Read with caution if you're not up to date with the manga
Some habits are hard to break.
For Izuku and Ochako, tucking their suffering safely behind the corners of a smile is practically default at this point. No need to worry the people they've saved when the peace they've earned is still so precarious, right? But sweeping things under the rug hasn't worked out well for society so far, and they've both watched Heroes break and fall after years standing tall and alone amid the Hero Rankings. Maybe it's time to stand together instead.
So why is opening up—even to each other—so hard?
Chapter 1: I must be doing this all wrong
Ochako knows, before the bite of concrete even reaches her fingertips, that this is going to cost her.
She doesn't hesitate. In a flash of pink the weight of the collapsing building vanishes and sinks like a stone into her stomach instead.
For one terrifying moment the world wavers. Black spots dance across her vision, threatening to take over, but Ochako grits her teeth and claws her way back to reality. No self-respecting Hero just gives up with lives on the line.
She won't, either.
The pain in her stomach doubles. Triples. Ochako retches, only barely managing to keep her fingers wrapped around the building's edge. Bile dribbles over the edge of her lips, but she digs her nails deeper into the rough texture instead of wiping it away. She is the only thing keeping this building in place. The only anchor keeping it here — not floating into the sky where it poses a danger to unsuspecting masses.
Not dropping onto the pedestrians they haven't yet evacuated.
Here.
But she can’t hold it forever.
“MOVE!” Ochako screams. She doesn’t have time to specify who the order is for before her stomach rolls again, but that’s okay. Like they’d been waiting for her say-so, the frozen forms around her spring into action. She can hear shouts, orders and instructions from familiar voices, and she catches a glimpse of what must be Igenium’s blue flames out of the corner of her eye.
Relief cuts through the vice-like grip her Quirk has on her stomach. She's got backup. Her classmates are backing her up.
They're not prepared. No one's in costume. This had been a group trip to the arcade before the sirens called them here. Then again, had any of them ever been prepared for the challenges — the disasters — they'd faced? Ochako doesn't think so. Still, they'd stood together as the world burned down around them and walked through the fires, well, not unscathed, but together.
And they're here with her now.
Ochako readjusts her grip and turns her head enough to spit some of the foul taste from her mouth.
They can do this.
A window on the second floor shatters, and Ochako is reminded that the fire that burned through the support beams still rages on inside. She closes her eyes against the shards of glass that pour down. They bounce off her shoulders like raindrops — individually insubstantial pinpricks notable only as part of a whole. Cacophonous crashes add to the imagery Ochako builds behind her eyelids, but she knows better than to open them. This thunder splinters on impact, showering the street in thousands of slivers that shine and scratch.
Not ideal. The visor has long since been removed from her costume, overusing her Quirk in uniform quickly unveiled that design flaw, but Ochako fervently wishes for the long sleeves of her jumpsuit. The tank top she picked for today doesn't protect against cuts and burns — even if it wouldn't have gotten in the way of her skee ball windup.
Nothing to be done about it now. The cuts on her arms sting, but they're not deep. A couple bandaids and Ochako'll be brand-new. She shouldn't have to hold out much longer. Right? She'd been holding this building for how long, now? Almost a minute? Even if it's only Iida working on evacuation, it'll take another thirty seconds, tops.
Easy.
Ochako's stomach cramps, worse than anything she’s ever felt in her entire life, and she folds in on herself. Standing up straight becomes an impossible task as her insides tear themselves apart.
Not easy, she quickly amends.
She doesn't have thirty seconds. Ochako grinds her teeth angrily — a pointless act of defiance in the face of her absolute limit. This isn't something she can fight, not even for the civilians still under the building's shadow, and the knowledge burns hotter than the blistering bricks against her skin ever could. Defeat tastes like ash and vomit on her tongue, but there's no denying it any longer.
No one's called the all clear. If someone could stabilize this building, they would have. She has seconds before the decision is out of her control.
Title: Chidorillator
Summary: A request from Sakura for Sasuke to teach her the chidori opens up a whole bigger can of worms than she was expecting.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto. If I did, there would be Uchiha babies by now.
