Chapter 13
Sakura Harano
“Ow, it hurts,” Rock Lee whined.
“I know,” Sakura responded, concerned. “I’m trying the best I can.”
Sakura concentrated hard, trying to use her healing quirk to heal Lee’s burns but they didn’t seem to work. Though she had never trained her healing, she was confused as to why the burns didn’t even appear somewhat healed.
First day of school, I have in school suspension and detention, she thought. Second day of school, a kid I met in detention decides to fight everybody, burning this poor guy, and now, I realize that one of my quirks isn’t working.
“Ok, Rock,” she said, trying to sound gentle. “I’m gonna grab some water to maybe help ease the pain.”
“Are you sure that’ll work,” he asked, whimpering.
Truthfully, Sakura had no idea. “Yes,” she responded, confident. She then ran as fast as she could to grab some water.
Asuma and Naruto were still fighting at this point. When she looked towards the battle, she saw Jugo on top of Naruto. The big man had turned into a rocky version of himself. But Sakura didn’t pay much attention to the battle. Someone was badly hurt and needed help. She was the only one that could help at this time.
She desperately grabbed a lot of water bottles. So many that on the way back to Rock, bottles were slipping out of her arms. Quickly, she opened a bottle and poured it all on the boy’s wound.
“Ouch ouch,” he whined. “Not too hard.”
With the next bottle, Sakura let the water slowly come out. She continued to keep doing this until someone patted her on the shoulder.
It was Tsunadae, the school nurse.
“Don’t worry,” the nurse told them both in a reassuring voice. “We already called healers. They should be here any moment.” Sakura felt reassured until Tsunadae let out a loud, deep burp.
“Excuse me,” Tsunadae said, giving the kids an awkward smile. It was then Sakura noticed the stench of smoke spewing from the school nurse.
Almost everyone had left the field by this time. Asuma was passed out on the floor while Sasuke and the Taka Gang were trying to attend to Kiba’s wounds. The sound of sirens were slowly becoming louder and louder until Sakura could see the pink, healer trucks, pull into the school parking lot. The healers, dressed in pink scrubs, burst from their trucks and rushed to the field. Some of them, who’s outfits were a darker pink than the others, carried stretchers over their head.
One healer pushed Sakura away from Rock Lee. Another healer, who’s uniform had the word ‘TRAINING’ typed on his back, closely followed.
“Ok, now remember, boy,” the healer said to one in training. She looked much older than the one in training. “Before you can heal anyone, you have to ask the Kin Theory Questions.”
She turned to Rock Lee. “Young man, do you have any quirks that’ll interfere with the healing that I may not be aware of,” she asked.
“No,” Rock whimpered.
“Will you accept my help,” she asked.
Rock Lee nodded. The healer then proceeded to try and heal the burns.
“Do you have any preexisting conditions I need to know about? Like Asthma or any heart conditions,” she asked, a little out of breath. The healing seemed to only be barely working. Rock shook his head.
“I need a carrier over here,” the healer yelled. One of the people in the dark pink uniforms rushed over to her and placed down a stretcher.
“Ok, the burns are too severe that field healing isn’t going to help you. We’re going to have to take you to the hospital to get you the help you need. Do you understand?”
Rock nodded his head. The carrier easily picked Rock Lee up and placed him on the stretcher. They then rolled away, towards the pink trucks.
Soon, the healers all left.
Tsunadae approached everyone unharmed from the brawl and told them to go to the front office. As the group was walking, Sakura approached Sasuke and the gang.
“What the hell just happened,” Sakura asked.
“Who knows,” Karin replied. “All I know is that Jugo clearly did better than Suigetsu today.”
“Fuck you,” Suigetsu said. “I still did good. I probably would’ve gotten on the team.”
“There wasn’t anyone on the team that wouldn’t have gotten on,” Karin said. “Sakura would’ve made it on the team and she’s in fencing gear. Which, by the way. You’re really hot right now, right?”
“Uhh, not really. Mostly due to the adrenaline, I’m not feeling anything right now,” Sakura responded.
“Karin, stop flirting with Sakura, she’s not into you,” Suigetsu chimed.
“I’m not flirting,” Karin whined. Sakura noticed that the longer she would hang out with the group, the higher Karin’s voice became.
“You literally said she’s really hot,” Suigetsu said.
“Because she is! She literally has on fencing gear!”
“And you always have this deep voice, trying to sound all mysterious or sexy- I don’t know! I know that ain’t your real voice.”
“Shut up, you’re only coming for me because I said Jugo did better than you,” Karin replied.
