Chapter Text
Two years later Mo wakes up to a pounding at his door.
It’s Naruto, so he takes his time easing up and shoos the twins back to their futon as he goes. He opens the door with a frown, still blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
“You gotta help!” the kid shouts before Mo can open his mouth. “There’s a monster in my bathroom!”
“A monster?”
“Yeah! I was peeing and I felt something on my shoulder and it was right there! I thought I was gonna die Momo-nii! You’re the strongest guy I know! You gotta kill it!”
Mo hums and leans himself against the door. He’s tired and it’s 3:30 in the morning. He has work in two hours. Clinic duty. The worst.
“I don’t know if I’m much of a monster slayer.”
Naruto grabs his arm, pulling hard enough to make Mo stumble. “Please!”
Mo mumbles something that might be an affirmative, pushing himself off with an embarrassing amount of effort. He really is exhausted. Maybe he should ask for a day or two off.
“Keep your voice low, it’s too early to be shouting.”
Naruto punches the air in victory, bouncing around soundlessly as he leads Mo up the stairs and to the fourth floor. His apartment is just as messy as the last time Mo was here- two weeks ago to pull him out of bed and to the academy. The twins said he missed the day before and Mo wasn’t going to let the village jinchuriki slack off so long as he’s a loyal citizen. After Mo leaves the village can get destroyed. While Mo’s there, he’d rather it didn’t. The jinchuriki needs to be alive, well, and a major threat to their political enemies for Konoha to survive.
“It’s in the bathroom,” Naruto whispers, tip-toeing through his home like the beast might hear them.
Mo cushions his steps with chakra to appease the boy.
He makes Mo go in first, which is not mission protocol. Naruto should’ve explained the full situation before throwing his teammate at the enemy. What if there’s a sentient poison cloud in there? Mo could die.
His eyes do a quick sweep of the dark. Besides the empty bottle of body wash and rubber duck on the floor, there’s nothing noteworthy in Naruto’s filthy bathroom.
“What’s the monster look like?” He asks quietly, looking over his shoulder.
Naruto peeks his head out from the doorway to squint at him. “Green,” he hisses back, “and big and evil.”
“Sounds scary.”
“It is!”
Mo takes a breath and focuses his senses. It’s hard to find things so small, especially with the chakra monstrosity that is Uzumaki Naruto right behind him, but Naruto’s had a seat at their table for over a year and a half now. The twins are seven and Naruto will soon be joining them. Mo’s gotten pretty good at ignoring the loud noise of Naruto’s chakra as it grew beside his siblings’.
He senses the disturbance behind the toilet and opens his eyes.
Naruto’s bright blue eyes squint as Mo turns on the light. He skips after the teenager as he walks back to the kitchen. Mo picks up an old jar and a stained take-out menu. As he rinses the jar he scans the menu: it’s a soba place Mo hasn’t heard of. Genko would probably like it, though it’s been a while since they last talked.
“Alright,” Mo says waving the jar in the air as they head back to the bathroom, “here’s how you slay monsters.”
Mo creeps up on the toilet just for the drama of things, shushing the boy as he steps on the rubber duck. Naruto jumps at the noise and clutches Mo’s shirt so tight he thinks the boy might actually be trying to choke him. Mo soldiers on with Naruto on his heels.
Naruto’s nerves aside, the fanfare ends without much of a battle. Mo taps one side of the toilet tank, sending just a bit of chakra into the motion. The vibrations startle the beast and cause it to flit right into the jar. Mo seals the jar with the toilet lid and quickly slides the take-out menu underneath.
He turns around, presenting his bounty to the boy behind him.
“Your monster, my lord,” he says, not even trying to sound enthused.
“He was tormenting me!” Naruto yells, tugging on Mo’s sleepshirt excitedly. “He’s been trying to eat me for weeks Momo-nii! I swear!”
“Yeah, well, now he’s in a jam jar.”
“He deserves it,” the boy grumbles, squishing himself into Mo’s side. He wraps his arms (still too skinny for his age. The twins are bigger and they’re three months younger- all three of the brats are small for seven, but there’s only so much he can do having met them all too late) around the chunin’s waist and digs his chin right under Mo’s ribcage to peer up at him. Mo taps his nose.
“When I was growing up, kids used to say bothersome bugs were the reincarnations of our past enemies,” he grins at the kid, feeling impish. “Maybe he is out to get you.”
Naruto frowns at the praying mantis thoughtfully.
“No,” he says. He always sounds confident when he talks, but he sounds especially certain about this. “I don’t think someone would come back as a bug to torment me.”
“You don’t think so?”
“Yeah. Everyone who hates me is still alive.”
Mo feels a little sweaty. “Oh.”
“They won’t hate me forever though,” Naruto smiles at him, earnest as he searches Mo’s face for some sense of encouragement. The arms around Mo’s waist tighten slightly, just a soft little squeeze. “One day, everybody in the village will love me. I’m gonna be Hokage, you know? Then no one will hate me or ignore me ever again.”
“Oh,” Mo says again.
“And when I’m Hokage you’re gonna help me!”
“Am I?”
“Yeah!” He shouts. Naruto releases his waist with a grand swing of his arms. He makes grabby hands up at Mo, taking the bug from him and smiling at it. “I’m gonna be super strong when I’m a shinobi, but even super strong people can’t do everything, you know? You’re gonna do all the stuff I don’t want to do. Like my homework and catching all the big bugs and stuff.”
Mo grabs the bug back before he starts to shake it.
“I’m not cut out to be a Hokage’s aid,” he sighs. “How about you just slide me some cash on the downlow.”
Naruto scrunches up his nose. “Isn’t that illegal?”
“I think the bigger crime is you hiding your bathtub,” Mo nods to the tub with a frown. “You said it was broken. Why do you use ours?”
“You guys have hot water all the time. I only get it on Monday and Thursday.”
Ah yes, Mo does not miss being a governmentally dependent orphan. They like to cut corners.
“Are you still getting rations?” he asks, thinking of the state of the kitchen. At first glance, it looked like Naruto’s just eating ramen and ready-made meals again. He thought he beat that out of the kid already.
“No,” the kid shrugs, looking unbothered, “they said I don’t need ‘em because I dunno how to cook.”
That’s not a policy. Not that that’s stopped anyone before, but Mo liked to think government programs would be applied equally, jinchuriki or not.
Best to just go along with it, making waves never helps anyone around here. He would know.
“Kick ‘em in the shins if they keep them from you again. I’ll write you down some recipes.” He’s not buying the kid a cook-book though. Mo’s not spending more money than he already has on this gnat of a child. “Ask Teuchi-san for some more if you want. He’d probably be a better source.”
“You’re gonna teach me to cook?”
“I’m going to write down instructions,” Mo corrects. “You can read, right?”
Naruto shrugs. “Kinda. I don’t know a lot of kanji.”
“You should learn,” he says, walking out of the bathroom. Naruto’s footsteps patter after him. “I won’t use them, but ask Iruka-sensei for some help- what’s with that face?”
Naruto’s pout turns into a grimace and a shiver. “Iruka-sensei’s scary.”
Mo can’t really comprehend the idiot who’s face he’s been shoving into the dirt for the past five years as scary. He shrugs. “He’s smart.”
“Smarter than you?”
“Everyone’s smart in some things and less smart in others,” he says, leaning over Naruto’s bed. Mo slides the window open and opens the jar. The praying mantis stays on the windowsill to watch the two blonds talk, just like the ANBU in the tree fifteen feet over. Nosy jerks, the whole lot of them. He slides the window shut and closes the curtains. “Iruka’s smarter than me in some aspects and I’m smarter than him in others. That’s just life.”
“Am I smarter than you in anything?” Naruto asks, blinking up at him.
Mo snorts and lifts him up. He plops Naruto down from a bit too high and the kid giggles as he bounces.
“In the future you’ll be smarter than me in lots of things,” he says and readjusts the blankets around Naruto. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll become a master chef.”