Prompt: Headcanon where Sakura learns chidori from Sasuke in order to use it on the field as a defibrillator (by sakurackerman)
Rating: T
Warning(s): Mentions of war, death, and some foul language
Author’s Note: Thanks to cumberwho-and-johnlock for being my amazing beta and rediscovering this fic! Also, this will be a multichap so stay posted!
The stench of burnt flesh consumed the air of the clearing. Two ninja swathed in black faced off, backed by broken and singed trees and ground-a testament to their hours of training. The petal-haired woman's locks were stained darker with sweat, and the only sound to be heard was harsh panting from the quivering young woman.
"Arrrgh!" Sakura grunted, agonized but determined. She was beginning to sway on her feet, but she hadn't made an inch of progress yet. Concerned, Kakashi stepped forward, but Sakura backed away from him, waving off his anxiety the flick of a single hand.
"I can get this, Kakashi-sensei, I can, just one more try!" her previously shaky legs widened into a larger stance, and she gripped her right wrist with her left hand.
As Kakashi had warned, it was difficult to tease the chakra out from her body. With chakra scalpels and healing it was different, sure, her chakra was formed outside her body, but it always had a shape-a definable edge. This, this was completely the opposite; to successfully complete the chidori she had to somehow select thin wires of her built up chakra and coax them into flicking around of their own accord, then allowing the transition from chakra to electricity.
"Fuck, ow!" she cursed, shaking her burning wrist. Failing was not the desired outcome, as the chakra Sakura had built up had a tendency to explode in a molten burst. The target of such an outburst was the skin the chakra had built up around. It was fair to say that Sakura's wrist was now a mess of half-healed, nearly-second-if-not-third-degree burns.
"Sakura, this was a great idea, but I don't think it's going to work out," Kakashi began, his tone extremely gentle without seeming condescending, "It's just-you're not an electric type. If I had to guess I'd say you were either earth or water, but I know it's not electricity."
"Goddammit, there has to be some way around it!" Sakura began to focus her chakra in her aching wrist once more, only for sleep deprivation and chakra exhaustion to force her to her knees.
Hands were immediately on her shoulders, helping her up, and a small, immature portion of herself wanted nothing more than to swat him away. This is why she hadn't wanted Kakashi as a teacher. Sure, he was a lot easier to convince, but she didn't need someone who balked at the sight of her in pain. Sakura needed results; she needed someone who would look at her singed wrist and shaky legs, curl his lip and say, 'You're doing it wrong. Try again.'
Of course, Kakashi was the only one helping her, and her gentle nature allowed her to thank him as she rose to her feet with his assistance-albeit stiffly. Seeing both of Kakashi's eyes at one time was odd, and it would definitely take some getting used too, although the worry the contained was all too familiar. Here it came, the 'Take care of yourself, Sakura-chan' lecture.
"Sakura," Kakashi began, his tone taking on his 'sensei' voice, "You really should get some r-"
"I don't have time for rest, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura snapped, popping a soldier pill from the container in her pouch. Her tone had Kakashi straightening in shock, and Sakura flinched internally.
Making Kakashi guilty wasn't in her plans, but she'd be lying if there wasn't a little resentment there as well. He was just as bad as Naruto and Sasuke when it came down to it, always pushing her back out of the way of harm. Really, what had Kakashi done for her as a genin besides pat her on the head, falsely console her, tell her she had great chakra control and talent for genjutsu, and then leave her? As soon as Naruto and Sasuke left, Kakashi had been gone. At least he had found a teacher for Naruto, but she…
Managed it on my own, Sakura thought firmly, ridding her head of pointless accusations. She was here now, and that was all that mattered.
Jerkily, Sakura bowed before leaving, "Thank you for your time. I'm sorry it was a wasted effort. I'll be at the hospital if anyone needs me."
No, this wasn't Kakashi's fault, but Sakura wasn't in the mood to sit and smooth things over, either. This was her only plan, and it was failing, and she had missed eight hours of hospital rotation for absolutely no progress of any kind.
