The outpost was smaller than she expected.
A stone relay tower, squat and ugly, built into the ridge where the rock was thickest. Two rooms inside. One for equipment, one for the messenger tower that connected this position to three other relay points along the northern front. Outside, a half-circle of trenches dug into the ridge's southern slope, reinforced with earth jutsu walls that came up to chest height. The trenches faced north, toward the river crossing and the approach routes the enemy would use.
Fifteen shinobi. That was what they had.
The jonin who had brought the orders was named Sozen. He was older than Daichi, maybe thirty, with grey starting at his roots. He organized the defense in the first hour after they arrived.
Frontline fighters in the trenches. Six of them, spread across the half-circle. Tsuga and Hai took the western end where the approach was steepest and the Inuzuka's nose would give the earliest warning. Tetsu took the eastern end where the ground was flat and open, perfect terrain for his kikaichū to spread wide. Four others from the broken squads filled the gaps between them.
A second line behind the trenches. Five shinobi, mixed ranks, positioned around the relay tower as a reserve. They would reinforce wherever the front line buckled or rotate in when the fighters needed rest.
And the rear. The relay tower's interior, cleared of everything except the communication scrolls and a stack of medical supplies that a chunin from one of the broken squads had carried in on his back.
That was Mikoto's position.
"You're the medic and a genin," Sozen said. "You stay inside. Wounded come to you. You keep them alive. If we hold long enough, reinforcements from the main force reach us by tomorrow afternoon. That's the mission. Hold until tomorrow afternoon."
"Yes, sir."
"Don't leave the tower unless the tower is falling or invaded."
She nodded as he turned and walked to the trenches.
Mikoto set up the medical station inside the tower. She had bandages, antiseptic, four rolls of surgical thread, a tin of salve, and her hands. She laid everything out on the stone floor in the order she would need it. She filled a basin with rainwater from the collection gutter outside the tower door. She sat on the floor with her back against the wall and Shark Skin within reach.
She waited.
The first attack came at dusk.
She heard it before she saw it. The wet crack of earth jutsu hitting stone. The hiss of water under pressure. Voices shouting in the rain. An explosion that shook dust from the tower ceiling.
Then the screaming started.
A chunin came through the tower door four minutes after the first impact. He was half-carried by a genin who looked younger than Mikoto. The chunin had a piece of rock embedded in his shoulder, a jagged shard the size of her fist driven through the flak jacket and into the trapezius muscle. Earth jutsu shrapnel. His arm hung uselessly.
"Set him down," Mikoto said.
She pulled the rock out. The chunin bit down on his own forearm to keep from screaming. Blood welled from the wound in a steady pour. She sealed the vessels, cleaned the cavity with healing chakra, and began knitting the muscle back together.
"How many?" she asked the genin who'd brought him.
"A lot." The boy's eyes were too wide. "Ame and Iwa both. They came out of the ridge on the north side. Iwa hit the eastern trench with earth jutsu and Ame came in behind the water."
"Tetsu?"
"Holding. His bugs are slowing them down. But there's a lot."
She finished the shoulder. The chunin flexed his arm, winced, and stood.
"Can you fight?" she asked.
"I can hold a kunai."
"Then good luck." She smiled.
He went. The genin lingered.
"You too," she added.
He went. Slower than the chunin. His hands were shaking. She understood. Maybe, not exactly, but she understood. No one wanted to fight in a war if they could help it. Not even someone like her who was gifted with what she had.
Outside, the sounds changed. The screaming was closer. More of it. And underneath, the steady grinding roar of earth ninjutsu.
The second wounded came ten minutes later. A woman from one of the broken squads, her left leg broken below the knee where a chunk of displaced earth had rolled over it. Compound fracture. The bone was visible through the skin. She was conscious and silent, her teeth clenched so hard Mikoto could hear them grinding.
Mikoto set the bone. She fed healing chakra into the fracture, fusing the edges, rebuilding the tissue around the break. The leg would hold weight in an hour if she did this right.
The third wounded came while she was still working on the second. A man she didn't know, dragged in by another man she didn't know. He'd taken a water jutsu to the face. His right eye was gone, the socket a mess of torn tissue and blood. The left eye was intact but swollen shut.
"Put him against the wall," Mikoto said. "I'll get to him in a minute."
She finished the leg. She moved to the face. The eye was unsalvageable, but she could stop the bleeding and seal the socket to prevent infection. She worked fast. Her chakra reserves were still good.