“I want to be a shinobi, Momo-nii,” Naruto laughs, squirming as Mo jabs the blankets under him. “Not a chef.”
“Uh-huh. The future holds many mysteries. Get some rest. Kokoro will come up to grab you when it’s time for school.”
“You’re not gonna walk us?”
“I’ve got work,” he says and looks at the clock. 4:12. He’s not going to be able to fall asleep again. Maybe he’ll just go in early and help in the ED. An ANBU squad was supposed to come in last night but they’re running late. ANBU is, by their own admissions, dangerously low on medic nin and they’ve been showing up at the facility for freebees lately. It’s annoying, but if they do show up, he might even be able to skirt clinic duty. He’d have to deal with ANBU members though, which might be worse.
Naruto sticks his tongue out. “Work sucks.”
“Yeah, but having money’s pretty cool,” he says, walking away. “Try to get some sleep.”
“Bye Momo-nii,” Naruto whisper-yells as he opens the door. “Come pick us up today! Kiba keeps bragging about his dorky vet sister so I wanna show him how much cooler you are!”
Mo huffs, but keeps himself from laughing. Selfishly, it’s a little nice to hear he’s better than the clan kids, even if he’s hearing it from a six-year old. Rationally, Hana is much more talented than he’ll ever be, considering how much chakra and experience she has in comparison to him. That’s not to say she’s a better medic, but Hana’s closing the gap between their ages quickly.
“Hana-san is a very talented medic-nin, Naruto. Be nice to her if you meet.”
“Whatever,” he grumbles, “you’re cooler.”
“Good night, Naruto.”
“‘night Momo.”
…
The ANBU team beats him there.
He bypasses the registration desk entirely and doesn’t bother to explain himself to the receptionist stationed there. There’s not a lot of medics with the training to handle an ANBU team. Of those few, there’s even fewer who want to.
Mo doesn’t particularly want to, but he’s also trying to impress his current teacher, Yamanaka Akina, who seems to think he isn’t taking his medical training seriously. It’s not really a misjudgement on his sensei’s part, but the part of Mo that is still young and prideful hates how the woman looks at him and expects more. Mo refuses missions, and he’s very strict about his hours, so really, he could stand to be nicer for his current greatest ally. Yamanaka-sensei, after all, is probably the only reason he gets away with his high-horse attitude. He’s earned it by now, but in the beginning of his chunin days Mo really wasn’t anything to write home about healing-jutsu-wise.
So here he is, giving more.
He can sense his teacher in the west wing--the most private area they can offer, reserved for ANBU and Jounin and anyone else who might very well kill them. ANBU don’t typically run in squads greater than four, leaning heavily on three-man teams, but there are five operatives present. Chances are, it's one full team of three and one missing a member or two. The full team must have crossed paths with the other and brought them back.
By his senses the ANBU squad arrived hardly twenty minutes ago, but his teacher’s chakra is already diminished as it curls at her hands and naval to relieve old aches. Yamanaka-sensei has probably been here all night or longer, so it’s no wonder she’s drained.
Then again, ANBU are difficult to sense even on his most paranoid day so his estimate of their arrival could be off by a little. He wasn’t actively trying to sense them, after all. He was distracted by the whole monster slaying business.
Two years of… well, of just being a big brother, have clearly dimmed his instincts a bit. He’s a better medic for it, but he’s probably not a better ninja. Not that he regrets it. The twins and Naruto have friends. Isn’t that crazy? The Nara and Akikimichi boys came over and stayed for dinner once. Dinner was chicken nuggets which the both of them looked less than impressed by (he’s pretty sure Choji’s mother is chef) but they Stayed For Dinner and they Talked To His Kids. Mo certainly never had friends over at their age. He’s so freaking proud of them, even if they grate at his survival instincts.
He unravels his chakra at the door, giving the ANBU team about 60 seconds warning of his presence as he scrubs his hands. He’s realized his whole not-existing-until-he’s-right-in-front-you shtick is a bit unsettling. He, of course, learned this the hard way, when he just waltzed in the door and ANBU Wolf nearly took his head off with a rather terrifying lightning jutsu. The man probably feels bad about it. Probably.
The door swings open as he shoulders through and sweeps the room with his eyes. He carefully does not pry on their signatures, because that would be rude, but it’s also two teams he’s been exposed to plenty of times before, so it’s hard to stop his mind from putting the few legal names he knows to animal masks. Wolf, Fox, and Cat work together almost exclusively. Frog is the only other operative in the room. Which leaves Rabbit and Boar as the two unaccounted for.
It’s not the worst post-mission assortment of injuries he’s seen, but he also knows that one of the squad members is in the operating room with Iō, who really isn’t fond of operating on ninja. Iō is better at the mystic palm than Mo will ever be, (better than all of them save Tsunade herself really) but he’s always had a bit of a weak stomach when it comes to surgeries and active chakra networks. Probably an old trauma. Probably some half-baked attempt at healing gone terribly wrong. Mo’s never asked.
The operative with Iō is relatively stable, however, so he doesn’t see the need to rush.
His teacher’s head snaps up at the creak of the door.
“Mamoru-san, you’re not scheduled till six.” Somehow, his sensei’s token refusal sounds more like she’s disappointed Mo didn’t come earlier. Asshole.
He shrugs, noncommittal, and nods to the captain of the team respectfully. Wolf nods back.
He turns back to his sensei. “Where do you want me?”
“Fox-san,” his teacher says, wiping the sweat off her brow. “Then take over for Iō-san in O3.”
He nods, mentally chiding the drop of pride that settles in his stomach at the admission.
“Mamoru-san,” She says, a sternness in her voice that wasn’t there before, “now.”
Yamanaka Akina was a woman approaching seventy. She trained under Tsunade, was absolutely the head medic for ANBU for a really long time, and she has, on multiple occasions, shook Mamoru by his collar for not pursuing the jounin track. She was also, most unfortunately, the second of the two teachers Mo’s had who seem able to read his mind.
“Yes, yes,” Mo mumbles, unbecoming of the situation, but walks over to the ninja giving off truly terrible vibes in the corner regardless.
It’s easy after that to slip into something more professional. When he gestures for him to lay down, Fox stays sitting upright, his posture carefully neutral. Mo’s used to ninja not trusting him and takes it in stride. Ninja don’t usually like strange teenagers touching them and bossing them around. He can emphasize.
“I’m going to touch your feet. It’s a simple diagnosis jutsu and should only feel like you’re dipping your toes in water.”
Again, he doesn’t get a verbal or physical response, but Fox’s chakra twists slightly, almost resigned to the physical contact.
Mo kneels and slots his fingertips between the shinobi’s metatarsals. He carefully ignores the blood covering both of Fox’s feet, sandals, and shins, almost like he had kicked right through some unlucky bastard. Fox’s chakra spikes at the touch, angry, but dims when nothing seems to happen after that.
“Alright,” he says, more to himself, and the old blood on his fingertips evaporates with a flick of his wrist.
It’s always a special treat when he gets to do that to ANBU. ANBU are the only ninja he knows who have non-medical seals literally tattooed to their skin. An absolutely insane concept. The seal drums even and steady on their right deltoids, always present and never fluctuating. Mo has yet to figure out what it does. It is, again, nothing like the Senju medical seals Tsunade-sama and Jiraiya put together-- the ones that can pause bleeding, facilitate cellular regeneration, block nerve pain, and more. It’s probably in the Uzushio style, judging by the movement of the chakra, but Mo can’t be sure. Again, he’s no seal master. He doesn’t have that kind of dedication.
Mo looks over his shoulder, still crouched before Fox.
Fox’s injuries are minor compared to his teammate in O3 (Rabbit, his mind unhelpfully supplies, which leaves veteran Boar as the one who is either missing or in a sealing scroll) and Frog who is getting patched up by his teacher. Even the captain, who is no doubt trying to be the tough guy and waiting until his team is seen first, is worse for wear. Wolf is definitely cradling a shattered wrist, even if he looks like he’s just crossing his arms intimidatingly. The young ANBU beside Wolf is suspiciously unharmed in comparison to the rest of the team and feels more like a tree than a person. Mo was momentarily torn between scientific marvel and absolute terror the first time he was exposed to ANBU Cat. He does not deal with ANBU Cat. He has never been asked, and he is certainly not going to volunteer.