Maybe the hospital would be in better condition today
---x---
"Sakura-san! Sakura-san!" a frantic voice called, and Sakura's head swirled to locate the source, "You're just it time! Cardiac arrest, tent five, patient unresponsive!"
The words hadn't completely passed the young medic's lips before Sakura's feet were in motion, Dashing through crowded tents and bounding over syringe filled tables and empty chairs, and sometimes full ones, she moved, desperate to not let another patient die on her watch.
Even if she hadn't memorized the makeshift hospital's layout on her first day, she would still know she was in tent five the moment she entered it. A swarm of nurses surrounded a bed in the corner, and a frenzied atmosphere consumed the space.
At first glance, it seemed like all the medics were supporting the one physically operating on the patient-the one calling out commands. A second look revealed that all, one-two-three-er-eight-nine, nine medics were individually working on scarily still woman. They were bombarding her with nine foreign sources of chakra? The vein that always pulsed in time with her temper spasmed on her forehead.
"Everyone step back!" she commanded, closing the space between herself and the victim with sure strides, "Secure her limbs with straps. You, move down the left side of her gown. Someone grab me hair clips."
The sea of blue scrubs scrambled before her in their haste to obey. While still furious with their conduct, Sakura pushed it all to the back of her mind as her fingertips came in contact with the chest of the dying woman. The woman's lips were tinged blue which showed she hadn't been breathing correctly for some time now, and, as a patient suffering cardiac arrest, her heart had ceased all function. She hated when they got to this point.
With precision, care, and the use of her chakra scalpels, Sakura cleanly thrust her hand through ribs four and five. She tried to avoid further traumatization the costal cartilage or lungs but she could already feel the fissures formed due to several long minutes of heavy CPR. Once the heart was securely within her grasp, Sakura took a steadying breath-vaguely, she noted her hair was being tied back by an unknown medic- and closed her eyes in concentration for a fraction of a second.
Now! her eyes flashed open, and her hand began the rhythmic motions that would hopefully save this woman's life. Right atrium, right ventricle, left ventricle, left atrium, pause. Now for the chakra stimulation.
Gently, ever, ever so gently, Sakura sent out her chakra in small, small bursts to each major nerve related to the heart. If she couldn't feel the heart responding after a second round of manual stimulation, she would hesitantly up the chakra used per burst. It was risky, as the more chakra used the more likely the patient was to react negatively, but, at the same time, the patient was less likely recover if the amount of chakra was too small. This delicate practice was one very few had mastered.
Sinoatrial node, atrioventricular node, his-purkinje network, come on! she chanted, switching over to manual pumping and feeling desperately for any kind of response. When there wasn't one, she hesitantly upped the chakra what she deemed as one "notch." Atrium, ventricle, ventricle, atrium, pause, SA node, AV node, his-purkinje network, atrium, ventricle, ventricle, atrium, pause. Nothing. Up chakra. Atrium, ventricle, ventricle, atrium, pause, SA node, AV node, his-purkinje network, atrium, ventricle, ventricle, atrium, pause. Still no response.
And so it went on. Sakura was nearing the fourth notch of chakra when she felt the shinobi's chakra level begin to fluctuate wildly. Shit.
"Tighten the restraints!" she called, steadily holding her ministrations at a third notch chakra level. A string of unspoken curses flew through her mind as she felt the shinobi's chakra began to flare and recede, sparking to higher levels of panic within her core and traveling in distressed waves throughout her limbs. As soon as the restraints had been tightened, the woman was seizing against them, her back arching upwards and mouth open in a silent scream.
When the heart in her grasp began to beat erratically of its own accord, Sakura immediately released it from her grasp. Accidentally squeezing at the wrong time now could result in busted atria or ventricles. Medics clamored to hold the woman's torso steady on the table, but she thrashed powerfully against them, back remaining stubbornly bowed. Sakura screwed her eyes shut in concentration-ignoring the pandemonium around her-and kept a steady pulse of chakra flowing into the heart's electrical components from her fingertips which lay limply upon the rampant heart.
Come on, calm down! Come on! Sakura thought, knowing the woman's body couldn't take much more of this.
