Hiro was running out of time. The unnatural stability of his vitals was a countdown clock, not a sign of recovery. Protocol demanded she send for a specialist, file a report, wait for authorization to use the most potent antivenoms locked in the head medic's vault. But protocol moved with the speed of bureaucracy, and Hiro had minutes, maybe an hour.
Aiko's hands, raw and blistered, trembled above his chest. For a single, heart-stopping moment, the weight of it all—the exhaustion, the fear, the consequence of failure—threatened to crush her. She saw them shake, a faint, betraying tremor in the air. She closed her eyes, took a breath that scorched her lungs, and forced the tremor to stop. There was no time for fear, no time for memories. There was only the now, and the man dying before her.
She moved with a desperate, decisive energy. Ignoring the shocked looks from a passing orderly, she went to the reinforced cabinet containing the restricted pharmaceuticals. With a focused surge of chakra that made the burn on her palm shriek in protest, she shattered the simple lock. Inside, nestled in protective foam, was a single vial of "Dawn-Bringer," a universal chakra-antidote so potent and volatile it was only to be used under the direct supervision of a jonin-level medic. She grabbed it, along with a set of chakra-conducting needles meant for the most delicate chakra-point surgery.
Back at his side, her movements were a blur of grim precision. She didn't inject the Dawn-Bringer intravenously; that would be too slow, too diffuse. Instead, she used the needles, guiding them with her chakra sense into the specific points where the parasitic energy was most concentrated. She injected micro-doses directly into his chakra network, a dangerous, high-stakes manoeuvre that risked causing a system-wide collapse if she misjudged by a millimetre. The green glow of her healing chakra flared around the needles, a desperate lighthouse against the encroaching dark tide within him.
As the potent antidote began its work, forcing a tense, waiting vigil, she turned to his personal effects, a bundle of scarred and bloodied gear left in a heap by the stretcher-bearers.
It was standard procedure to check for emergency tags, allergies, or mission-specific contaminants. Her fingers, still humming with spent chakra, sorted through the items. His standard-issue kunai pouch was slashed almost in two. His flak jacket was a lost cause; the fabric fused and hardened in places from a near-miss lightning jutsu. Everything spoke of a mission that had been a brutal, close-quarters meat grinder.
Then she unrolled the mission scroll. The script was hurried, almost frantic, a stark contrast to the usual dry, meticulous reports. It listed the objective: a reconnaissance-in-force near the Wind border. It noted contact with Suna forces, led by Chiyo. But the details were… thin. The description of the "red-haired shinobi" was vague, almost an afterthought. The tactics of the enemy, the specific sequence of the ambush—it was all written with a breathless vagueness that felt wrong.
A mission of this apparent carnage, involving a legend like Chiyo, should have had a report pages long, dissecting every second for future intelligence. This was rushed. Incomplete. The unease that had been simmering in her gut now boiled over into a quiet, chilling dread.
'What happened out there, Hiro? What didn't they write down?'
A soft, ragged gasp pulled her from her thoughts.
She turned. Hiro's eyes were open. Not the wide, pained stare from before, but a hazy, clouded awareness. He focused on her face, his brow furrowing slightly as if trying to solve a difficult puzzle.
"I thought…" he whispered, his voice a dry rustle, each word a struggle. "I thought I was actually dreaming… but it really was you…"
The sound of his voice, however weak, sent a jolt through her system more potent than any stimulant. The professional mask she wore like armour slipped, just for a moment, revealing the raw relief beneath.
"I always told you I'd patch you up, idiot," she said, her own voice thick with an emotion she couldn't name. She reached out, her fingers gently brushing the hair back from his damp forehead.
A ghost of his old, infuriating smirk touched his lips, vanishing almost instantly into a wince. His hand shifted on the blanket, his fingers twitching toward hers. She didn't hesitate, closing her own around his, feeling the terrifying coolness of his skin. He didn't have the strength to squeeze back, but the simple contact was a universe of meaning. A half-laugh, choked and ending in a wet cough, escaped him.
"Lucky me…"
In that moment, watching the faint light of recognition in his eyes, she allowed herself a sliver of hope. A fragile, desperate thing. The antidote was working. He was awake. He was here. She told herself, with a force that was almost a prayer, that he would make it. He had to. And staring at their joined hands, for the first time in that long, hellish night, she almost believed it.
The hope was a candle in a hurricane.
Deep into the dead of night, when the medical tent was at its quietest and the only light came from the soft glow of monitoring seals, the chakra alarm on Hiro's cot erupted in a silent, psychic scream.
Aiko, who had fallen into a fitful doze with her head resting near his leg, jolted awake. The air around his body was distorting, shimmering with violent, uncontrolled energy. A nurse across the tent shouted a warning.
She was at his side in an instant, her hands flying to his chest. Her chakra plunged into him, and what she found was a nightmare. The Dawn-Bringer had been a sledgehammer, and it had shattered the first layer of the poison. But it had been a decoy. Beneath it, a second, more virulent layer was now activating, triggered by the destruction of the first. It wasn't just unravelling; it was exploding outward, shredding his chakra pathways from the inside. Chakra veins, the delicate rivers of life energy, were rupturing one after another, causing catastrophic internal bleeding.
"No, no, no!" she chanted, her voice a desperate mantra. She poured every last drop of her own chakra into him, trying to dam the flood, to reinforce the crumbling walls of his system. She used techniques she'd only read about, stitching ruptures with threads of pure energy, but for every one she sealed, two more burst open. The parasitic chakra was a wildfire, and she was trying to put it out with a thimble of water.
She felt his pulse beneath her fingers, a frantic, fluttering bird, growing weaker and more erratic with each passing second. She began chest compressions, her burned palms screaming in agony with every push. "Don't you do this, Hiro," she snarled, tears of fury and helplessness streaming down her face, mingling with the sweat on his skin. "Not after everything. Not after you came back to me."
But the fight was already over. The light in his chakra network was guttering out, fading from a stormy tumult to a few scattered, dying embers. The fluttering under her fingers stilled. Became nothing.
Her own chakra, utterly spent, flickered and died. The tent was silent, save for the flat, continuous tone of the chakra monitor. She stood there, her hands still pressed against his silent chest, her body trembling with a void deeper than exhaustion.
She looked down at his face, now finally, truly at peace, all the pain and strain smoothed away. The professional in her, the medic who had seen death a thousand times, delivered the final, devastating diagnosis in a hollow whisper, a truth that condemned her as much as it explained his end.
"He was already dying," she breathed to the uncaring night. "I just slowed it down."
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