He should really just go help Iō.
Yamanaka-sensei would throttle him if he offered to help her. Teaching him to know his limits is one thing, respecting her own is clearly another. As a career medic, the Tenketsu on her wrists and her brachial arteries are calcified-- letting out a mere trickle of the chakra she used to command. Overuse of the Tenketsu does that, and with Konoha’s chronic lack of medics, it’s the reality of every specialist who heals with their own chakra.
Handicapped as she is (not that he’d ever say that out loud), Yamanaka-sensei is just about done with ANBU Frog and Mo doesn’t see the point in wasting chakra on someone who’s injuries are more wear and tear than anything else.
He opens his mouth, intent on beckoning the captain and leaving Fox to his own devices, but something causes pause. The urge to help is there, raw and aching in a way Mo is wholly unfamiliar with. The only time he ever feels proud of what he does is when Kokoro scrapes her knee. Even then, it’s more of a first pump to the air at being useful for his baby sister than a divine calling to heal.
ANBU Fox, however, always seems to bring out a religious side to him.
Annoying.
“Left leg, then right. After that we’ll deal with your back and right shoulder in one swoop. The concussion is going to be fixed the natural way. Do you want me to fix the, um-” He gestures to his own face mildly.
Fox’s blatant disgust at the offer is predictable.
He nods and projects his movements as he grabs Fox’s left shin first.
The ANBU’s legs are terribly damaged. It’s the kind of muscular damage that would put a regular ninja out for a month, then a year, then their career. But this is not the first time he’s met Fox, and it’s certainly not the first time he’s put Fox’s legs back together for him. He falls into the mundane trance of healing pretty smoothly.
He knits the frayed muscle into place first because it’s the easy part. It’s also the part that hurts the most at rest. The bone is harder to fix, obviously, but he eats away at the sclerosis as he comes across it and takes his time as he mends the fracture at his distal femur. It’s made difficult through the layer of chakra-resistant cloth, but he also is most definitely not asking Fox to take his pants off. He’ll deal.
As he switches to the right leg, Mo wonders how Fox could even walk with legs this bad. This damage is obviously not from the mission but instead years and years of an extremely lower extremity centered fighting style. One that, clearly, he did not always have the strength to support. He must’ve found this fighting style young and stuck with it.
Unfortunately for him, the damage has been done. All Mo can do is fix what’s broken as it’s presented to him. Fox probably has some kind of chakra-induced paraesthesia. It’s probably chronic, (maybe numbing, maybe prickling) and Fox definitely uses the fact that he can’t feel the pain of his bones splintering over the pain of his nerve damage to his own advantage.
Mo’s seen something similar in Might Guy, who comes in from time to time to whine about Mo cheating on him while also being unabashedly proud of the teen for some reason. Guy’s body, however, is big and dense and reinforced with all kinds of careful training and dedication. He’s trying to work around the damage he’s done to his nerves, like someone smart who listens to Mo’s careful medical advice.
Fox seems to think his body is more an obstacle to overcome than any part of himself.
Mo clicks his tongue as he rolls back onto his heels. He considers the older man’s legs for a moment, considering the pros and cons of undoing some of what he fixed. He may have gone a bit overboard with the healing, but, well, maybe Fox won’t notice. It’s not like he touched the nerves.
Okay, so he’s absolutely going to notice but hopefully not until he stands up, which saves Mo at least until he’s done with his shoulder.
“Armor,” he says and Fox doesn’t hesitate to take the chest plate off.
It’s always like this. Fox grows progressively more docile the longer Mo deals with him. The wall leading to his chakra doesn’t let up and it’s not like they chit-chat, but Fox makes it almost too easy to get lost in it. He’s broken enough for Mo to just… stay busy.
There’s a metaphor somewhere in there. Probably.
Of course, Fox is also never not on guard. Even Wolf has passed out on Mo before, letting the natural state of his chakra leak out around him at the aching relief of being home and safe (Which probably speaks more to the man’s injuries than any soothing qualities Mo has, but still). Mo’s patched this particular team up at least a dozen times since Yamanaka-sensei deemed him capable. A penny’s worth of trust would be nice, but Mo’s not going to beg for something he’ll never even ask for.
-there’s an idea there, of who Fox is but Mo thinks Shisui would rather chew his own arm off before ever being touched by Mo of all people and Mo certainly doesn’t blame him for that particular sentiment but that thought, too, slips away before it can even form, just as it always does-
Mo hums at the tanktop clad back he’s faced him.
It’s really just some bad bruising and superficial cuts. He can’t see the bruising--because Fox is still clothed, the ass--but he can tell how his chakra curls around to lick at the most painful wounds. He has the sneaking suspicion Fox was literally dragged across the ground for an extended period of time. Probably by his neck, which is also bruised but thankfully undamaged, and probably over sand and rock.
Maybe there’s some muscle strain, but in a job like Fox’s isn’t there always muscle strain? Mo can deal with the swelling, at least, but most of this is going to heal the old fashion way. He’ll just kick start the process. The shoulder pain is just a minor fracture to his clavicle, which is, like, one of the most common things Mo sees so it’s nothing much to fix. Fox had the sense to augment his shoulder blades, at least, so those are relatively fine.
His back is also relatively fine. Mo sensed such in the beginning, but with Fox’s track record he kind of expected a spontaneous herniation or something. His eyes tell him what he already knew, but, selfishly, Mo smooths a hand over the knobs of Fox’s spine, taking some of the ache away as he goes. Wear and tear types are tough. He’s not usually so dedicated, given that they tend to just run right off and ruin all of Mo’s hard work, but it’s Fox, so he tries.
He only wishes Fox would let him do something about those eyes.
“Mamoru-san,” his sensei says and Mo’s concentration snaps at the sound of his own name. “Go with Iō-san.”
There’s hesitation Mo doesn’t recognize in his hands. Like he wants to waste more chakra here, with Fox, rather than save his co-worker from unloading his lunch on the unconscious Rabbit. Fox is fine. He’s been fine. Mo knows this. Mo knew this from the start.
“Alright,” he says, but finishes flushing out the excess fluid anyway. He steps away, takes a moment to appreciate his work, then finally leaves the room. A full forty seconds after Yamanaka-sensei asked of him.
Iō looks like he’s torn between kissing Mo on the face and throwing up on him. Mo ignores his gushing with a practiced grace. Iō is, as expected, much better than Mo at biological aspects of things and therefore much better at healing grave injuries like Rabbit’s perforated bowel. Mo can snap a femur back in place and heal the vessels just as well as anyone else. Iō, however, had literally rebuilt someone’s lung right before Mo’s eyes. Mo helped, sure, but still. Iō was the more talented of the two of them. He was Yamanaka-sensei’s student in name only. Iō was a master of the highest degree. He was so good it pissed Mo off sometimes, envy dripping down his throat as he looked at the older man with his wife and career and friends and talent that seemed to fall from the sky and into his lap. And Iō, for all that he is better than Mo, is just so nice about it. He never acts like Mo is stupid, lacking that he is, he just teaches the blond what he needs to know and moves on.
But Mo has other things to worry about, so he grits his teeth and lets his eyes take in the gruesome scene of Rabbit’s open abdomen and the plethora of blood in the surrounding area. His senses say there’s… something in Rabbit. Some kind of particles that circulate in his blood and bowel and kidneys that just shouldn’t be there. Some of the particles are tainted with a kind of chakra Mo can’t quite recognize, but others just feel as blank as a rock.
“It’s sand,” Iō explains, giving merit to the rock theory. He gestures to the metal pan beside him. Two tablespoons worth of clumpy bloody sand are collected there. “It’s like he was sandblasted from the outside in then out again. None of the damage is particularly grave, but the foreign bodies are concerning. There’s so much of it that I worry we’ll be here all day.”
