Chapter 4
The captors had barely left the cold basement where they had been holding Kakashi when they encountered the Leaf ninja. Within seconds, they were dead. The rescue mission was launched almost immediately after Team Kakashi's return. Tenzou had reported everything he had managed to learn about the enemy to the Hokage and ANBU. Tsunade swiftly made the decision to retrieve her most valuable shinobi. Despite the protests of the Council and ANBU, she personally took part in the mission, appointing Shikaku Nara as her temporary replacement.
Initial examinations of Sai and Naruto’s wounds indicated that the enemy was using a poison-based jutsu that disrupted chakra flow. The Fifth Hokage roughly identified the type of toxin and instructed Shizune and Sakura to prepare an antidote based on her directions. Meanwhile, all shinobi assigned to the rescue mission were equipped with a healing and protective seal that should help slow down the effects of the poison if they were injured. Naruto insisted on coming along, but Tsunade firmly refused, stating that in his current condition, he would only be a hindrance. She didn’t have time for a serious discussion about his disobedience—Yamato’s report had made things clear. She would deal with that once they brought Kakashi home.
Thanks to Yamato’s intelligence and the overwhelming strength of the Leaf ninja, the enemy was swiftly defeated, and Kakashi’s location was discovered. Tsunade, Gai, and Tenzou found him lying in a pool of blood. Only his faint breathing indicated that he was still alive. When they saw the wounds on his head, his mutilated eyes, and the blood dripping from his exposed mouth, they were paralyzed by the sheer brutality of what had been done to him. The Fifth Hokage immediately began healing him, horrified to find not only the savage injuries but also multiple disruptions in his chakra pathways. The energy node in his heart was barely detectable. Kakashi was dying—and fast.
Gai knelt beside his friend, tears in his eyes. Tenzou turned away, unable to bear the sight. A growing sense of guilt and hatred for the monsters who had done this burned inside him.
Tsunade was the first to snap out of her shock. She quickly, but only partially, sealed his bleeding wounds with medical ninjutsu, wasting no time on bandages.
“We need to get him to the hospital immediately,” she announced, her voice unnaturally shaky. Fear was creeping over her—the fear that she wouldn’t make it in time to save him. She wanted to summon Katsuyu but felt an unusual resistance.
“There’s some kind of barrier around this room,” she said, irritated.
There was no time to find a solution. She was about to lift Kakashi into her arms when Tenzou, roaring with fury, unleashed dozens of wooden projectiles and spikes, tearing the building to shreds while shielding his comrades from the debris.
Suddenly, they were under the open blue sky, standing amidst the battlefield ruins. The fighting had ceased; the Leaf shinobi were restraining prisoners. The squad leader was Asuma. When he saw Kakashi’s limp body, he moved to approach but stopped as Hokage summoned Katsuyu. She only shook her head before the four of them vanished in a white cloud.
Sarutobi thought he saw complete helplessness in her eyes. It must be really bad, he realized.
A part of Katsuyu was already waiting in the Leaf Village hospital with Shizune, enabling a reverse summoning. Team 7 had not left the Hokage’s assistant’s side since the rescue team had set out. Sakura had been helping treat the boys and working on a way to counteract the poison. Naruto was slightly limping but recovering at an extraordinary rate thanks to his accelerated healing ability. Sai was regaining strength more slowly, his arm still in a sling and his shoulder heavily bandaged.
They were in the boys’ room while Shizune was examining their chakra pathways. She was pleased with the antidote’s progress—it was steadily neutralizing the poison in their young bodies.
“Shizune-san, Tsunade-sama is returning. Put me on the floor,” the gentle voice of the slug carried an immense sense of unease.
Everyone heard it—everyone except Naruto, who understood only one thing and shouted joyfully, “They rescued Kakashi-sensei!”
Shizune removed Katsuyu from her shoulder and placed her on the floor, ordering everyone to step back. They were in no way prepared for what they saw. In Katsuyu’s place knelt Tsunade, holding Kakashi in her arms. Beside her stood Gai and Yamato, their hands hanging limply by their sides. The young ninja were horrified when they saw their sensei’s battered, blood-covered body.
He was completely motionless. Naruto’s first thought was that he was dead, and he instinctively stepped back. Shizune remained composed and immediately injected Kakashi with the prepared antidote, calling for medical staff. The Fifth Hokage, with a tenderness no one would have expected from her, gently lifted the unconscious jounin. His head lolled lifelessly.
Sakura gasped in shock—only now did she clearly see his bloodied, open mouth and the stab wounds where his eyes and ears had been. His right leg jutted out unnaturally from torn trousers, revealing a fragment of broken bone. Blood dripped from his left side. His arms and fingers were twisted in grotesquely unnatural angles. All three of Kakashi’s students took another step back, only to find themselves pressed against the wall. There was no escape from this sight. No escaping the realization of the nightmare their sensei had endured. The Fifth Hokage placed the dying Kakashi on a hospital bed brought in by staff and immediately took him to the operating room. She paid no attention to the teenagers, as if they weren’t even there.
Naruto wanted to rush after them, but he was stopped by the stillness of his teammates, who stared at the jounin with dread. He turned toward Maito-sensei and Yamato-taichou. Their faces were pale and drained of any energy or determination. There wasn’t even a spark of hope in Gai’s eyes. In Yamato’s, there was only raw horror. The silence was broken by Gai’s trembling voice, though it seemed directed at no one in particular.
“They tortured him mercilessly. They blocked his chakra. Blinded him. Cut out his tongue. Took away his hearing. Such cruelty… such senseless brutality.”
His fists clenched involuntarily. If he could, he would have killed those barbarians all over again.
Gai’s words sent shivers down the students’ spines. How could anyone do something like that to another human being?
Sakura and Naruto had no idea that Sai had undergone extensive training in torture and pain infliction in Root. He had been taught how to brutally force people to talk, though, fortunately, he had never had to use that knowledge. Now, he realized that even he could not have been this merciless. What had been done to their sensei was inhuman.
Tenzou suddenly walked out without a word, his steps determined. Gai followed, but there was no trace of his usual springy energy. Sakura and Sai also left, as if in a trance, neither looking at each other nor at Naruto, who stood frozen, overwhelmed by the weight of responsibility. Naruto looked in horror at the bloodstains on the floor—his sensei’s blood. In the end, he too followed his teammates. He couldn’t be alone right now. He couldn’t even gather his thoughts. The image of his sensei’s horribly mutilated body had burned itself into his mind forever. He was afraid. More afraid than he had ever been in his life.