“Eight Trigrams, Sixty-Four Palms!”

Yagura watched as yet another of his division fell victim to the Hyuga’s Gentle Fist. Chakra swirled around the Hyuga and his prey, tenketsu shutting down one after the other as he called out each strike.

Shuriken flung past him, nicking his cheek and forcing Yagura’s senses back into the battle. Trees burnt in slick mud and the plethora of Konoha shinobi continued to press on them.

Yagura gritted his teeth and ripped his Bo-staff out of the earth sinking mud, around him three of his mates were trapped in the mud trap, each struggling to free themselves.

“Yagura! We’ll hold them off, get out of there!” Murai Karatachi yelled out behind him, quickly circumventing the mud trap with his bloody katana set to reap more from the encroaching Konoha shinobi.

Cursing under his breath, Yagura stabbed his Bo-staff into the mud, chakra pumped from the few tenketsu he had left and with his weapon he frantically flipped through handsigns to mould a jutsu to life.

“Sixteen Palms! Thirty-Two Palms! Sixty-Four Palms!”

That was the end for Sugimoto. His limp body was thrust out on the final strike, slammed into a burning tree and his throat slit open before he could even touch the ground. Murai was all that was left of the 13th Division now, Yagura could scarcely believe how his command had reached such a point.

Of the twenty-six excellent shinobi he commanded only five, including himself were now alive.

Murai’s katana gnashed against the enemies kunai. He leaped away before a whirling Fuma Shuriken could slice him to bits yet the weapon split itself open, its user’s Wind Nature chakra sent individual blades at Murai who managed to retreat with a well placed Subsitution Jutsu, a human sized boulder took his place to be skewered and then shattered.

Murai appeared some feet away, panting and somehow bleeding from his thigh. He glanced at Yagura, smiled and raised his katana to fend off two eager opponents.

Besides those two, four more Konoha shinobi remained. Two Hyuga’s, one Uchiha and the shinobi wielding the Fuma Shuriken. Yagura looked over to the mates trapped with him, Koshiro was chakra exhausted even before the Uchiha’s jutsu caught them in the mud and Minako’s sword arm was injured, three of her fingers sliced off in a prior exchanged.

Ryozo caught him staring and glared, “Focus!” He too was injured, bleeding from a deep cut on his shoulder, narrowly missing his neck. Half his tenketsu were shut much like Yagura but unlike Yagura he wasn’t capable of moulding chakra well enough to form jutsu.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity Yagura felt all the connections click and his jutsu form, without a word water gushed out of his mouth like a fountain, flooding the mud and overwhelming Uchiha’s Earth chakra nature keeping them trapped.

Minako was freed first. She picked her blade with her less skilled left hand and began to blow Wind Nature chakra onto it when Yagura yelled, “Stop! All of you, get back behind me, retreat!”

Ryozo deflected a flurry of cloned kunai and shuriken as he made his way over to Yagura, “What are you-”

Yagura shoved him away, “There’s no time to argue, get Koshiro and leave. I won’t have another one of you die on my watch. The four of you…you have to survive. Now go, go I said!”

Still, Ryozo hesitated to leave, “What about-”

“Leave, I’ll handle them, Murai will be right behind you.” Yagura spun his Bo-staff, chakra lined on its hook drew muddy water and sent a wave deflecting all thrown projectiles.

In the corner of his eye Ryozo, Minako and Koshiro began to make their escape. The Bukijutsu specialist made after them while the Uchiha flipped through handsigns. Yagura leapt from his position in the mud waters, sprinting towards the greatest threat of them all— the two Hyuga’s.

He kept the sounds of Murai’s battle against two Konoha shinobi in the back of his head as the Uchiha unleashed a giant ball of fire at his head. Yagura barely paid it any mind, there was ample water for him to perform his next jutsu without too much strain on his locked tenketsu.

“Water Puddle Transportation.”

Yagura sunk into the water just as the heat from the giant fireball reached his skin, within a second he reappeared behind the Bukijutsu specialist, her Hyuga comrades raised alarm at the unfortunate moment Yagura’s Bo-staff hooked around the woman’s neck.

He pulled her down before she could even think of unleashing that annoying shuriken and swifly smashed the broad side of the Bo-staff against her skull. Stubbornly she shielded herself with chakra but her skull was dented, nose shattered and her left eye bursted, she wouldn’t live long without a medic’s attention nor would she be a bother.

Still…

Yagura spun his Bo-staff and let the small hook skewer her neck. With her flesh caught he raised her traumatized body and flung it at her racing comrades. One of the Hyuga caught her and screamed her name, while the other dashed forward to catch Yagura in another pesky Gentle Fist combo— he wouldn’t let him.

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The water swallowed Yagura whole, the Hyuga’s thrusted palmstrike missed his head by an inch. With the Bukijutsu specialist dealt with all that remained to secure his Division’s escape was Murai.

“Goshiro, burn away the water, quick!” Yagura heard the Hyuga call in fear of his jutsu. Their eyes could see him even while he moved through the water but they couldn’t follow him accurately, Water Puddle Transportation moved him too quickly for them to fully process and react to.

But he only needed to use it twice. Yagura leaped out of the water behind Murai, his body was bleeding out in various places but his opponents weren’t any better. Kirigakure Kenjutsu couldn’t be surpassed by phonies even when given a handicap— Yagura would swell with pride at his Division mate if he weren’t looking so dire.

Murai’s opponents reacted faster than the Hyuga’s to his presence but that was fine, two against one was the advantage they’d pressed all this time and Yagura was here to tilt the scales.