“Even I can’t catch all of it,” Mo says, troubled. “At least, not in one go. There’s a good amount augmented with some kind of chakra. Those I can remove, but the rest is going to be trickier.”
Iō looks disappointed but not surprised. He continues his report. “The damage to the bowel was extensive. I closed up the major wounds--” he points to two newly healed areas, the new muscle there about a centermeter’s diameter but more than enough to kill any lesser man. “--but the weapon used was sand. Some of the damage is so fine that I can’t even map it with chakra. Do you--”
“I can manage that.”
“Good, because otherwise we’d have to go through the whole thing inch by inch.”
Not how Mo wants to spend his Tuesday.
With Rabbit unconscious, Mo doesn’t have to worry about him rejecting his chakra. So Mo places his hand on his chest and wills a lot more chakra than he usually does for the diagnosis jutsu. It’s really more of an assessment, but Yamanaka-sensei taught him that with shinobi, the less specifics they know about their healing the better. Otherwise, they’ll just start trying to fix it themselves.
The technique sends Mo’s chakra out into his patient’s system. It acts as a scout, telling him where the patient’s cells have taken up arms, where the system is imbalanced, and where their chakra is pooling in the body’s subconscious inflammatory response. Mo hasn’t changed it much from its initial design, but he has streamlined it a bit. His flexibility with his chakra signature comes in handy. Unless they're particularly sensitive, like a Hyuuga for example, not many ninja can tell his chakra is saturating their system at all.
As Iō explains what he did, Mo feels it out for himself. His coworker dealt with the most grave injuries, (the penny sized holes in his intestine and the ruptured gallbladder and the damage that being so close to volatile chakra signature does to the heart and lungs). Mo would, in turn, be dealing with everything Iō skipped over in the hasty attempt to save Rabbit’s life (the infection and excess fluid and the smaller holes that may heal or may rupture and those pesky little particles of sand floating around in Rabbit’s systems).
“So, Mamoru-kun,” Iō says, “do you need anything?”
Another medic would be ideal, but Yamanaka-sensei and Iō are both at the tail end of their night shift. In the other room Yamanaka-sensei’s chakra is so depleted he’s surprised she’s even standing. She’s probably been here longer than a single shift. Iō still looks like he might throw up at any moment.
He hums.
“You can go,” he says, already rechecking Iō’s work. It’s perfect, frustratingly enough. Iō really was one of the best.
Iō claps a hand on his shoulder, leaving Rabbit’s blood there, and Mo gets to work.
He starts by clearing out the infection and any parts of Rabbit that are not where they ought to be. It only takes a moment to track the fine holes in the muscle walls, and only another moment to seal them over with a sheen of chakra. Rabbit’s chakra system is already shot, so Mo has to offer some of his own to help new tissue truly fix the damage.
The sand in his system is… troubling. He could, theoretically, cut into each area he senses a particle and just take it right out. But that would mean more blood loss and more chakra depletion and Rabbit already looks pale and clammy even with three extra units of blood in his system. There’s barely a glass of water under Mo’s hands. Rabbit usually feels like a river.
It’s the longest and most painstaking process, one that only starts when Mo knows there’s nothing else left but closing. He spares his own chakra reserves a moment’s pity before getting to work. Rabbit’s body is rejecting the foreign chakra imbued in the sand, so it’s easy to pinpoint. After that it’s just a matter of… pushing it out the door. The door being Rabbit’s kidneys, which filter out the toxins much better than any ninjutsu could ever manage. Medical ninjutsu, at its core, is just a crutch for the body to lean on. They can’t fix the unfixable. They can just speed up what would happen eventually. The removal itself only takes another minute and he will not be discussing that particular process with anyone but Yamanaka-sensei herself.
He’ll leave the chakra-less sand for the follow up. Unless Rabbit decides to run off for a rematch with whatever ninja did this, Mo’s certain it’ll be fine. He might get a gnarly kidney stone, but whatever.
There’s no aid in the room, because Rabbit is ANBU and these things have a certain level of secrecy, so Mo gathers his own supplies for closing. Yamanaka-sensei left around the same time Iō did. He can sense her in the basement, autopsying Boar as protocol requires them to do. It’s just Rabbit, Mo, and the four other squad members in the west wing.
Wolf body flickers to his side for that final part: where Mo stretches the skin and muscle and fat back to where it once was and neatly ties Rabbit up. He uses real stitches, which isn’t ANBU protocol because technically the work could be traced back to him, but he’s trying to make it very clear that Rabbit is benched for the foreseeable future. Rabbit will have a long and gruesome scar down his middle for the rest of his life, but Mo’s got a full shift ahead of him, so Rabbit’s going to have to heal this particular wound on his own. Despite what people may think, Mo does have a limit to his chakra.
“I couldn’t get it all out,” he breaks the careful silence as he ties the last loop off, trimming the excess. He kicks a foot behind him, half blind, but after two failed attempts he manages to drag a stool over with his foot. He sits down and peels off his gloves. His hands had gotten sweaty, so it’s actually a bit of a challenge. “Ideally, I’d have kept the wound open to go back in, but I don’t trust him enough for that. Closing doesn’t mean it’s over.”
He looks up at Wolf to make sure he’s paying attention. Wolf gives no indication that he is, but he also doesn’t seem like he isn’t, so Mo soldiers on.
“Don’t have him go to the ANBU medics. Yamanaka-sensei is due back Thursday night. Iō and I will be here tomorrow and the next day. Follow up will just be an assessment, so he can choose when and with who so long as it's within the next two days and one of us three. Afterward, we’ll schedule a date with me to get it out.”
Wolf considers him for a moment.
Mo puts his hands up in surrender. Out of all the ANBU Mo has met, Wolf is by far the most touchy. Fox is close behind him, but the man usually just lingers and glares instead of Wolf’s insistent hovering. “Of the three of us, I have the finest control. I’m the only one who can get it out without cutting him open again. Not that my way is going to be any more fun.”
Wolf continues to study him.
Mo hums. Somehow, he doesn’t think he got through to him.
Instead of trying to crack that nut, he slumps a little on the stool and examines the mess of the room. He could, theoretically, leave it for someone else to clean up. He should stay until Rabbit wakes up, which leaves plenty of time to tidy up, but he could say that he was too busy monitoring the patient. There’s not much to monitor though, even if Wolf’s chakra twists and turns in worry.
Mo hooks his foot around the other stool behind him and slides it toward Wolf. Wolf studies it for a moment, but remains standing.
“Sit down,” Mo says, his elbows leaning on his knees. “Otherwise I’ll have to stand and that is not happening.”
Wolf hesitates just long enough for Mo to understand that he’s not doing it because Mo told him to.
Mo, used to dealing with bratty seven year olds, takes it in stride.
He holds out a hand and Wolf obediently drops his damaged wrist on it, not even bothering to hide it anymore. The masked face turns away, staring instead at the gentle rise and fall of Rabbit’s still bare chest.
“He’ll wake up in, ah, twenty minutes or so,” Mo says. He doesn’t bother to numb the area as he shifts the shattered bones into place like a particularly tricky puzzle. Wolf doesn’t like it when Mo numbs him (which is stupid because that has to hurt , but Wolf is the patient so Mo defers to his will). “I’m sure you figured it out already, but he’ll be fine.”
“...Fine?”
“Right as rain,” Mo shrugs, not looking up from Wolf’s wrist, “yellow as a daffodil, sweet as pie-- whatever you want to call it.”
Wolf remains carefully still before him. The anxious twist in the man’s chakra should make Mo nervous in return, but he really can’t be bothered. Mo maneuvers his wrist this way and that, checking the conductivity of the bone and assesses for any damage to the vessels. He’s not sure why Wolf is being so depressing. He should be glad, frankly, because by all accounts Rabbit should be far worse off than he is. Instead, Rabbit will be on the bench for maybe a month or so, then he’ll be right back to it. Usually, an injury like this would be a career ender, if not a life ender, but Rabbit was lucky to have Iō, Mo, and Yamanaka-sensei handling his care. Honestly, it was kind of overkill. Typically, only one of the three would handle an entire team.