As if the kunoichi had heard her, Sakura felt her chakra release die down, and it didn't take much longer before her body fell back down to the table. Because it had been forced into actions of its own moments ago, the heart soon took commands from Sakura's rhythm, after after a steady heartbeat thrummed into place beneath her fingers, and she gently retracted her intruding hand from the beating organ.
As color returned to the pallid woman on the operating table, Sakura sighed in relief and motioned for a rag to remove the blood from her hand.
"You"-she pointed with her half-clean hand to one nurse who had steadily performed his duty of wiping the blood away from the incision-"Finish healing her ribs and this incision. Nice work with the clean-up"
Now that the patient was out of immediate danger, there were other matters to attend to. She leveled her serious viridian eyes on the rest of the staff present.
"I want to impress upon you all how disappointed I am with your performance just now. You blatantly disobeyed every regulation and procedure for heart attacks, and you nearly cost this shinobi her life," heads bowed under her gaze, shame etched on each of their features, "There will be a meeting about this later. Stick to procedures until then. Right now, I have to make sure that none of the other medics have suddenly become incompetent. Dismissed."
Sakura's fury was pronounced in every syllable, and the medics broke for the exit as soon as she was done. This was ridiculous. The medic force was already understaffed as it was, and now she had to deal with medics suddenly losing their damn minds? Rubbing one throbbing temple, Sakura drew a deep breath, noticing one figure leaving just in time.
The ring leader of this whole operation! "You there! I need a word with you."
Hesitantly, the man who had been organizing the disastrous event slunk forward. Once he had set foot in front of her, he raised his head and squared his shoulders.
"You, just what the hell were you thinking before I arrived? Nine foreign chakras at once? Nine?" she whispered aggressively, not wishing to publicly shame her victim, just make a point, "There's a reason we don't use chakra to hold down our patients anymore! What were you even thinking?"
"I was thinking we needed a change in how we deal with these types of cases," he snapped, not lowering his gaze.
Sakura raised a challenging eyebrow, "So of course, the best solution is to overstimulate the patient with foreign chakra."
"It's better than nothing!" he snapped, seemingly oblivious to Sakura's infamous temper, "And we were not 'over-stimulating' her. We were treating her to increasingly powerful doses from chakra, and every nurse only had to focus on one steady force, instead changing the degree of chakra usage in a matter of seconds."
A couple of silent seconds passed as Sakura focused on controlling her breathing. They didn't need a scene here. Chances were more than a few of the nurses were feeling overworked and overstressed as well.
"No matter how you look at it, you still put that patient's life in more danger than if one medic had focused on her needs. No, listen," Sakura put her hand up to cut-off his argument, aware of the eyes on their confrontation, "The fact of the matter is, she seized at level three stimulation. Level three. That's unheard of, and I'll bet it had something to do with the technique you were using on her beforehand."
Thankfully, the medic had no response to this, although he still wore quite the scowl.
"I understand you're tired and that everyone is stressed. I'm working on a solution, and I'm open to ideas," Sakura continued in a gentler tone before hardening it once again, "What I will not stand, however, is putting patients' lives at danger with experimental procedures. I don't want you working on these patients for the next week, I want you on the skeletal unit. Dismissed."
While still looking mulish, the medic closed his open mouth and retreated when he realized he was stepping on the edges of her patience. The skeletal group focused on mending bones that had been shattered during the war. So immense were these types of wounds, that many shinobi were just functioning with reattached bones; they could all use serious attention before traveling back home. It was mind-numbing work, and an obvious demotion from the action packed open wound and trauma cases. Yes, this work was above his skill level, but the medic needed to be punished, and Sakura didn't have the staff available to send medics home.
"Yes, Haruno-san, I understand," he bowed out of her way, and Sakura barely inclined her head in response. She had been professional, but she was still beyond pissed at her medics' performance.
If chidori's out of the picture, what am I going to do to end this chaos? She mused, duly taking in the high tension surrounding the med tents.
"Sakura-san!" Chizu, a young leaf-nin called, starting Sakura from her thoughts, "failing lungs and heart attack in tent twelve!