Sakura was still shaken up about what happened on the field by the time they arrived at the office. What happened did not seem normal. But Suigetsu, noticing how shaken up Sakura was, tried to comfort her by reassuring that this wasn’t a big deal.
“Where me and Jugo come from, these things happen all the time,” Suigetsu said. “I know it’s kind of crazy that some kid just tried to fight everyone, including the teacher, but these things happen. You don’t gotta be so worked up.”
Except this was something to be worked up about. Sakura felt that it was. Naruto didn’t just go on some temper tantrum and tried to fight people. He was genuinely trying to kill everyone who got close to him. And it was random. There was no build up. One moment Naruto was fine, next, he’s in a completely different form and attacking the people around him. And those burns on Rock Lee. The boy is in the hospital right now. This wasn’t just some fight.
Not even mentioning the fact that what Naruto was doing were not what he described his quirks to be, she thought. He was burning people. He was moving faster than normal. You can’t do that with a clone and transformation quirk.
Her suspicions were confirmed by Sasuke and Jugo’s eerie silence during the entire walk towards the office. Jugo was constantly rubbing his hands, the hands he used to pin Naruto down. It had healed scars all over it and they were pink. The claws Naruto managed to have cut Jugo even in his rock form.
Sasuke was dead silent, with a subtle fearful expression on his face. He seemed to be piecing together things that Sakura was unclear on. All she knew that what he was piecing together wasn’t good.
Tsunadae led them into the principal’s office where they were met with Jiraiya, the Biology teacher.
Why is the bio teacher talking to us, Sakura wondered.
Tsunadae shut the door behind them. The entire mood changed. Jiraiya stood over the kids, his face serious. But Sakura noticed that his eyes were not directed at the group. Only directed at one singular person.
Sasuke.
After a brief moment, Jiraiya finally spoke.
“What happened today was unfortunate,” he started. “You guys witnessed something very disturbing. A student trying to fight their fellow students and their coach. I know you might be concerned for some who are in the hospital, but don’t worry, Asamachi has healers who can treat almost anything. Anyways, the reason Tsunadae and I gathered you kids has to do with what happened out on that field. Now, rumors are going to go around about what happened, and that’s fine. We can’t stop the spread of rumors. But you guys were the only ones to stick around to clearly see what happened. You are witnesses to this event.”
“We weren’t the only ones that saw what happened,” Karin said. “There were other people-.”
“You’re right. Let me rephrase that,” Jiraiya interjected. “You guys are the only witnesses we care about.”
Jiraiya’s eyes never moved away from Sasuke.
“We want to…” Jiraiya continued. “…Control the rumors. Control the information about this incident. We don’t want information being spread far away from this school because this incident is very serious. Certain people finding out about this fight could be very damaging to us. Do you understand?”
Everyone nodded but Jiraiya didn’t continue until Sasuke nodded too. Sakura was lost on what was going on between the two.
“Your efforts to keep this incident a secret will not go unrewarded,” Jiraiya said. “We know about your situations. Jugo, we know that your mother is sick. That she has been for a while. We can help with that. Healers are expensive and her chronic illness means constant attention from healers. If you help us with this-.”
“What is this,” Suigetsu asked cautiously. “And why are you trying to bribe us to not talk about something as simple as a fight that happened at school?”
Jiraiya looked at Tsunadae, trying to ask for help with a stare. She only gave him a disappointed face.
“I need a smoke,” she sighed as she walked out the room, cigarette in one hand while the other dug in her pockets in search of a lighter. When she was gone, Jiraiya looked back at the kids.
“Image is very important at this school,” he began. “And I don’t know if you know this, but the president of this country is doing his first campaign rally at this school. So, try and think about what would happen if the president found out about this fight a couple days before the rally. We have a lot of eyes on us right now, so I just want to work with you guys to make sure that these next few days are a smooth one. I’m sorry for coming off a bit weird. So, please. I’m begging you. For the sake of the school, try not to tell anybody about what happened on that field, ok?”
Everyone nodded. Jiraiya then let the kids out of the office. The group was so shaken up that no one said a word.
Everything was off about today. The entire football tryouts. Naruto’s random outburst. Jiraiya’s weird behavior at first before sounding a lot more normal.
Why didn’t he just say why he didn’t want us spreading rumors from the beginning, she thought. Why was he only staring at Sasuke? I get that he doesn’t want the president finding out about this fight, but what’s up with him bringing up Jugo’s mom? How’d he even know about his mom?
Sakura got an eerie feeling that these next few days were going to be far from smooth.