Chapter 34
Hopping from branch to branch, team eleven travels quick in the direction of the tower.
“how do you know it still there?”, Mito asks, looking to the side and seeing the clearing Naruto made, “it might as well be gone”.
“the tower still there”, Naruto says, pointing to where the strip of bare land ends.
“gosh, I still can’t believe we faced a sannin and lived to tell the tale”, Sakura says, still feeling the rush of adrenaline in her veins.
“I still can’t believe that attack of yours didn’t killed someone”, Mito says, directing her statement at Naruto.
“luck is a funny thing indeed”, Naruto answers, noticing the sun going down, “let’s speed up the pace, I want some solid roof over my head before the sun is down”.
“I couldn’t agree more with you”, Sakura says, speeding up and passing her teammates, “last one to reach the tower cooks!!”.
“game on!”, Naruto and Mito answer, also upping their speed.
Meanwhile in the hospital, Tsunade rovers over the unconscious form of the twins.
Just a few minutes ago, they were conscious and responsive, but now, they were in a coma, and she averts her eyes for a moment to gaze at the results of the preliminary tests she ran, the results weren’t good by any stretch of the word.
“Tsuna, how bad it is?”, Minato asks, holding Kushina who was barely keeping herself together.
“I’ll have to do some more tests to get to the bottom of this but… the picture isn’t pretty”, Tsunade says and her heart clenches at the sight of Kushina almost crumbling.
They may clash in ideas here and there, but overall, Tsunade could not fathom how painful it is for a mother to see her children in such state.
“what can you tell right now?”, Minato asks, also trembling.
“the nine-tails chakra is fading away, that’s for sure. Again, I need to do some more tests, but I estimate that it will be all gone in the following three to six hours”, Tsunade says, turning her eyes to the pale twins, “my biggest concern right now is the damage done to their chakra coils”.
Tsunade lets he silence hang for a second as she carefully pieces her words.
“how badly are they damaged?”, Jiraiya asks.
“horribly”, is the only word Tsunade can think of, “they had the horribly chakra from the day they were born, their coils adapted to house it, but now it’s almost all gone. The body is trying to regenerate it but…”.
“but?”, Minato asks.
“I’m not sure, I can barely detect any sign of chakra repletion”, Tsunade says, “I cannot confirm it, but there’s a great chance that their chakra repletion had also been severely damaged”.
“why is that happening to them?”, Minato says, worried sick, “that didn’t happened to Kushina when the nine-tails was ripped out of her”.
“that’s because Kushina is a full blooded Uzumaki and even so, when that happened to her, her chakra coils did get damaged. Even now she’s just at 75% of what she could have been chakra wise if the transfer had happened like it did when grandma passed the nine-tails to her”, Tsunade says with a sight, “as for Nemuri and Menma, they don’t have such luck, as for the chakra repletion I can only theorize that it’s similar to what happens when someone takes steroids for a prolonged period of time”.
“hime, can you translate that to layman terms?”, Jiraiya asks.
“how a dumbass like you became a ninja will be forever a mystery”, Tsunade says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “to put in simple, steroids are artificial hormones, with prolonged usage it causes the body to either reduce or completely stop the production of natural hormones, solely relying on the external source”.
“so since Menma and Nemuri had access to the nine-tails chakra since birth, their bodies capabilities to produce chakra is either underdeveloped or nigh inexistent”, Minato puts two and two together, “and without a tailed beast to make more, the can’t fill their own reserves alone”.
“I cannot confirm it, but that’s more likely than not”, Tsunade says.
“what about Naruto, why he is not affected?”, Jiraiya asks.
“that’s because he have the soul of the nine–tails”, Tsunade explains, “as matter of fact, he remade the nine-tails after his resurrection, he remade her out of aether, funnily enough even though the nine-tails is now an aethereal, as he calls it, it still producing chakra, at alarming rates to be precise”.
“problem solved, all we have to do is get the brat to share some with his siblings”, Jiraiya says, getting a few weird looks, “what?”.