With a sigh, Sakura was once again running, hot on the heels of Chizu. The chidori had to work, there was no other way to put an end to this. She just needed to figure out the trick to make it work.
-x-
Hidden by the rapidly deteriorating trees of the forest, Sasuke watched as Sakura repeatedly smashed her fist into whatever was closest. After her recent failed attempt at chidori, the pink-haired medic had given into a tantrum and was now channeling her frustration into the quaking ground.
"Pretty determined, isn't she?" Kakashi asked from above him in the canopy. Although Kakashi was keeping his chakra in control, Sasuke wasn't surprised when he felt him approaching.
"She's just wasting her chakra, she should know better," he responded snidely, "It's childish."
"Hmm," Kakashi drawled noncommittally, glancing at Sasuke from over the pages of his well-worn book. Sensing his unwavering gaze, Sasuke relented and turned to face his old sensei. Kakashi sat on a study tree branch. His legs dangled in the air and the arm not holding his book rested across one knee. What really annoyed Sasuke was the knowing look in Kakashi's eyes. Despite the obvious power difference between them, Kakashi still had the nerve to act like Sasuke was some snot-nosed brat who needed his advice, and he could guess what Kakashi was trying to convey just now.
I can think of a time or two when you lost your temper, Sasuke.
He curled his lip and returned his gaze to Sakura, refusing to admit Kakashi was right. Throwing a fit and giving into vengeance are completely different things, he thought, ignoring the twinge of shame in his chest.
"Well, Sakura has always had a temper," Kakashi continued, acting as if nothing had transpired between the two of them. Sasuke heard the rustling of paper as Kakashi turned the page.
"Hn."
Silence fell between them, and each returned to their own thoughts. The tremors shaking the earth came to a halt, but Sakura didn't emerge from the chasm she'd created in her anger. From this vantage point, all Sasuke could see was a pink tuft of hair disappearing below the surface. Perhaps she'd decided to take a break.
"Why are you here, Sasuke?" Kakashi asked, breaking the quiet that had descended.
Why was he here? Twenty-four hours in a small 'tent'-even if it was the only 'tent' with solid walls-had proved too large of a test for his ever-dwindling patience, and he had escaped the moment Naruto laid down for a nap; the dobe was having a harder time recovering all the energy he and Kurama had lost. He intended to find a quiet space for himself, but the moment he had sensed Sakura's chakra signature his feet moved towards her location. When he realized what his traitorous feet were doing, he reasoned he wanted to see what she was doing so far away from her medic post. There was no justification for staying this long, though.
"Fine, you don't have to answer me, but I want you to think about why you've refused to train her," Kakashi dropped from the trees and landed a couple paces away from him, "You owe her that much at least, Sasuke."
Sasuke snorted derisively and refused to face Kakashi as he left. He owed the leaf nothing. If anything, they owed him for the murder and manipulation of his brother and decimation of his clan. Satisfied with the familiar sense of loathing, Sasuke lost himself in thoughts of hatred and justice.
Eventually, Sakura dragged herself from the pit she'd created, and his sharingan picked up the details of her blood-shot eyes and fresh tear-tracks. She's been crying, he realized, causing his stomach to churn uncomfortably. Instead of feeling annoyed and justified by her emotional display of weakness, Sasuke found a large portion of him was distressed by the idea of Sakura crying without anyone to comfort her.
Was that all she was to him? A leaf-nin?
Although he would desperately love to say yes, recent events proved that he would never be able to break his bonds with Sakura and Naruto. He had declared a damn revolution, and after beating the ridiculous thought from his mind-perhaps a revolution directly after a war wouldn't work quite according to plan-Team 7 had still stuck by his side and promised to create a world he would be proud to live in.
Was that something acquaintances did for each other? Comrades? Teammates? Even just friends? Even Sasuke knew the answer was no.
Troubled by his tumultuous thoughts, Sasuke fled the forest, leaving Sakura far behind him.
There we are with the second chapter, folks! A little character development and scene setting, but never to fear, plot movement up next. Thanks for reading!