Wolf’s team just happened to get lucky, he supposes. Well, as lucky as someone who had a run in with a sand demon can be--
--Oh shit, he never actually told Wolf any of that, did he?
Mo lets the wrist go and sits a little straighter.
“I’ll write up some more detailed instructions for care,” he says and looks at the medical miracle that is Rabbit and finally sees the person laying there. The one who is no doubt Wolf’s friend. The one who Wolf dragged back from Wind Country himself. The one who just survived a grave injury and who’s teammate did not, getting cut open and pierced back together again underneath their feet.
He stands up and grabs a thin blanket, the kind they give to weary old grandmas when they feel a chill, before laying the cloth up to Rabbit’s chest. The wound finally out of view. “Four days strict bedrest with the exception of reporting here in two. After that standard protocol for this kind of injury will suffice. If he adheres to his physical therapy he should be back to it in two months. Full function should be preserved, so long as there are no reactions to the toxic chakra he was exposed to. I don’t think that’s likely.”
Wolf nods.
“You, um, you’re welcome to stick around,” he offers, already starting to clean up the instruments and clothes soaked in blood. “If you want, I mean. Technically, I have the clearance to watch over him by myself, so no pressure, but, uh, if you--”
The teenager who feels like a tree knocks on the door.
Still seated, Wolf’s chakra beacons in what must be an ANBU ‘clear to enter’ code. ANBU Cat slides open the door and steps in. Behind him, the door remains cracked, rendering the silencing seals on it useless. It’s just the ANBU squad and Mo in this wing, so he lets it slide. He broke protocol by healing Fox. Fox broke protocol by letting him. Wolf broke protocol by not disclosing his injury, then again when he came into the operating room without permission. He’s pretty sure the entire team is breaking protocol right now, given that not a single one of them has moved to notify the Hokage of literally any of the stuff they were required to-- like their arrival and the enemy they obviously faced, and the fact that they skipped right over rehabilitation to bleed out on Yamanaka-sensei’s stoop. In the face of all that, what’s one more protocol broken?
“Taichou, sensei,” Cat greets, his voice without inflection. He bows slightly to Mo before he turns to Wolf. “Frog and Fox are worried.”
A hand jets through the crack, karate chopping the top of Cat’s skull.
“You numbskull,” Frog hisses, bullying his way into the room, “That’s not-- don’t just say that--”
“He’ll be fine,” Wolf says to the collective relief of his team and Frog.
Fox slinks in after Frog, sliding angled at the door like he’s contemplating running away. Frog steps into place beside Wolf, still seated on the stool, and the two flash through a thousand hand signs Mo doesn’t recognize.
Mo is recounting his instruments when Wolf looks back at him. He raises a less than impressed eyebrow, already well aware of how close knit this particular group of assassins is. Wolf’s probably going to dip and leave one of the others to babysit Mo and Rabbit.
“Frog will stay,” he says predictably, leaving no room for argument.
“Cat will stay,” Mo counters anyway, “Frog needs to go sleep off his chakra exhaustion.”
Wolf stares at him for a long moment. Frog’s chakra flares angry and offended even under the careful wraps all ANBU operatives operate under. Mo makes it clear that he is far too busy cleaning his equipment to notice such feelings. Frog is injured, running on fumes, and has lost a member of his squad with another still unconscious. If anyone is going to report to the Hokage about their happenings, it really should be Frog. Mo suspects there are ‘feelings’ at play here, just judging from the easy comradery Frog and Rabbit have shown in the past. Even still, Frog is a patient and needs sleep, not anxiety. Most of all, Mo doesn’t want to wait indefinitely with an ANBU operative who will hover and soak sadness into the room as they wait for Rabbit to wake. Frog would probably ask him questions, too, which Mo is still not awake enough to deal with.
From the other side of the room, Fox shifts slightly and Frog looks over. By the manner in which they both go carefully still and quiet, Mo suspects there’s some sharingan fuckery going on there. Probably some kind of genjutsu communication which would no doubt be more helpful if their correspondence was sped up a little.
As it stands, Mo finishes awkwardly cleaning off his equipment while Fox and Frog have a three minute silent argument in the middle of the room, still as manikins.
At the end of those three minutes, Frog jerks away from Fox’s line of sight. Fox then nods to Wolf.
“Cat will stay,” Wolf concedes.
Mo gives a half-assed salute. Cat’s nod feels much more patriotic.
After that, the three scariest dudes Mo knows vanish in thin air, all leaving Mo’s dampened range within the next ten seconds. The fourth scariest stands stock still in the corner, watching. The fifth remains unconscious on the table, breathing soft and slow as his body adjusts to the changes. Their rankings are not stagnant. Mo adjusts them as needed for a given situation. Fox, however, always tops the chart as the scariest.
Cat continues to stand in the corner.
It comes to him then, waiting impatiently for Rabbit to wake up so he could shoo them both out of the facility, that Fox had damaged the shoulder with the seal on it. The seal that was literally his only clue as to who ordered him to kill Bashira and who was trying to steal away his siblings and who was also maybe trying to kill him.
He was right there. It was right there.
Why didn’t he look at it?
…
Iō and Yamanaka-sensei go home.
Mo is not so lucky.
Apparently tending to an unexpected ANBU team does not excuse him from clinic duty. Yamanaka-sensei says this is teaching him to better understand biological processes. Mo thinks it’s wearing down his patience.
It takes a while for Rabbit to reacclimate. It takes longer for Mo to explain what he and Iō did and what Rabbit needs to do now to stay alive. Because of that, he’s two hours late to his shift, so the appointments all start with the same formula of Mo introducing himself, apologizing for the wait, and insisting that yes, he is young, but he is the senior most medic on duty and I promise you are in good hands--. It’s numbing, almost, and after the fifthteenth patient asks him if he’s certain there isn’t someone older who can look at them he’s tempted to just take an early lunch.
He’s been working here with Yamanaka-sensei for the past year and a half. Six months into his apprenticeship with the main village hospital, which serves shinobi and civilians alike, she petitioned to join her at this more… secluded facility. It was founded by the Second Hokage as a sort of intensive care slash research-centered alternative to the central hospital. Tsunade, when she was still in the village, expanded upon the absolutely terrible idea that is a combination unconscious shinobi ward and research facility because why would any ninja trust that and why would civilians let their tax dollars fund that? So, she split the facility into two: North and South. This location, the North one, doubles as a free clinic for civilians and as an advanced trauma ward for ninja who’s injuries are grave, sensitive in nature, or require a certain level of discretion. That and it treats ninja who are just too dangerous to be trusted half-awake in a busier part of the village. It is also where shinobi autopsies are performed when one's clan doesn’t have the capabilities, when an ANBU dies in duty, or when the shinobi lacks a clan and an autopsy is required. Yamanaka-sensei took over as head after retiring from ANBU some twenty years ago, four years before Tsunade’s early retirement. The South facility, the research half of the original idea, has since been disbanded, but Orichimaru was its head from its conception to its end. When the man’s gross misconduct was revealed, most of those who worked under him either escaped alongside him or were executed. That side of the facility hasn’t had the time to recover, the major clans still wary of its revival and stomping out any attempt for a formal reinstatement, necessary as that evil may be.
Not that Mo minds. The disbandment of the South Facility meant that any leftover research and texts had been moved to Yamanaka-sensei’s private collection. The one Iō has full access to. Mo doesn’t, because he hasn’t proven himself “trustworthy,” but Iō is determined to help Mo get better at this healing thing, so he takes what he thinks Mo will find interesting and leaves it open on his desk. The desk that sits directly behind Mo’s.
It’s not the sneakiest of betrayals, but Mo finds himself moved regardless.
