Sukuna arrived in a blur of warped space, boots scraping against unfamiliar stone.
The moment he materialized, he knew.
The curse energy fluctuation he had felt wasn't hostile. It wasn't foreign. It was his.
His own curse energy, twisted into a signal—it could only come from a few people, those whom he had given an emergency signal to. A last resort.
He made a prototype a long time ago and gave it to both Sakura and Karin in the form of hairpins. He intentionally chose fragile items so that upon breaking during a conflict, he'd know they were in trouble.
Later, he gave items like those to others as well. Most of those people were already with him.
That left only one name.
"Karin…" he muttered.
His eyes swept the street. It was a small town, quiet in the way places became after something terrible had already happened. No screams. No panic. Just tension hanging thick in the air.
Then he saw it.
A broken hairpin lay in the middle of the road, its red metal bent and cracked. The seal carved into it—his seal—was split down the middle.
"Its Karin alright..." he muttered, with a bit of anxiety seeping into him.
He crouched and picked it up, fingers tightening around the shattered piece.
"Where is she ?" Sukuna clenched his fist, tight, ready to sense around him for any wrong negative emotion. However, even before he did that, he smelled something.
"Blood."
The scent hit him a second later, metallic and heavy.
Sukuna was already moving.
He followed the trail instinctively, footsteps soundless as he reached the nearby inn. Or what was left of it. The doors were smashed outward, walls cracked, furniture destroyed as if a storm had torn through the place.
Inside, the scene froze him for half a second.
It was Team 8. At least part of it.
Shino lay against the wall, unconscious, his jacket torn and stained. Kiba was sprawled nearby, breathing shallow but alive. Akamaru whimpered weakly at his side.
And in the center—
Kurenai.
Sukuna's eyes slightly widened upon spotting her condition.
She lay in a spreading pool of blood, chest rising unevenly, skin pale to the point of gray. Her breathing was ragged, each inhale a struggle. Her wounds were deep. Too deep.
"Internal bleeding and multiple bones broken. What the fuck just happened here." His mind reeled, coming up with possibilities, but nothing came to mind.
By signs, he could tell that it wasn't poison or sharp objects. Just brute force.
He might have thought Tsunade did it, if not for her right there, shivering into a bloody mess at the sight of blood in front of her.
Shizune knelt beside her, hands shaking as she worked desperately, chakra flaring in uneven bursts.
However, there was no sign of Karin.
She wasn't there. Another member of Team 8 was missing. It was somewhere in the back of his mind, but he couldn't immediately tell whom, since he was already moving inside.
For a split second, instinct screamed at him to leave—to teleport, to chase the faint pull of his Flying Thunder God mark still lingering on Karin that he could sense.
But he felt it.
Kurenai's life slipping.
Tsunade could, of course, save her, but in her condition...
If he left now, Kurenai would die.
Sukuna stepped forward.
Shizune spun around instantly, kunai flashing into her hand. Tsunade's head snapped up as well.
"Don't come any closer—" Shizune started.
Sukuna didn't stop.
He walked straight past her, ignoring the way her chakra spiked, ignoring the tension in Tsunade's stance. He dropped to his knees beside Kurenai, already pulling his glasses off.
"Explain," he said calmly. "While I heal her."
Before Shizune could protest, his hands were already glowing—not green with familiar chakra-based healing, but rather white, and it was much denser. Reverse Curse Energy flowed in, then reversed, twisting into something warm and terrifyingly precise.
The wounds on Kurenai's body began to close.
Not slowly. Not gradually.
They knitted together violently, flesh pulling itself back into place, torn muscle rejoining, ruptured vessels sealing as if time itself was being dragged backward.
Shizune froze.
Tsunade staggered forward a step, eyes wide with disbelief.
"That's—" Tsunade whispered. "What kind of medical jutsu is that."
Only then did she notice that the boy was from Konoha, if the forehead protector was anything to go by.
Sukuna didn't look up. Sweat beaded on his brow as he poured more power in, jaw clenched.
"Is the condition of the others," he asked flatly. "It shouldn't be life-threatening, right ?"
Shizune, after registering the words, just shook her head, confirming his earlier observation. Meaning he only had to help Kurenai, know what happened here, who did it, and then go after Karin.
Blood soaking into the floor lessened. Kurenai's breathing steadied. Color slowly returned to her face.
Within moments, the worst of the damage was gone.
Sukuna exhaled sharply and leaned back, hands trembling slightly.
"She'll live," he said. "But she'll need rest."
Silence filled the room.
Shizune slowly lowered her weapon, staring at Sukuna like she was seeing him for the first time. Tsunade sank to her knees beside Kurenai, hands hovering, as if still pondering over how Sukuna did it.
"Now," he said, turning to Shizune, "tell me exactly what happened."
Shizune swallowed hard.
"The Raikage," she began. "He came for Tsunade-sama's help. One of his subordinates had explosive insects implanted in him. Only Tsunade-sama could remove them."
Sukuna's fingers curled slowly into fists. He, of course, couldn't remember anything like that happening in the story. Too small of an event to remember.
Who knows, maybe this too was caused by his butterfly effect.
"Tsunade healed him," Shizune continued. "Afterward, the Raikage… changed. He mocked her weakness. The blood. He used it against her."
Tsunade flinched.
"He attacked," Shizune said quietly. "It was sudden. Kurenai tried to stop him, but he was too strong."
Sukuna's curse energy flickered dangerously.
"He was after the Hyuga girl and the Uzumaki girl."
"He took them both," Shizune said.
The room felt colder.
Sukuna closed his eyes.
Now this he remembered well, Cloud nin being a bunch of girl-stealing thieves.
'Well... they stole the wrong girl this time.' His anger could almost be heard in his mind.
'If they are kidnapped, meaning they are alive. That is enough.' He sighed.
He opened his eyes again, and when he spoke, his voice was steady.
"I'm going to bring them back," he said.
"Please look after them here for me." He said, and before either Tsunade or Shizune could say anything, he was gone again, vanished from their vision like a certain yellow flash they remembered.
Tsunade's eyes widened in shock, recognizing the jutsu. "That... That was my grand-uncle's jutsu. Who is that brat..."
xXx
A/N : Ah... off all the people, its only Cloud who doesn't give a shit about war and chaos. As long as it suits them, they are thiefs, executioners and then the good guys in the negotiation table. Honestly, cloud village sounds like a wild place to be in.
Not wilder than you guys hoading all those stone for nothing. Come on... throw them over here....
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