Foxhound Chapter 1: Part 9

It had been almost ten minutes and the damn seal still wasn’t breaking, even with two Sannin channeling their chakra into the blasted thing. Jiraiya had no idea what that sigil was or who created it, but he was cursing its existence with every fiber of his soul. Both he and Tsunade had chakra swirling around them, making a windy roar in the room, and were channeling the energy into the string of seals that led up to the genin. At least Shizune was able to get in there and start suturing the worst of the boy’s injuries together. The bleeding had noticeably slowed, at least in the chest area, but if that seal wouldn’t break the fox would never be able to heal his student.

‘And if the demon can’t do its thing, Naruto will die,’ The Sannin thought grimly. If they only had someone with high chakra… Shizune was skilled, but like most medics she had far more control than reserves when it came to chakra. None of the medics in the building had the kind of power needed. They didn’t need a Kage level shinobi, but a very strong individual was still required nonetheless. Not for the first, nor the last time, Jiraiya lamented the Yondaime’s death. This seal would be child’s play if they had his power backing them.

‘If only Arashi-kun was alive… Or even-‘

Hatake Kakashi walked in the doorway. His visible eye had an unusual tenseness to it as he looked at his former student. Without a word, he pulled his forehead protector up, exposing his Sharingan enhanced left eye, and walked towards Shizune to see what he could do.

At that moment, Jiraiya felt like yanking the jounin’s mask down and kissing him till his mismatched eyes crossed.

“Kakashi-kun!” The Toad Hermit yelled over the noise of the chakra, “We could use a hand if you got one!”

“Where do you need me?” The Copy-Ninja replied.

“Grab a brush and start inking a line of seals with your blood out from Naruto’s chest!” Tsunade ordered, sweat running down her eyes from the strain she was under.

Kakashi took a few moments to eye the setup with his Sharingan. He was standing just in front of Shizune, which was towards the entrance of the room. To his left, Jiraiya was crouching at the edge of the room, his hands planted on the floor. A thin line of glowing seals made their way across the floor and its permanent black seals, to Naruto where they circled the red sigil that intertwined with the Kyuubi seal. To his right, another line of seals led to Tsunade, who was mirroring her fellow Sannin. Kakashi closed his normal eye and focused on the chakra radiating from the script.

The seal set was advanced, but linear. Both Jiraiya and Tsunade were using the same seals, even if they were at different positions to the boy. If they were using the same seals, then he could make an identical set and join right in. Kakashi was no seal expert, especially compared to a Sannin, but he had enough skill to use these without risking further harm to the boy.

“Got it,” The jounin said as his Sharingan finished recording the seal order. He reached into Shizune’s open medical bag lying beside her and pilfered one of her thin brushes. He carefully stepped past the woman and knelt across Naruto from her. He nicked his finger with a kunai and began to carefully ink out seals on the boy’s stomach.

Shizune didn’t even notice him as she carefully finished closing off a severed vein in the genin’s upper shoulder.

It took several tense minutes to ink out the entire line of seals. Finally, Kakashi discarded the brush and gathered chakra into his hands before slamming the palms onto the marks he’d just made. The kanji glowed blue leading up the boy and the energy joined the Sannins’ in combating the dark sigil.

At first the fresh chakra didn’t seem to do anything, but after a couple moments there was a noticeable change in the strange seal. Jiraiya grinned viciously as he felt the sigil give. It was like poking a finger through thick Styrofoam. Even with three powerful ninja focusing their chakra into it, the sigil still resisted several minutes before it cracked completely.

Shizune paused as she watched the glowing red seal dim to black before breaking apart and fading from the boy’s skin. As she watched, the Kyuubi seal slowly reformed into its normal state. She laid her suture and needle down and tried a diagnostic jutsu on the boy. The chakra worked like a charm.

“Tsunade-sama! The jutsu are working now!” Shizune called to her mentor. Her voice felt louder than usual, now that the noise from the chakra winds had died down. The Hokage got to her feet and staggered over to Naruto.

“Let me see…” She said as she performed the same technique as her student. Her eyes closed in concentration, but they snapped open in surprise.

“Dammit to hell…” Tsunade muttered. Sensing two presences hovering behind her, she turned to look over her shoulder.

“Hatake-san, if you had come ten minutes later, Naruto would have died. Thank you… And I don’t mean that just as the Hokage,” The Sannin said. Kakashi gave a nonchalant shrug.

“Glad I showed up on time for once,” He calmly replied. Tsunade noticed that he didn’t cover the Sharingan. In fact, he was watching both her and Shizune’s hand motions very carefully with it.

“How is he? How bad is it?” Jiraiya asked.

Tsunade sighed and motioned to Shizune to keep stitching the boy. She turned to look at the two men.

“Whatever made that seal knew just how to kill a demon-vessel in one strike. The Yondaime’s seal allows the Kyuubi’s chakra to mix freely with Naruto’s, with the only limit being how much the fox is willing to give up or how much Naruto’s body can handle. This mixing of human and demon chakra isn’t harmful in anyway to him, even without the seal in place. The seal just acts as a one-way floodgate and the two chakras merge naturally in his inner coils.”

Tsunade turned back and began perform a delicate healing jutsu. She trailed the glowing energy over the areas that Shizune had stitched up. The boy’s torn flesh began to sluggishly mold back together, though not as much as it should have.

“That thing though… I don’t know what it is or does exactly, but I do know what it did to Naruto.”

“It mangled his chakra somehow, right?” Jiraiya asked, while crossing his arms in thought. Kakashi continued to watch both the stitching and healing jutsu with undeterred focus.

“Much worse than just that,” Tsunade said. “The new seal warped the original seal to cause the demonic charka to react violently with the human chakra. It was like mixing potassium with water.”