The fourth and fifth came together. Two shinobi from the second line, hit by the same explosive tag. Burns across both their torsos. One of them was unconscious. The other was talking, fast and slurred, about how the eastern trench had buckled and Tetsu's bugs were the only thing keeping the Iwa nin from pouring through.
Mikoto healed the burns. She prioritized the unconscious one, whose breathing was ragged and whose skin was beginning to blister in patterns which meant the damage went deeper than the surface.
Outside, something hit the relay tower hard enough to crack the stone wall on the north side. Dust and pebbles showered down onto her patients. The conscious burn victim flinched. Mikoto didn't.
"Easy," she said. "The wall's holding."
She didn't know if the wall would actually hold but she said it anyway.
Night fell and the attacks didn't stop.
They came in waves. The pattern became legible after the third wave: Iwa shinobi would open with earth jutsu to break the trench walls and create cover for their advance, then Ame shinobi would push through behind water techniques, using the broken terrain to close distance. When the Konoha defenders pushed them back, they'd retreat, wait twenty minutes, and come again. Each wave a little stronger. Each wave a little closer.
The wounded kept coming.
Mikoto healed a man whose hand had been crushed by a falling section of trench wall. She healed a genin who'd taken a kunai in the thigh. She healed a chunin whose ribs were broken on both sides, blood in the lungs. That one took twenty minutes and most of her concentration. She drained the blood, sealed the punctured tissue, and rebuilt the rib cage from the inside out while the man vomited red onto the stone floor.
She healed a woman who had no visible wound but couldn't move her legs. Spinal contusion from a concussive water blast. Mikoto traced the damage along the woman's spine, found the swelling around the vertebrae, and reduced it millimeter by millimeter until the signals started flowing again. The woman's toes twitched. Then her feet. Then her legs.
"I can feel them," the woman said.
"You can walk in an hour. Please don't try to run for two."
The woman looked at her with awe and gratitude. If it wasn’t for her, she may have been paralyzed for life…
By midnight, she had healed eleven people. Seven of them had gone back to the line. Four were still in the tower, too hurt to fight, propped against the walls with their eyes fixed on the door.
Her chakra reserves were certainly deep but not infinite. Hopefully this battle will end sooner rather than later…
Sozen came through the door at half past midnight. He had blood on his face that wasn't his.
"Status," he said.
"Eleven treated. Seven returned to the line. Four non-combat here. I have supplies for maybe eight more serious cases before I'm working with chakra alone."
"The eastern trench is gone. Tetsu pulled his team back to the second line. Western trench is holding but Tsuga's partner took a hit."
Mikoto's hands stopped moving. "Hai?"
"The dog. Took an earth jutsu to the hind leg. Tsuga carried it back from the trench and set it behind the rocks. It's alive."
"Can you bring Hai to me?"
Sozen looked at her. "We have people who need healing."
"Hai is Tsuga's partner. If Hai goes down, Tsuga can’t fight to her fullest ability. Bring me the dog and I'll have him back on his feet in fifteen minutes."
He considered it, thinking of the Inuzuka who never went around without their ninken. He nodded.
Hai came through the door five minutes later, limping badly, his grey fur matted with blood and mud. Tsuga was behind him. Her face was streaked with dirt and her eyes were red.
"Fix him," Tsuga said. Her voice cracked on the second word.
Mikoto knelt beside the ninken. The hind left leg was fractured, a clean break of the femur, with the surrounding muscle badly bruised. Painful, but fixable. She put her hands on the leg and the green glow came.
Hai whimpered once, then went silent. His yellow eyes fixed on Mikoto's hands.
"I've got you," she whispered.
She set the bone. She rebuilt the muscle fibers. She fed chakra into the fracture and felt the edges begin to fuse. Twelve minutes.
"Try standing," she said.
Hai stood. He put weight on the leg. He put more weight on the leg. His tail wagged, a single slow sweep.
Tsuga dropped to her knees and buried her face in the dog's neck. She didn't say anything. Her shoulders shook.
"He'll be sore for a day," Mikoto said. "But he can fight."
Tsuga stood up. She wiped her face with the back of her hand. She looked at Mikoto.
"I owe you," she said.
"I’m just doing what a medic should." Mikoto shook her head.
Tsuga and Hai left. Hai moving stiffly but moving. The sound of their footsteps faded into the rain and the fighting.