“Hurk! Damn it…how?” A shimmering Wind Blade poked out the enemy’s chest. Yagura stood behind him and sawed his Wind enhanced kunai up and down the man’s sternum while they watched another Yagura wielding the Bo-staff assault the man’s teammate.

Yagura freed his kunai through the man’s kidney and liver, “Water is my domain.”

“Kirigakure. Die!”

Yagura spun around and slashed his Wind Blade at the heated gaze of a Hyuga looking to lock his tenketsu again. Behind him he heard the other enemy that ganged up on Murai perish to his Water Clone, without uttering a word the clone flung his Bo-staff towards him before going on to help Murai escape.

“Yagura! Yagura!” Murai kept screaming his name even as his clone chatered him off.

Even though he was regaining some sensation in his locked tenketsu and had eliminated three of the enemies, the situation remained dire. Two Hyuga were bearing down on him, barely giving him space to pick up his Bo-staff and then there was the Uchiha waiting for his time in the rear.

He couldn’t even employ Water Puddle Transportation again because the moment he spun his chakra for any kind of jutsu the Hyuga’s assault became more violent. It was only the semi-invisible length and sharpness of his Wind Blade that kept them at bay now.

Suddenly, my senses warped and the Yagura battling against the odds was replaced by another covered in blood. The mud and burning trees of the battlefield faded into a place I’ve begun to recognize as home; Kirigakure.

Yagura was carrying a blonde-haired woman in his arms and rushing through a hospital, frantically searching and begging for moments worth of attention from any of the bothered and hastened Medic-nin sprinting about the place.

There wasn’t even a single free bed to place the woman in his arms but Yagura yelled, screamed over the choruses of anguish and agony that filled the hospital. A young girl came up to him, eyebags as dark as a kunai’s edge sagged and aged her features even though at a glance Yagura was sure she couldn’t be more than twelve years old.

“Place her on the floor here please. Do you have an emergency kit with you?” She demanded, not bothering to even introduce herself or ask what happened. Seeing Yagura shake his head the young medic-nin ripped away the woman’s clothes, exposing her blood-soaked chest and causing her to shiver against the hard floor.

“Please, please save her…I…I don’t-”

“Quiet please.” The girl snapped, she stuffed a hand in Yagura’s weapon pouch and retrieved a senbon. Chakra flared at the tip of her finger, releasing a strong heat she used to sterilize the senbon before directly infusing the weapon with chakra.

Yagura watched on hopelessly as the girl did her best, poking sixteen holes through the blonde woman’s ribcage before pressing glowing palms against the large gash running through her centre. He watched for minutes as the wound closed little by little but there was so much more to heal.

“She inhaled some bad-”

“Let me do my job, sir.” The girls voice was strong but Yagura couldn’t miss the strain in it nor the wavering of chakra around her glowing palms. She was diligent but that alone wouldn’t be enough, he felt it in his bone, no, he saw it, right in front of him.

The girl lasted over an hour before nearly collapsing beside the blonde woman, she looked up with guilt coloured in her eyes as she said, “I’ve done all I can, I’ll see if there’s another who can complete my treatment but…” she looked around the chaos of the hospital and it was obvious what she left out.

Yagura bowed deep, thanking her profusely as she wiped her bloodied hands against her scrubs and smiled, she gave him and the unconscious blonde woman a look of sympathy that seemed cleared than everything thing in the haze of memory before taking her leave.

Yagura crawled up against the blonde woman, squeezing her hand for even the slightest response but there was none. She breathed still and yet Yagura feared breath was the last thing he’d see her do.

Once more the world before me faded and the Yagura curled up against his dying friend was replaced by the one I knew, the one showing me all of this. I felt myself have a body separate from him and his memories again, it was odd to be just Jason again but I was.

Behind him was Isobu and the three pillars sealing his Tailed-Beast chakra, I took it all in, the pressure of the ocean upon me and his infectious chakra. Yagura’s stern glare hasn’t let up once, his eyes narrowed even further as I picked myself up and recalled how this all happened and why.

“I understand.”

“Do you? I think you need to see more.” He said, arms folded.

“Maybe, I deserve to and I should. But I understand now. I…I’ve been blind to you all this time.” He raised a brow at this and I nodded, “What you’ve shown me is…it’s who you are not who I remember you to be, not who I was told you were.

“All this time, I’ve been afraid of becoming the ruthless killer that I witnessed in my own world, not even stopping to think that…that it isn’t who you are and that even if a part of you is a strong shinobi capable of dangerous things…that’s not all there is to you. I thought if I accepted you, I would lose me too, I would lose all the things that make me…Jason but I didn’t understand that you…after all this time you knew me more than I even knew myself.

“You already know what I fear and you have the strength to face off against them with what I know of the future. The threats, the Akatsuki, the caste system, the other great nations. I thought…ha…I don’t even know what I was thinking, its just all so dumb now.”

His scrunched up face lightened up with a smile and he set his hand out to me, “I am like you. I am more than just a shinobi, more than a tool you can channel to intimidate and murder, more than a confidence booster. I am Yagura and I am capable of love and compassion, perhaps even more so than you. You’ve neglected so many of my…our people because you wanted to distance yourself from the shinobi in me. Enough of that now, are you ready?”

I glanced at his hand but he raised his arms up with a bright smile, offering an embrace. Is that what I look like when I am…happy, excited? So…cute.

We met in the middle, right underneath Isobu and for the first time became one.