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⚠️ Content Warning ⚠️
This chapter contains scenes of violence and graphic imagery that some readers may find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.
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Beneath a jagged rise of stone, the earth dipped into a shallow hollow. There, in a cleft where the rock had cracked, a thin stream of water seeped down the wall, pooling in a natural basin no larger than a shield.
The sight rooted them where they stood. From the looks of it, there would be shade gathered beneath the stone that would shelter them from the relentless glare of the sun.
For a heartbeat, no one spoke. The silence was louder than joy, heavier than disbelief. Then glances passed between them, a wordless conversation, swift and unanimous. Within moments, they turned back, scrambling across the sand to bring the others.
They carried the wounded as best they could, dragging bodies across the dunes. Each movement left streaks of red behind, trails of blood soaking into the sand.
Some of the injured cried out in agony with every jolt, their voices high and brittle against the vast silence. Others made no sound at all, their eyes glazed and unseeing, their lips already gray.
When they finally reached the hollow, discipline dissolved. They laid the wounded on the stone floor, some almost reverent in their exhaustion, and then collapsed beside them.
Even Daiana and Temari, who had pushed themselves beyond breaking, sank to the cool ground. The stone breathed damp air against their skin, the water shimmered faintly.
Nevertheless, the reprieve was fleeting.
The moment Daiana's eyes fell on the basin of water, her hands trembled from chakra depletion, her fingertips raw, but she forced herself onward.
She soaked strips of cloth in the water, pressing them to fevers, washing blood and sand from torn flesh. Every touch brought either a hiss of relief or a scream so sharp it scraped the stone walls.
She gagged more than once. Wounds left unattended had already turned foul; flies clung stubbornly to them, and when she peeled away rags hardened with blood, pus oozed thick and sour-smelling.
A broken leg twisted at a wrong angle. She braced her palms against the boy's shin and thigh, jaw clenched so hard her teeth hurt.
She pulled.
Bone scraped against bone, grinding, before snapping back into alignment. The boy shrieked, a sound that seemed to echo far too long in the stone hollow, then fainted. Daiana bound him with strips torn from her own clothes, chest rising in shallow gasps as she worked.
On the other side, Temari watched Daiana working tiredlessly.
There was nothing she could do, she didn't have any medical knowledge or knew the Medical Jutsu, so she did what little she could. From carrying water and wood, fetching cloth, to dragging the still-living closer to the basin.
At night, the desert cooled, and the hollow became a place of shallow breathing and muffled groans.
Some prayed under their breath, others whispered names of the dead.
Temari lay awake, staring at the rough ceiling, every sound feeding the storm in her head.
She wanted to speak to Daiana, thank her, maybe, or beg forgiveness for her own uselessness. Yet, every time she approached, she saw Daiana's sunken eyes, her shaking arms, the stubborn strength in her silence. Words end up shriveled in Temari's throat.
By the second day of this dreadful situation, the hollow smelled of rot and damp stone. Daiana pushed herself until her chakra sputtered and died, then pushed further still. She cleaned wounds again and again, even when it changed nothing. She pressed cool water to lips that no longer drank. She checked pulses long after she knew they were gone.
Her guilt was carved into her face. She had chosen who to heal, and to to let slip away. Those choices stalked her in the silence.
Sometimes, while washing her hands in the thin basin of water, she would stare down as if the blood clinging to her fingers would never wash off.
Temari, with some of the trainees, scavenged farther from camp, climbing the dunes with her fan strapped across her back.
They found brittle shrubs, caught a lizard too weak to run. Once, she thought she saw movement in the distance, a jackal maybe, but it vanished into the haze.
Each time they returned, she laid her findings silently at Daiana's side, but Daiana never looked up long enough to meet her eyes.
At dusk, she sat apart, listening to the slow drip of water down stone. Every breath she took felt borrowed. Every look she caught from the other survivors carried weight she couldn't name: expectation, disappointment, blame. She dug her nails into her palms until she felt them break skin.
The thought returned, over and over: if it weren't for Isan, Shira, and Daiana, she'd already be dead.
By the third day, recovery began to show, although faint and uneven signs it brought hope and strength to others.
Isan stirred first. Fever still burned through him, sweat soaking his tattered shirt, but his eyes opened with a flicker of awareness.
His voice rasped for water, barely a whisper, and Temari was there, kneeling to bring it to his lips before Daiana could rise.
She didn't speak and merely helped him with care, while watching the water drip from his cracked mouth, something inside her eased.
Shira's strength returned more violently. His body twitched as though he fought invisible battles in his dreams.
Daiana kept her hand pressed to his chest, steadying him, muttering words she didn't know she'd spoken aloud.
When his eyes finally opened, bloodshot and dazed, she almost collapsed onto him in relief.
The others improved slowly. Broken bones set crooked but healing, fevers breaking in shallow waves, breath returning ragged but present.
Each life pulled back from the edge felt like a miracle stolen from the desert itself, and gave strength and hope to everyone in the hollow.
When the sun reached its zenith on that third day, a breeze wound through the hollow, carrying the scent of damp stone and faint greenery. It wasn't much, but it was more than they'd had before. Some even allowed themselves the smallest smiles, brittle as they were.