All that is to say that Mo really hates clinic duty. It is, however, the only reason the Hokage did not disband the Northern location when he burned the Southern one. Yamanaka-sensei insists that most of their workload is civilian based and she isn’t wrong about that. In this time of relative peace, it isn’t often that shinobi are injured gravely enough to warrant a visit to the North Facility. Their clientele is mainly the sickest of the civilian population, those who cannot afford their treatments or were turned away from other locations. Their funding, however, comes from the ANBU budget, which is never lacking.
The North Facility trains ANBU medics and picks up the slack when said ANBU medics become overwhelmed. Yamanaka-sensei is constantly trying to convince him to join ANBU, and Mo is constantly trying to explain why that is a Terrible Idea. But Konoha is chronically lacking medics. Civilians aren’t encouraged to pursue the education required of a chakra-less medic (much harder to do, given that they cannot use seals or chakra to stop bleeding and complete assessments. It therefore requires a much larger reserve of anatomical knowledge and skills), and those in the shinobi profession don’t tend to pick up arms and go through all that training just to heal. Medics, therefore, are either extremely passionate about their profession, like Iō, or who just kind of fell into it, like Mo and Yamanaka-sensei. When Tsunade was still loyal there was an uptick in interest, so there’s a fair amount of shinobi and civilians alike aged 30 to 50 who have basic training and skills.
One such 30 year old is the reason Mo can finally sit down.
Haruno Mebuki is here today, coming in late after dropping her daughter off at school. She takes one look at Mo and his pitiful reserves and sends him off to the back to cool off. She takes over his next three appointments, those which are just follow-ups and don’t require her to diagnose a new illness or prescribe any further implementations. If she does see the need, she’ll do so and write a report to him. This isn’t the first time Mebuki-san has picked up his slack.
He spends this rare pause staring at the ceiling, not thinking about much of anything, with his hands behind his head and the front two legs of his chair off the ground.
There’s someone at the window, but he’s ignoring that for now. It’s probably some fucking ninja who wants a free heal to fix some stupid mistake they made in training or on a mission or something. It’s not the first time an unknown ninja has up and dropped in on him. It won’t be the last. Some of them genuinely need assistance, but the help needed ranges from hi-i’m-actively-bleeding-out-and-heard-you-wouldn’t-rat-on-me (lies-- he always rats on them… if he can remember their name, that is) to oh-no-I-hurt-my-finger-please-look-at-it-and-by-the-way-do-you-want-to-get-a-drink-with-me (more social interaction? No thanks). Both of which are supremely annoying. Given that this particular ninja has made no move to just force his way in, Mo suspects he is not, in fact, dying and therefore not Mo’s problem.
He does not recognize the signature at the window with its hearthfire glow and earthy foundation, so he sits and lets them stew while he stares at the ceiling. He already checked their chakra over and they’re perfectly healthy. All he wants is a goddamn minute to himself. Is that too much to ask?
His window creeper’s chakra grows pinched with anxiety. He sighs, deep and resigned to his fate of being too mean and too nice at the same damn time. Taking pity on what really just feels like some wayward teenage Uchiha who very well might just need condoms or something, he turns his head to face the new presence squatting on his windowsill.
The front two legs slam to the floor as he flies to the window in an embarrassing display of eagerness.
“Ita- uh, Itachi, um, Itachi-san?” he manages to stammer out, ushering the younger teen into what really isn’t even an office. It may have been an office once, but it had been turned into a supply closet and now it’s slowly being turned back into his and Iō’s shared office space. And by office space he means a place to hide from their responsibilities and Yamanaka-sensei. Sometimes they think tank seals here, but it's mainly just a place to hide.
“Itachi,” the Uchiha insists, soft and amused but also so tired that Mo feels the distinct urge to check his temperature.
Itachi eases into the room and closes the window behind him. He’s dressed in standard blue pants and a generic Uchiha shirt: high-collar and clan mon included. He’s shot up in recent years. He’s not nearly as tall as Mo, barely hitting the older teen’s shoulder, but tall enough to not look so small anymore. His eye bags have only gotten worse, but Itachi never struck him as the take-it-easy type.
He taps the sill twice and a genjutsu Mo doesn’t recognize swims its way up the panel of glass. Probably a privacy one.
“Itachi,” he concedes, still a little star-struck. He’s not sure what to do with his hands. He puts one on his hip and the other on the desk. “I, um, haven’t seen you in a while.”
Itachi just hums, his eyes inspecting the room.
Mo beats down the flush on his cheeks. He’s seventeen. He’s responsible for literally so many lives on a day to day basis. He just fixed up three different ANBU without breaking a sweat or being intimidated. He shouldn’t be embarrassed of a messy room like this.
But the room is, in fact, an absolute disaster. Paperwork and textbooks and spare supplies and the Senju-style seals Yamanaka-sensei made them mass produce are scattered around the room in no discernable order. His lunchbox from four days ago is still sitting on Iō’s desk. One of Orochimaru’s forbidden scrolls is on his desk, where it sits alongside the latest pile of chicken scratch notes Mo has made on it. Iō offered to steal it for him two months ago. Yamanaka-sensei hasn’t noticed (allegedly).
“I don’t live like this,” he blurts.
Itachi levels him with A Look and he falls apart a little too easily.
“Okay, I do, but that’s mainly the kids’ fault.”
The look continues.
“...but it may also be my fault,” he offers, feeling scorned.
“You don’t need to explain yourself,” he says graciously.
Mo feels like he might faint. This is an insanely stressful situation. What the hell happened to “I never want to see you again” (AN: that is not, in fact, what Itachi said to him). He’s not sure he can handle this. He really, really did not expect to see Itachi until he was forced to go to his coronation as clan head or Hokage or supreme world overlord or something. He made jounin over a year ago, barely twelve in peacetime.
“You seem busy,” Itachi offers to the silence, meeting Mo’s eyes.
“Ah, yeah,” he says, scratching the back of his head with one hand and flicking some patient records over Orochimaru’s scroll with the other. Itachi definitely saw them, but he has to at least pretend to be sorry. “You know how it is.”
“I suppose.”
He’s not injured, which is probably worse than if he was. If he was injured Mo could just fix him up and send him off and forget about this. But Itachi is very much not injured and Mo has suddenly forgotten how to interact with uninjured individuals above the age of seven.
“Would you like to spar?”
A startled and extremely unflattering half-laugh escapes him.
“Right now?” he asks, not even bothering to hide his smile.
“If you have the time.”
“Oh, why the hell not,” Mo says breathily. He opens the door behind him, calling to the receptionist who’s name he still does not know that he’ll be taking his lunch early. She can hear the disapproval in her voice as she yells back her confirmation, but Mo is too busy crawling out the window after Itachi and feeling lighter than air itself to really give a shit.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who’s going to win this spar.
Itachi is a jounin, but he’s probably not ANBU. If he is, he’s in training, because over the last year, Mo has been in the unfortunate position of one of three pseudo-ANBU healers. That’s not to say he knows everyone, but… Mo has definitely not felt Itachi’s chakra signature since they were in Iwa together. Three years ago.
Itachi’s signature has changed a lot in those three years.
Mo takes the time to study it as they race towards the woods. There’s a heaviness around his eyes and that certain twang of cool energy at his heart and the back of his neck that speaks of a yin imbalance. Strange, because Mo recalls Itachi’s chakra being carefully balanced before, but not unheard of. People learn to specialize and they change. People, after all, do change.
The exception to that being Uchiha Shisui, who still burns bright and loud on the edge of Mo’s range.
He hasn’t seen Shisui in the last two years. He’s felt his presence, loud and suffocating and intense, on the edges of his sensory range, but Mo’s apartment is far from the Uchiha settlement, and Shisui doesn’t stray from there often. Sometimes he stretches his senses, just to test them, and the older teen is there, brighter and louder than anyone and Mo doesn’t know if it’s because Shisui was the first person Mo sensed in close range or if he’s just naturally that magnetic, but he makes it hard to look away. The older teen still feels like the kind of dry heat that would eat Mo alive and dammit even after everything why was that still so-
-and Mo very carefully folds that thought and tucks it away.