The next wave hit at two in the morning and it was the worst yet.
Mikoto heard it differently this time. The shouting was closer. The explosions shook the tower harder. Someone outside screamed a name she didn't recognize and then stopped screaming mid-syllable.
Three wounded came in at once. One of them was Sozen.
The jonin had taken a water jutsu to the chest that had cracked his sternum and sent fluid into his lungs. He was breathing in short, wet gasps, each exhale bubbling. His face was grey. He was still trying to give orders.
"Eastern approach, breached. Second line, hold the-" He coughed. Red flecked his lips. "Hold the tower perimeter. Don't let them-"
"Please stop talking, Captain!" Mikoto said. She put her hands on his chest.
The damage was severe. Cracked sternum, bilateral lung contusion, fluid accumulating in both pleural cavities. If she didn't drain the fluid, he'd drown in his own blood within minutes.
She did her best. She cut open his chest with a kunai, drained the fluid through chakra, pulling it out of the lung tissue and dispersing it through the surrounding musculature where the body could reabsorb it. She sealed the damaged vessels. She stabilized the sternum.
Sozen grabbed her wrist.
"Listen to me," he said. His voice was a whisper. "We've lost the eastern approach. Tetsu is down."
Her hands went cold.
"Alive," Sozen said. "Took a kunai in the side. He pulled his bugs back to defend himself. The eastern flank is wide open."
"How many enemies?"
"Too many. We've killed maybe twenty. They keep coming. Different squads rotating in. They want this position." He coughed again. She felt the lung tissue rebel under her chakra and forced it still. "We're down to nine fighters. I can't lead from in here." He tried to rise.
"You can't lead from a coffin either, Captain." Mikoto didn’t understand.
"Mikoto."
"Please let me finish, Captain." Mikoto sternly forced him back down.
She finished the lung repair. She stabilized his breathing. She moved to the next wounded, a genin who had a deep laceration across his back that exposed the muscle along his spine.
While she worked, the sounds outside got worse.
The fighting was at the tower perimeter now. She could hear individual voices, individual impacts, the sound of blades slicing flesh. Someone was using fire jutsu, she could smell it through the door, the sharp char of superheated air.
The four non-combat wounded in the tower were awake. All of them staring at the door. One of them, the woman with the spinal contusion, had pushed herself to her feet and was holding a kunai in a grip that said she knew she couldn't fight but she was going to do her damn best.
Mikoto finished the laceration. She stood up. She looked at the door.
Outside, through the rain and the dark, she could see shapes moving. Shadows hitting shadows. Flashes of jutsu lighting the ridge in strobes of orange and blue. The Konoha defenders were being pushed back, the perimeter shrinking, the fighting collapsing toward the tower like water circling a drain.
Another wounded came through the door. Then another. Then a third, this one carrying a fourth who was unconscious and bleeding from the head.
The tower was filling up. She had six people on the floor now who couldn't fight and two more who could barely stand. The supplies were gone. She was working with nothing but knowledge and the Mystical Palm Jutsu.
She healed the head wound. She stopped the bleeding. She moved to the next.
And then the wall broke.
The north wall of the relay tower, the one that had cracked earlier, gave way. A section the width of a doorway, stone crumbling inward under the force of an earth jutsu that punched through from outside. Dust and rubble sprayed across the floor. The wounded flinched and scrambled.
Through the hole, Mikoto could see the ridgeline. She could see the fighting. And she could see, fifty meters out and closing, a squad of Iwa shinobi moving toward the tower in a wedge formation. Behind them, Ame nin were already pouring through the gap where the eastern trench had been.
They were coming here. They were coming for the relay point. And between them and the eight wounded shinobi on the floor of this tower, there was nothing.
Mikoto looked at her hands. They were still glowing green.
She looked at the wounded. The woman with the kunai. The man with one eye. The chunin with the rebuilt shoulder. The genin with the back laceration. Sozen, flat on his back, his breathing steady now but his body broken. And the others, nameless, hurt, alive because of her.
She looked at the hole in the wall.
She could keep healing. She could patch the next wound and the next and the next, and the enemy would walk through that hole and kill every person in this room. Or she could stop healing.
The green glow died.
She picked up Shark Skin.
Dog. Boar. Ram.
Beneath her sword’s bandages, the unique-looking sword was secretly transformed into something not quite so controversial.