Chapter 164: Chapter 164
"Well, it's cool if you don't want to say," Naruto states as he shoves the wounded Shigeri to his clones and two of them lock the boy's wrist joints and drop him to his knees as a third clone presses a kunai at his throat. "But I'm not letting some weirdo hurt my family… or bite them."
"…You don't even know me," Karin sheepishly levels at Naruto.
"I want to though," Naruto returns. "I'm going to restart the Uzumaki clan, Karin-chan. Not only do I want to protect them, but I also want to get to know all the family I have left in this world."
'Urgh,' Karin mentally grunts at his emotionally honest kick to her gut. "…Oh, whatever," Karin states repressively happy. "There was nothing left for me in Kusagakure anyway."
"Uzumaki, you traitor," Shigeri yells, despite the kunai at his neck. "The village will hear about this! We looked after you! We took care of you-"
"The village killed my mother, you abusive asshole," she yells at him. "And the village was going to do the same to me!"
"She's a member of my clan now," Naruto gravely tells the weak and bleeding boy. "You come after her, and you'll have to deal with me." Naruto waves to the clones and they let the exhausted Shigeri go. "Since you're disqualified, the exit's straight that way," he tells him pointing to his eight o'clock. "You can let yourself out."
Once Shigeri is thirty yards away, Karin asks, "you really think it was a good idea to let him go? I mean, countries banded together to destroy Uzushiogakure because our existence was that much of a threat. Who's to say they won't do it again?"
Unimpressed, Naruto shrugs, admitting, "he'll have to survive first, and I just sent him toward the biggest nest of Konoha's Jumping Leeches in the forest. Just one of those bloodsuckers snags his skin for more than five minutes, and the only place he'll be reaching is the next world. But if you want to tell him not to go that way-"
"No," Karin exclaims, easily sensing how low on chakra her former teammate is. Watching Shigeri labor just to leave, possibly to his death, Karin apprehensively expresses to her family her decision. "My mother and I… we have special chakra that heals anyone who, uh, bite us. It's why Shigeri wanted my arm," she confesses, raising up her left arm so he can clearly see all the disfiguring bite marks. Thus far, she's managed to keep all the scaring to her left arm, but it was still humiliating and shameful to display.
"After the destruction of Uzushiogakure, we took refuge in Kusagakure under the condition my mother heals everyone who gets injured," Karin continues. "That's how she ensured we survived, but by the end, she had so many scars, her skin looked more like mangled chewing gum. After a surprise attack on our village, she… she exhausted her chakra supply healing everyone that was injured… and died."
Ignoring Naruto and the warm tear rolling down her cheek for her lost mother, Karin simply watches her long departed teammate as her croaky voice continues. "Her body wasn't even cold before they forced me to take her place. I hated her for protecting me until it killed her, I hated them for murdering her so they would live, and I hate myself for letting them do the same to me. So, no, Naruto. I don't care to warn Shigeri where he's going. He's the son of our village's leader and I can't think of a more fitting punishment than getting leeched to death. I hope Shigeri thinks of me when sharp teeth latch onto his skin and sucks the life from his body!"
After clearing her moist cheeks of tears, Karin turns to Naruto and hadn't expected him or his clones to be tearing up and holding it back. Some of the clones were even hanging off each other's shoulder for support, covering their eyes with their forearms.
"Uuuugggg… That's the saddest thing I've ever heard," Naruto bemoans mournfully before he rushes her in a full hug. "Someone pop after the Boss' fight," he wails, and a second later, all the remaining Narutos are hugging her. At the palpable feel of his empathy and the aura of his sympathetic chakra, Karin couldn't help her own tears from streaming before she's holding Naruto just as hard and crying freely.
SAKURA
Sakura never felt such fear… Such terror.
'That… look,' she shudders to think, recalling her very death in that long-haired nin's slit-eyes. Sakura could've sworn his kunai was lodged into the brain matter in her skull. Despite her shaky breath, Sakura concentrated on healing her self-inflicted stab wound while Sasuke finished applying the disinfectant cream she gave him before wrapping up his self-inflicted wound in gauze.
"I just…" Sakura starts. Still feeling her supreme terror, Sakura shakes her head a bit then finishes, "I'll treat you in a minute-"
"We don't have the time," Sasuke quickly whispers. With his Sharingan activated, he ignores her while he frantically surveys the dark and quiet forest for any hint of danger. "Finish healing yourself so we can get out of here!"
"Sasuke…" she mutters, never witnessing this much panic from him. His panic inspires her own fears as she thinks, 'he's probably right.' Their attacker is leagues above them. Sakura was only proud of the fact that she wasn't crying and shaking like a leaf when she barely managed to stab herself out of her fear-induced stupor with a shuriken. She's not even done closing her wound when a snake slithers down from the tree branch above.
"Sasuke!" She hollers and they both instantly leap in opposite directions, however, the large snake follows her teammate.
Yelling, "get away!" Sasuke kills the serpent with a reckless amount of kunai and shuriken, pinning it to a large branch.
'He's just as scared as I am,' Sakura oddly notes, as evidenced by his missing the snake sneaking up on them despite his Sharingan being activated.
Extricating himself out of the bloody and slimy snakeskin, like shedding its husk, this monster speaks in a scratchy and rancorous voice, "neither of you should relax for even a moment. Prey should always try their best to run away…" It wasn't until this monster's hideous eyes targets their very souls that he adds with a wicked grin, "…in the presence of a predator, that is."
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