Fucking hormones.
“Ready?” Itachi says. They’re in a field now, bracketed by large trees and distinctly not a training ground Mo recognizes. It’s not even a formal one, really. Given how far they’ve gone from civilization, Mo suspects Itachi has led him into some hidden gem deep in the woods.
Mo blinks. “For what?”
The fire in Itachi’s chakra glows a little, amused. “The spar.”
“Oh yeah,” He had, actually, forgotten all about that. “The spar.”
The quiet expanse of tall grass rustles in a small breeze and Mo shields his eyes as he looks up at the late morning sun. August in Konoha is wet and humid and frankly disgusting and today is no exception. The weather benefits the rice paddy farmers in the east and no-one else. The kids will have a break from school in the second half of the month, when the weather is just too dangerous to be training in without the ability to cool oneself with chakra.
But the weather is little worry for any shinobi worth their salt. Terrain, on the other hand, is a bit more concerning.
Mo sweeps his eyes across the field. The grass tickles his knees and expands in an almost circular twelve meter radius. This was most likely the site of some years-old wayward jutsu. Meadows like this aren’t common in this part of Fire County. Surrounding the grass and tufts of wildflowers is the usual site of Hashirama’s trees and evergreen underbrush. It’s a typical enough area. Had he been on a mission, he’d be concerned about traps in the tall grass, but he suspects this is one of Itachi’s usual haunts and not exactly public knowledge.
“Right, yeah, uh- taijutsu first?”
“Yes.”
“Weapons allowed?”
“Do you have any?”
Mo pats his outer thigh, where his holster should be but isn’t. He pats the other just in case (also empty) before offering a shug to Itachi.
“No weapons then,” Itachi concedes, looking a bit disappointed in him. Mo is also disappointed in himself. It’s not like him to go anywhere unarmed. Has he truly gotten so complacent in these past two years? He hopes not.
“No weapons,” he nods and settles onto his heels.
The spar starts slowly, a testing of old waters. Itachi’s eyes don’t bleed red, because this is a taijutsu match, and Mo doesn’t stretch his senses to predict his friend’s intentions. They take their time assessing the other.
Itachi is the one who moves first, as it always seems to be, and he launches forward in a blur of pure speed. Mo catches the swift kick which is aimed at his midsection, but Itachi uses the halted momentum to his own advantage, kicking into Mo’s chest with his other foot while the blond’s hands are busy.
A gasp of breath leaves him as he recoils, letting go of Itachi and flipping back to give himself some room. Itachi, however, is not as kind as he once was, and follows after the older teen.
Mo loses the tempo of the fight almost immediately, always feeling a hair’s breadth from a mortal blow as he ducks and dodges his way through Itachi’s flawless katas. When he was younger, Mo’s style of fighting relied on his small stature and ability to run away. Such things were helpful for a boy on the cusp of war. Even during the chunin exams, when Mo was much bigger than Itachi but not nearly as big as a typical adult, he fought by being crafty and lithe, keeping away from mortal blows by not being where his enemy expects him. Now though, nearly eight years after the end of the Third War and three years after the chunin exams, Mo is not so small. That’s not to say he’s uncoordinated, but seventeen year old Mo is a far larger target than he is used to being. His fighting style, therefore, has transformed into a mix of dodges and heavy hits. His blows now have a force behind them not many can match. Even if they can, his neutral chakra eats through their augmentations. He can bruise and break a ninja just as easily as he could any civilian on the street. Mo uses his larger size to cast a single finishing blow, one that exploits a flaw in his opponent’s technique.
Itachi, however, has no such flaw.
It quickly becomes a humbling matter of blocking, rather than dodging, as Mo refuses to be backed into the tree cover. Itachi takes the change in stride, attacking the older shinobi with the same aggravating string of flawless maneuvers.
Mo shifts his stance, pulling his left foot back and angling his body to parry Itachi’s kick to his right shoulder. Itachi’s next move is a bit more obvious now that Mo’s used to his rhythm. He sacrifices his ribs, letting the younger’s punch hit clean, and shoots his foot out in a sort of half kick. It doesn’t have as much force as he’d like, but it connects with the side of Itachi’s shin and calf all the same.
A slight narrowing of the younger teen’s ink colored eyes is the only indication the blow hurt at all. Mo, on the other hand, grits his teeth and chokes as Itachi most definitely snaps two of his ribs.
Itachi’s guard is up now, more hesitant than before now that he remembers Mo’s strength comes from his superior control and not his mass.
Mo launches into a series of rapid strikes, testing Itachi’s defenses from every angle. Itachi parries each with calm efficiently, not wasting a single movement and not letting any land. He seizes a moment there, when Mo grows sloppy and his fist rotates a bit too far, to feint low before arching a foot up and into Mo’s guard. Mo stumbles back, narrowly avoiding a devastating blow to his already injured side.
But the stumble leaves him open, and Itachi has never been one to waste an opportunity. Itachi weaves through Mo’s attempt at blocking like a needle and thread. His fist connects with Mo’s sternum in a mock mortal blow.
Mo winces, acknowledges the impact with a nod, and takes a step back in defeat. He smooths a hand over his ribs, half-healing the damage Itachi had issued him. His sternum isn’t broken, as Itachi pulled that punch significantly, but it is bruised and already aching. Itachi watches him work with the same calm expression he wore during the spar.
He’s not frustrated with such a blatant loss. He’s fighting Itachi, after all, but the old competitive streak he thought he beat dead gains new life. Itachi was stronger than him when they made chunin, but not this much stronger. Mo can string at least ten moments together now of how Itachi could have taken him down earlier, had he been armed. Two years is a long time to learn and grow. Itachi made Jounin and he clearly deserves the rank. Mo, meanwhile, suddenly feels like he’s been sitting on his thumbs in the face of such talent.
He does not like losing. He never has.
“Ninjutsu,” Itachi says when Mo peels his eyes away from the treeline. The younger’s eyes are already red.
“Ninjutsu,” Mo agrees.
His reserves are still shot from this morning, so Mo has to play it safe.
Mo meets Itachi’s basic, but mid-sized fire technique with a water technique of his own. The steam cover doesn’t give either of them the advantage, given that Mo can sense and Itachi’s eyes can see right through it. Mo dodges through a series of small blazes of fire shaped like crows and flashes through a series of hand signs.
His hands clap together, then he faces his palms away from himself. The steam and humidity around them drops from the air, drenching the field in puddles of water and raising the pressure of the air just enough to cause Itachi to stumble with the sudden headache that’s attacked him.
Mo seizes his chance and uses the new water to send another basic suiton at Itachi, nothing creative but hopefully it will get Mo a hit on the jounin. Itachi recovers quickly, however, and flips away from the impact. Mo feels more like a garden hose than a threat now.
As Itachi flips back he flies through a series of signs so quickly Mo has to guess whether it’ll be an earth or wind jutsu. Itachi’s feet land lightly and he sinks into a crouch, his palms slamming heavy into the muddy ground.
He guesses wrong, thinking Itachi was going to send a blast of wind or tornado at him, and earth roars upwards and around him. The earth rises so quickly around him that Mo’s forced to sink into the very ninjutsu threatening to swallow him to get away. Mo quickly finds himself improvising as he fights to take control over another shinobi’s technique. He’s done something similar before, directing a fire ninjutsu in a different direction than its intended mark, but he’s never tried to stop a technique from doing the thing it was made to do. He feels like he’s un-making it, somehow reverting a baked good back into its original ingredients, and has to fight against his chakra’s own instincts which are telling him to help Itachi crush him like a bug.
He’s only half-successful. The earth that threatens to crush him yields just long enough to Mo to tunnel up and away.
He knows Itachi is waiting for him as he emerges, but he can’t breath surrounded so completely in someone else’s chakra, so he shoots up and out of the earth anyway. In what feels like a teasing maneuver, Itachi aims a kick at Mo’s midsection, which Mo catches.
