"Holy crap, what WAS that!?"
Shizune's voice was the first thing to register.
"That… was the Book of Darkness's power. That's the power that Naruko used to obliterate the Ichibi and its host," Jiraiya said, a grimace on his face. "Oi, Tsunade, I still can't quite hear from my left ear. Did you do that on purpose?" he asked, frowning.
Tsunade snorted. "Can't heal it if you're just so old," she said, shrugging.
"Oi, Shizune, fix your teacher's laziness," Jiraiya commanded.
Shizune squeaked and went to do exactly that. It didn't take her long to finish healing Jiraiya's left ear, since Tsunade had already done most of the work anyway.
"Should we heal this boy?" Shizune asked, frowning. "I… don't think they're bad people, even if, well, you know," she said, gesturing with her hands towards the unconscious boy lying not too far from them.
"Actually, yeah. A gesture of good will. If shit goes all the way and hits the fan, at least we'll be 'those guys who healed their agent' and not 'those guys who left him deaf'," Jiraiya noted. "Not even you can disagree with that, right Tsunade?"
Shrugging, she shook her head. "Whatever. I'll do it," she said, shrugging. "Clean him up, Shizune."
Shizune pulled out a piece of cotton from the medical pouch she carried in a seal, for emergencies, and cleaned out the blood that had leaked out the boy's ears. Tsunade promptly sat down and put a green glowing hand on each of his ears. Within a minute, she let go. "… This is a goddamn civilian," she muttered as she stood up. "Zero chakra. Can you even believe it?"
Jiraiya nodded. "Yes. You know those two girls who were on the verge of having you pull out your seal?" Jiraiya asked. "Not a drop of chakra, either," he explained. "Aliens, remember?"
"Shit, I almost forgot," Tsunade admitted. "What a bizzarre situation you've dragged me into."
The boy moaned and stirred, waking up much like a trained shinobi, in a snap. "What is going on..?" he asked, clearly confused.
"We were talking, then this purple lightning bolt came out of nowhere and, well, I'm sure you can guess the rest," Jiraiya said, frowning. "Blew out our ears."
"Who would've guessed? Thunderclaps are loud at this range," Tsunade said, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, I just got done healing you."
"If it was that powerful, then…" Chrono muttered.
"Yeah, it's likely those two girls who you came with are similarly beat up—"
"Not quite. They were a bit… more affected, as both were unconscious at the time," a new voice said, interrupting them. Signum, with the blonde slung over her shoulder, stood on a pile of rubble, while Vita was flying a couple of feet back, bringing in the other girl.
"FATE! NANOHA!" Arf shouted, growling at the two knights.
"Easy there," Jiraiya said, gesturing towards Arf. "You don't make threatening gestures when someone holds a hostage," he added. "And this is not how you normally behave. What's going on?"
Signum unloaded her cargo and looked at Arf. "This must be your master, correct?" she asked, hoisting Fate up with her free hand.
"Yes," Arf said. "And you better let her go or—"
"Here," Signum said, tossing Fate towards Arf. "I have no interest in holding a hostage, nor do I intend to kill her now. I have not taken her Linker Core, either."
"Same here," Vita said, though she was apparently taking a little more care with her cargo, it was obviously more because of the awkwardness of carrying someone who was actually bigger than her. "Now, let's get going. We're wasting time."
"I can't let you go this easily," Chrono said, his hand clenching on the staff he was holding.
"If we fight now, you will lose and lose badly," Jiraiya said.
"They're exhausted," Chrono noted. "And you won't fight," he added.
"That may be true. But you're quite tired yourself, and that man over there is entirely fresh," Jiraiya warned.
Chrono blinked, and saw that on one of the rooftops was the Guardian Beast of the Book of Darkness, looking down on the proceedings. The situation was not looking favorable.
"Oi!" she shouted, catching Chrono's attention, "catch!" she added, flinging Nanoha in his direction.
"Vita was right, we have no time for this. You have lost. Now let us go."
Tsunade snorted. "We'll go as soon as I've repaired those girls' ears. Everything else is superficial, but if I don't fix their ears now, they might be deaf the rest of their lives," she said.
"Oh, so NOW you're helping people out of the goodness of your heart," Vita growled, clearly annoyed.