“Jiraiya, Naruto can barely bother to talk with anyone from the Namikaze-Uzumaki household outside of working hours”, Tsunade points out, making Kushina and Minato’s head drop, “and that whole debacle with the debt to the Uzumaki from Uzu certainly did not warmed him up enough to make him agree to be a walking battery to his siblings”.
“Tsuna, I’m pretty sure if you…”, Jiraiya was about to suggest something when his face gets caved in by Tsunade’s fist.
“I can’t even convince him to give me a bigger ‘fun money’ allowance, what makes you believe I can convince him to be walking chakra battery?”, Tsunade asks with an angry tick mark on her forehead, “besides, even if he agrees, their chakra coils are too damaged and that takes priority”.
“would transferring chakra help?”, Kushina asks, ready to give her children some juice.
“the way their coils are damaged, it would be like pouring water into a leaky barrel”, Tsunade says with a sigh, “this much I can say, right now they are producing the barest minimum of chakra to not die, top priority is to make sure they don’t lose anymore chakra and let it refill naturally to a point where they are stable enough to go through any procedure”.
Suddenly, in a puff of smoke Tsunade vanishes, reappearing in the tower inside the forest.
“gosh, I tough you guys would take longer”, Tsunade says, “well, I was supposed to give you guys a whole speech about heaven and earth and equilibrium, but right now I’m dealing with an emergency at the hospital, so congratulations on surviving and shit. Now you wait till the five days are up, if there’s any more culling needed a prelim will be held, it will most likely be one on one fights. There’s rooms over there for you to use since any of you are not allowed to leave the tower until the test is over”.
“well, thanks for the info”, Mito says, pulling a can of soda from a scroll.
“also, Naruto, can I have a word with you in private?”, Tsunade asks and Naruto nod.
The couple walks away from the rest of the team to speak in particular.
“no use in beating around the bush, I know you probably don’t want to hear about your siblings but…”, Tsunade says, trying to start conversation.
“that bad?”, Naruto asks.
“they’ll be lucky if they make it past tonight”, she spills, bluntly, “the damage to their chakra network is too severe for immediate treatment and the chances of them making it to a point where I can actually operate are functionally inexistent”.
“and you want me to fix it”, Naruto adds the unspoken part.
“look…”, Tsunade lets out a sigh, this gonna be a hard argument.
“fine by me”, Naruto says, shocking Tsunade.
Tsunade looks at him confused as he pulls two scrolls from his hoodie pockets (Naruto still wearing the same style of grey hoodie and jeans).
“I was expecting you to put up a fight or something”, she says, “heck I was expecting you to say everything but yes”.
“I’m a dick, not gonna lie, but I’m not heartless… at least not totally”, Naruto says, handling the scrolls to Tsunade, “I may not see Kushina as a mother, but she’s still a parent and it’s the children’s duty to bury their parents, not the other way around”.
Tsunade looks at the scrolls; they looked like any other scrolls, a small forest green cylinder of rolled paper sealed with a wax seal.
“those are high heal scrolls, put a drop of Nemuri and Menma’s blood in the wax seal, that will kick start the spell and fix them. They will burst in flames so you better make sure nothing caughts on fire”, Naruto explain, “they work on a one per person, also, they will restore their chakra network back”.
“thanks”, Tsunade says with a sigh of relief.
“don’t thank me yet, I may be doing this out of the little kindness I have in my heart, but I also want something in return”, Naruto says and Tsunade tenses, “I want to be left alone, I’m pretty sure if someone, probably Jiraiya, will or already had come with the idea I serve as a tailed beast chakra battery for the twins. I don’t want that”.
“fair enough”, Tsunade says.
“good!”, Naruto completes, “do you need a lift or you want to walk back?”.
“portal please, so way I’m walking all the way from here to the hospital again”, Tsunade adds as a portal open next to her, “thanks, see you in five days, I really need to blow some steam”.
“you and me both babe”, Naruto says stealing a kiss before Tsunade leaves, “tell Shizune I said hi”.