Shizune looked up from her work with a shocked look on her face. She was the only one with enough real chemistry knowledge to know what that meant. She grimaced and returned to her work. Naruto’s bleeding had slowed enough that the tourniquets could be removed. Looking at the blue-white flesh of his arms and legs, the medic-nin prayed that the Kyuubi would be able to restored function to the boy’s limbs. A shinobi would rather die than lose the use of their arms and legs…

“Basically, it caused the chakra to explosively tear out of him. The damage to his muscle groups came from the inside of his body outwards, destroying them almost completely,” Tsunade continued as she traced a line of stitches along Naruto’s collarbone. “Not only did the chakra destroy his muscles, but it also screwed up his inner coils and acted as a scrambler for any incoming chakra. That’s why our healing jutsu had no effect when we first brought him in.”

“I wonder why the hell those bastards used it on him…” Jiraiya muttered. Kakashi’s ears perked up.

“Who did this?” He asked, though he had a sneaking suspicion he already knew.

Jiraiya glanced around and made sure nobody else was in immediate earshot.

“Akatsuki,” He mumbled as he leaned in towards the younger man. The copy-nin only narrowed his eyes and nodded. He had yet to break eye contact with the medic-nins’ hands.

“From the effects you described, I’m guessing the seal was a mistake on their part,” The Toad Hermit continued in a marginally louder tone towards the Hokage. “All our information said they wanted Kyuubi, and by proxy Naruto, alive for whatever psycho reason they cooked up. Makes no sense for them to kill him in the middle of nowhere. I thought they were a bit more competent than this, trying out an untested seal out on their main goal.”

“Hmm…” Kakashi muttered, taking in the news.

“Well, whatever mistakes they made, that thing did a number on his chakra. Even now my healing jutsu isn’t having much effect,” Tsunade said. “We’ll have to manually stitch him up before trying any healing. Though it could be because my chakra is so damn low from breaking that seal.”

“Hokage-sama,” Kakashi broke in, “Let me take over for you. I still have most of my chakra left. You’ll be able to focus on closing up his critical areas.”

Tsunade gave the man a critical look.

“You know medical jutsu?” She asked, not having seen such skills anywhere on the elite jounin’s rather lengthy profile.
Kakashi winked with his normal eye and tapped the left side of his head, next to his Sharingan eye. Tsunade was torn between whacking the man for stealing her technique and relief that he could keep going in her place. She was getting dangerously low on chakra.

“Alright, but you better have damn good chakra control. Just trail behind Shizune as she works. Don’t worry too much if it’s not having much of an effect. Just do your best with it and move on. We’re just trying to keep him alive for now,” The Hokage said. She moved over and let Kakashi kneel next to her. She was only partially surprised when he performed the jutsu near flawlessly and picked up where she left off. Well, at least he’d have that skill if he was ever injured in the field…

“Hoping the Kyuubi will pick up and repair the kid where we can’t?” Jiraiya asked, leaning over to watch the assorted ninja work.

“Absolutely. As it stands, there’s no way for Naruto to ever resume active duty if the fox can’t undo the destruction done to his system. Hell, he probably won’t ever be able to walk again if the Kyuubi can’t heal him.”

“What’s the extent of the damage?” Kakashi asked, as he calmly channeled chakra into the boy’s damaged flesh.

“What isn’t damaged is more like it…” Tsunade grumbled, though her anger wasn’t at the boy.

“To start with, his inner coils are royally screwed up, even with the Akatsuki seal gone. The demon chakra and human chakra won’t work properly together for quite some time. That’s what’s keeping Kyuubi from healing Naruto right now. The demon can’t control any chakra it sends out, keeping it from repairing anything. I’m surprised it was even able to get his blood production up enough to save the boy.

“Speaking of which, I guess the fox decided to go overboard in the areas it could still affect. The Kyuubi made Naruto’s blood production increase over twenty times its natural rate. That’s the factor that saved his life. The cost though, is that it’s stripped his body of almost all its reserves. What’s left of his muscle groups have atrophied. If he ever gets back on his feet, he’s lost months if not years of physical training. Worse than just that is the damage the tourniquets did.”

Tsunade gave a look to Jiraiya.

“They kept blood in him and that kept his body from completely eating itself, but as it is his arms and legs are virtually dead from anoxia. I think the Kyuubi can repair the damage in time so we’ll hold off amputation, but it may be weeks or even months before he regains use of them. He won’t be happy about that.”

“That’s an understatement,” Jiraiya muttered. Oh well, the brat could yell at him as much as he wanted, as long as he was alive to do the yelling.

“Internal damage is minimal, thank the Kami. He’s busted a few ribs and cracked a vertebrae, but it’s nothing life threatening. There’s not much else, except for his destroyed muscles. The muscular damage extends from the front and back of his upper torso to his upper arms and most of his legs. Those sectors are almost totally destroyed. It’s not really a matter of healing as much as regenerating new flesh from scratch. Even I can’t do that to another person. If Kyuubi doesn’t rebuild his muscle structure, he’ll never leave a bed again. Hell, he’ll never be able to lift his arms again,” Tsunade grimly finished.

“Well maybe the demon’s taken a liking to the kid,” Jiraiya muttered. Three sets of eyes gave him a look that said, “Did you hit your head!”

Sweat-dropping, the Toad Hermit tried to cover for himself, “Okay, well Kyuubi probably hates Naruto more than any other human except the Yondaime, but even so, it’d be suicidal to not get the boy back into fighting condition. They won’t leave off just ‘cause the brat’s bedridden.”

Tsunade ‘hmm-ed’ in thought.

“Well, that’s not here and now. Let’s finish patching him up and get him to a bed. He needs nutrients badly and I want to get an IV in him as soon as possible.”

Nobody said anything else as they worked on Naruto.