"They're here. I don't have to go to that accursed village to heal them," Tsunade replied, snappily. "Shizune, you know what to do…"
And indeed, the woman's assistant did. She apparently went ahead and cleaned up all the bleeding wounds the two girls had and patched up the scrapes so they didn't bleed anymore. Shortly after, Tsunade took over and performed two short surgeries on them, healing their ears. "Well, that should do it. Now, let's get this over with so I can get out of Konoha as quickly as possible."
"I'll stay here and make sure they don't follow you," Jiraiya said. "That, and I've got some words to trade with these people…"
Signum nodded. Vita and Zafira seemed to be somewhat leery, but nevertheless, they nodded as well.
"Do not come looking for us. Leave us be," Signum said, glaring at Chrono. "Our mistress is innocent, and we won't allow you to reach her."
"Give up and go do something more productive," Vita sneered.
***
"Everyone..!"
Shamal seemed quite harried and upset as the rest of the Wolkenritter re-entered the room that had been home to Naruko for over a week.
"What happened?" Signum asked.
"Naruko's been steadily getting worse," Shamal replied. "I've been doing all I can, but I can't fix the underlying issues, just delay the inevitable, so—"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm here already."
Shamal was… somewhat shocked. "This must be Tsunade-dono, right?" she asked. "You are the most legendary medic in this world. You are our last hope."
"I got that already," Tsunade said. "I'm the best there's ever been, I know already. Call Sarutobi, since Jiraiya is not here. Tell me everything I need to know about the kid's health state," she said, gesturing towards the bed that held the source of their sorrow. Zafira nodded and decided that, as the one in the best physical state, it should be him who went to get the Hokage.
"I will explain as best as I can," Shamal began, frowning as she turned to look at Naruko. She went on a detailed, as detailed as she could manage in fact, explanation of Naruko's current health state, taking a few moments to explain the pseudo-organ known as the Linker Core, the particularities Tsunade needed to know, and what impact it had on Naruko's illness.
Nearly half an hour of two medics trading knowledge of biology both alien and domestic, for both sides, went by, and most of the others had long since lost the trail of conversation.
"So, let me get this straight… this kid used to be a Jinchuuriki, but then she had her tailed beast extracted, somehow, without killing her," Tsunade said.
Shamal nodded. "The first thing the book did was drain her of all foreign Linker Cores. It appears that the Kyuubi no Kitsune was close enough that the book could adapt."
Shaking her head, Tsunade released a sigh. "Well, now I can understand why her chakra coils have been ripped to shreds," she mentioned.
"Yes, that is why she can't be a ninja," Shamal noted.
"The Chakra Coils she has are more detrimental than they are good. And… they're killing her," Tsunade noted. "I see, then. It appears that whatever the hell she did during the invasion must have made the book attempt to fix the damage it had done already, but it has no idea what the chakra coils are, or how they work. It seems to have thought it was a circulating system for the magic of the Linker Core."
Shamal nodded. "This matches with my hypothesis. Her body has been incorrectly healed because of a misunderstanding, and it's killing her," she said, clenching her fist. "Not only did we ruin her dreams, now we are killing her, too..?" she muttered, before she took a deep breath and forced a determined expression onto her face. "I refuse to let it end like this. There has to be some way to fix this. If we can sever the connection to her Linker Core, then maybe—"
"That'd still kill her. She's barely keeping herself alive as is. If you performed such an operation, it's likely the shock would kill her," Tsunade said. "No, the only chance we have is to complete whatever it was that the book was trying to do."
"But… that is insane. I've never seen anything anywhere near close to this," Shamal protested.
"Neither have I. It's not going to stop me, though," Tsunade said, stretching a little. "Now get ready, I'm going to teach you in the sixteen hours of surgery how to reconstruct a human's chakra coils, and at the same time, you're going to teach me how a Linker Core works. If we're lucky, we might just learn how to adapt the Chakra Coils to be able to circulate magic, as well."
"But if we do that, her body—" Shamal began.
"That's what we've got Shizune for. She's the best surgery assistant you've ever seen. She'll be able to keep Naruko's body from failing on us, while we work."
Shamal nodded. "What… what are our chances of success?"
"Minimal," Tsunade said, shaking her head. "But the only other option…"
"Is unacceptable," Shamal said, nodding. "Then, shall we?"
"I'll get someone to prepare a surgery theater. Go wash yourself, and send someone to fetch Shizune. We'll start as soon as the old goat gets here. I want to double check some stuff about the seal on her stomach, make sure it's harmless to remove. It's not going to help surgery, I can tell you that much."