Just like in their taijutsu match, Itachi uses the halted momentum to add force to his other leg, landing a solid and clean hit to Mo’s upper chest.
This time, however, Mo is injured and tired and his skin itches from being inside Itachi’s technique. So as he focuses on keeping the air in his lungs Mo is launched back, body arching in the air and set to land on his own head.
Mo twists and lands heavy on his shoulder instead, rolling with the impact but feeling the muscle of his rotator cuff stretch and pull and the ball is suddenly out of its socket.
A few curses that would make Iruka blush leave him as he pops it right back into place. He remains crouched for a moment, spar forgotten, as he rolls the extremity forward then back, lifting his arm up then down. Satisfied with his hasty fix, he flops into the grass and mud in defeat. The green is a nice cushion on his aching ribs and shoulder. The mud is a little annoying as it seeps into his clothes and hair, but whatever.
Itachi’s silhouette blocks the sun as he peers down at him. The tall grass around them shifts with the wind, uncaring of their nonsense battle.
He knew Itachi was going to wipe the floor with him. Getting his ass beat has never felt so exhilarating, but, honestly, that was pretty bad. Itachi has steadily gotten better at the same insane rate he was pursuing before. Judging by the younger’s yin-imbalance, Mo thinks Itachi’s primary arsenal is genjutsu. If he can beat Mo so soundly with the technique he doesn’t specialize in… well, Mo is growing worried that his own rate of improvement has slowed down. Has he gotten worse?
“Have you gotten worse?” Itachi asks, confirming what Mo absolutely did not want confirmed.
“That’s pretty rude, you know,” he grunts, averting his gaze from Itachi to the fist full of grass in his hand. It’s feather soft. Not at all like the sharp and short blades that tend to grow around the Naka river.
“Sorry.” Itachi doesn’t look sorry at all. In fact, his chakra twists again, amused, as he stands over the older chunin. “Is your shoulder alright?”
The one thing Mo never got the hang of was healing himself. So, no, his shoulder was not alright. His ribs, too, would need to be looked at by Yamanaka-sensei when she comes in tonight. The old woman is going to kill him.
“Yeah. It’ll be fine.”
Itachi dries the area beside Mo with some bastardized fire/wind technique and settles cross legged beside him. He’s situated close enough that there aren't any stalks of grass between them. Instead, the green surrounds them, hiding their view of the treeline and the carnage from their spar. Only the sun stares down at them.
“We can skip Genjutsu,” Itachi offers evenly.
Mo grunts appreciatively. His chakra is low and genjutsu has never been his calling. “I haven’t much to offer in that area.”
“I figured,” Itachi hums, watching Mo’s hands as they cart through the grass. “I don’t train here often. I usually just sit.”
“It’s a nice place.”
“It is,” Itachi says and begins to braid a few stalks of grass together.
Mo turns his head to watch him weave. He waits until Itachi is carting his fingers through the grass, undoing his work, before he speaks up again. “Why did you come by?”
Itachi finishes smoothing out the blades of grass. His fingers press on one particular kink that refuses to take its original shape. Eventually, Itachi just lets that stalk droop slightly, leaving it to heal or die on its own time.
“Something reminded me of you.”
Mo squints at him. “Like… a dog or something?”
“No,” Itachi says, then amends: “though Sasuke has recently taken to feeding a stray cat with your likeness.”
“What?”
“He found him under the engawa. He’s very sneaky,” he says, like that explains anything.
“Okay?” Mo frowns. He’s not sure how to feel about that.
“He’s a cream tabby with green eyes. He also has scabs around his nose.”
“What- my freckles aren’t scabs.”
“It makes him look like you,” Itachi shrugs. “But we had to treat him for mites, so the scar will probably fade in time.”
“I don’t have scabies, Itachi. They’re freckles.”
“Would you like a cat?” Itachi asks anyway, “my father is against taking him in.”
“No, Itachi,” Mo replies, “I don’t want your mangy cat.”
“Would you like a different cat? There are plenty in the Uchiha com-”
“I don’t want a cat,” Mo says through a laugh, the sheer silliness of Itachi’s earnestness finally making him crack. What a weird day. What a weird kid. “Thank you, though.”
Itachi nods, satisfied. “You’re welcome.”
Itachi is the kind of brilliant that comes once in a generation. The kind that people look at and think ‘he’s going to be something amazing.’ But he is also twelve years old and though that should be closer to Mo’s seventeen than the twin’s seven, suddenly all Mo wants to do is ruffle the kid’s hair. For some damn reason, despite how he really shouldn’t be able to, Itachi can worm his way into Mo’s heart a little too easily.
Maybe he sees himself in the kid. In Itachi’s hunger to be better, in his desperation to protect, and in the way the village seems set on drowning him when they should be teaching him to swim. Maybe Mo wants Itachi to keep that light that shines so brightly in him. Mo doesn’t know what pushes Itachi into action, because even when they talked during the chunin exams, they never broke into the topic of dreams for the future.
Maybe Mo looks at Itachi and thinks of Fox’s legs, broken and bent out of shape and only getting worse regardless of how prestigious the Uchiha clan’s healers are. Maybe Mo looks at Itachi, surrounded by expectations and people who love him, and instead sees every patient who quietly admits they don’t have anyone to care for them, that Mo’s the only person who ever asked, who ever bothered trying to fix them.
They’re the ones who grate on him. The ones whose faces he can’t forget and the ones who when they stop coming back to the clinic, Mo runs through every interaction he had with them, looking desperately for some kind of proof that they knew Mo wouldn’t abandon them. That even if he is short with his words and lacking in skill, he was trying. He can only hope they saw that. They saw that and walked on their own two feet, off to greater things. He hopes desperately that they walked away knowing they could always walk back, should they need him.
But Mo isn’t going to ask about the heaviness that weighs on Itachi. He isn’t going to insert himself into an equation he has no place in being. He isn’t going to try and fix what is not explicitly presented to him.
That doesn’t mean he isn’t going to see it.
Mo looks at the kid. He’s not sizing up a new sparring partner, not glancing over his shoulder, not running through the checklist assessment every healer uses. Mo just looks at him. At the twelve year old who took him to Iwa when he was only ten and has a little brother and likes sweets and for some damn reason is a Jounin at peacetime and forced to dig his clan out of the grave the village seems set on dumping them in.
“Dude,” is the only thing this so-called brilliant brain of his can come up with, “are you alright?”
And Itachi looks back.
He hasn’t a clue what the kid sees when he looks at him.
“I think you-” Itachi starts and it sounds like he wants to finish that sentence, but the words just don’t come out. Mo waits for it, patient, but eventually Itachi closes his mouth and looks away entirely. He spends a solid minute looking at the grass. He doesn’t try to braid it again. He doesn’t do much of anything. He just sits, his face turned away from Mo entirely.
“Sorry,” he says and stands up.
“Huh?” Mo says, easing onto his elbows with a wince. “Wha- for what?”
Itachi stares at him for a long moment.
“You should go back,” he says, “your lunch is over.”
Mo already knows that. It’s been over for the last sixteen minutes.
“Right,” he says and mouth feels a little dry. He’s an idiot. Nothing has changed and Mo is still the biggest idiot in this shitty village. It’s a wonder Yamanaka-sensei let him heal when Mo’s no good at helping people. They all just end up leaving. Iō doesn’t lose patients, not like Mo does. Iō wasn’t abandoned by his mother and his father and the first friend he ever made just for the fun of it. Iō doesn’t have the constant worry that his siblings will leave him too. Iō is the healer between the two of them. Why does everyone seem to insist Mo is good at this? He’s not. He could never be. All the best healers are good people and Mo is not that.
“I’ll see you around?” He tries anyway.
“I hope not,” Itachi says cryptically.
“Oh,” Mo says, hurt all over again.
Itachi looks away again, his mind moving faster than Mo could probably ever comprehend.
“Bye,” Itachi says to him and vanishes into the forest.
“Bye,” Mo says to the empty meadow and lays back down in the grass.