want him to suffer again and be forced to cause damage to our cause, but it would have been nice to meet him.

In the midst of my thoughts came a mighty roar that shook the very earth. That sound is something I will never forget, it was the first time I felt fear. I feared that my beloved brother, my love, or my friends would be hurt by the source of that roar. That was when I first saw the creature known as ten tails. Off in the distance this mighty creature rose, destroying everything in its wake. It was the most painful feeling I have ever experienced. It was at that moment that I realized how much of a curse being a sensory ninja could be. The battlefield once full of valiant shinobi, was reduced by the hundreds, even thousands in an instant. This creature's destructive power was unmatched and even from the distance I was at, it's chakra seemed to burn of hatred.

I had to stop focusing on it and instead focus on my work, there were shinobi who needed me. Time passed and I tried my hardest to block out the sounds of the battle and focus on my duties instead. It was torturous, shinobi after shinobi was brought to us in all sorts of conditions and already I could feel my chakra supply running low. I had to preserve and put my trust in my comrades, they were fighting as hard as they could and this was my contribution.

Then like a knife in the dark I felt a piercing pain in my chest. Hundreds of lives were just ended by a 10 tails attack, and among them I felt the chakra of my comrade Neji slip away into nothingness and he was gone.

With that I realized, war wasn't hell. War was something much worse than that. I looked around and in my bloody surroundings I saw that we were losing this war and that the other healers knew this too. We needed a miracle.